Friday, September 28, 2007

My time in Hell has passed

There are 3 things you have in your life.

1. You (duh)

2. Your Family (You hadta come from somewhere)

3. Your Job

After that you have a pretty random set of spices that makes every life different. If one of those 3 things isn't working right, you're life is not going to be very good. In a recent study, it shows that 70% of people actually like their jobs and therefore are pretty satisfied with their life in general.
I am (or was) not among those people. I really disliked my job intensely. It wasn't the work, it's how it was appreciated. But enough about that griping.

I have a new job! This employer seems to be the exact opposite of my current employer. They are generous and concerned about their employees. They allow opportunity for growth and all that as well as give you free drinks and free lunch once a week. Who can pass that up?! certainly not I. It will be a great new dawn in my career.

Before you naysayers say 'yeah, but the grass is always greener' all I can say to you is 'blarf'. This is a phrase my friend Jason Allen made up and I find it to be quite appropriate in many instances. the combination of blah and barf seems to indicate running off at the mouth in a bad way. Of course no company is perfect, if they were, it wouldn't be work, and they wouldn't pay you. But there are shades of gray. As long as the shade i'm going for is lighter than the one i'm in, i'm all for it.

My biggest problem is the people I'm leaving behind. I feel really bad for them. and a certain few I will miss a great deal. I am hoping very much to get them on where I will be working. I only have to find a spot for them.

SWEET!

Friday, September 7, 2007

How to tarnish a perfectly good vacation

Before I actually go into how great and cool my vacation was, I will instead go into just how a money grubbing company can cast a pallor on what should have been a vacation of a lifetime.

1. Work you into the ground - It is no secret that I believe my current employer to be a bunch of 'tightfisted hands to the grindstone' I have worked more overtime there than I have cumulatively for all other companies I have previously worked for. Why did you ask? Well because I figured they would make it right with me when I needed a favor of course. What a sap

2. Try very hard to keep you from going on your vacation. Once you have a vacation slated, they make you cancel that vacation. I had already had a vacation planned and they made me scrap it. I said 'ok, but I'm going to need 2 weeks in a week'. This was my problem. I really should have said 2 weeks and 2 days. But we'll get to that later.

3. After informing the boss that you really needed 2 extra days so you could go with your family standby. Your boss tells you 'Buy a ticket, we can't let you go'. NOTE: This is after displacing you off of your prior vacation and allowing you to work an assload of overtime.

Well, I left anyway. If I have to choose between family and business, I'll pick family every time. The business of course could have bought me the ticket to allow me to stay and work on their ill fated projects (which they blame me for even though I was plunked in the middle of it without much more than a 'hope you can get this crap to work'). I left 2 days early and I was very worried. I had only worked the equivelent of a week of hours the weekend before and the 2 days leading up to the departure date. Why that's only a regular work week. That wouldn't stand. I did pen a long email that detailed what needed to happen on the large project I was working on. Of course I didn't remember to cover 2 other things that were happening. I was later blamed for doing this even though I was contacted and able to direct what to do over the phone in about 5 minutes. That doesn't matter.

I get back from what was probably the best vacation ever... to a full reprimand. Yep, witnesses and everything. they are going to dock my pay 2 days for the time I took early and they are putting me on official write up. Forget again that when the company needed me just 2 weeks before, I already gave up a weeks vacation to do what they thought they needed. Forget that I had well over 2 weeks of overtime under my belt. Forget that everything I was doing WAS being taken care of. No, my vindictive rat bastard boss just had to show the world what a big man he was and give me a reprimand IN FRONT OF MY CO-TEAM LEADS. He asked me what was my good reason. I told him I had to go. He said not good enough you are on reprimand, I've already informed the VP and the head of HR. I said 'good' and left. The one thing I've learned being in management is that there is no reason to hang around and be berated by your mangers when you are being reprimanded. Let them get it off of their little pin heads and get out. Don't defend, Don't fight. It won't matter. The end result will be the same. So I have gone from a job that I really didn't like much to a place that I feel drains my soul at every moment. In fact if it weren't for the quality people that they are burrning like chaff to the ground with me, I could safely say that it is the worst company to work for period. I would rather walk door to door selling magazine subscriptions telling people that I walked to this fine state to give myself a new opportunity instead of dealing drugs in Atlanta. (I met THAT young man the evening after the reprimand).