Yes, I’m wide awake at 3:30 am. Again.
If you’re tired of hearing me bitch about work, you should probably move on.
Usually my Sunday evening blues don’t hit until…well, Sunday evening. But they came early today.
On Friday, we were informed by La Chupacabra (the name a colleague and I have adopted for our manager) during our weekly meeting beatdown that starting immediately there would be changes in the way we do our jobs and that she would be micromanaging more, not less. And if we didn’t like it—to use her favorite phrase, “SORRYFOYA!”
Apparently she got her ass handed to her on a platter by her boss’s boss, and of course, shit flows downhill.
Until now, she had taken a very active role in the day-to-day functioning of the department. While all of us coded a portion of the incoming service tickets (because for some reason the Help Desk is incapable of doing it correctly), she handled the majority of them because they needed to be done just so or a rift would open in the space-time continuum. (Actually, it’s so blame can be properly directed if something isn’t done correctly, because at ██████ blame is the name of the game. During her coding, she’s also worked several tickets that in her estimation were simply easier to do herself rather than assign out.
All that is changing.
No longer will she be coding tickets. That’s a job that will now fall on each and every one of us. Further, she can no longer work any tickets. And finally, we’re no longer able to choose which tickets we take on because she will be assigning each and every one of them. I see a huge disconnect there, but that’s standard operating procedure at ██████.
It takes work to get voted the worst company in America to work for, after all.
If that weren’t enough, our roles are changing. Until now, each of us had specialized in certain areas. Now we’re all expected to be able to do everything. I see the logic in this, but it’s nevertheless going to be a huge adjustment.
“AND WHY HAVEN’T YOU GOTTEN YOUR MAC CERTS?!”
I can adapt. I can change, but this, along with the other changes that have been put in place since the opening of our in-house blatant rip off of Apple’s Genius Bar, are pushing all of us to the brink of quitting. And the more I think about it, the more I think this is upper management’s ultimate goal.
By the time lunch rolled around, I was fighting a near-migraine. I went out and grabbed some food, hoping that (and a dose of ibuprofen) would help. It didn’t; it only got worse. So I emailed my manager and went home.
She doesn’t normally seem to read email (I called out sick once and she didn’t even notice I was gone until late that day), so I was rather surprised when my colleague texted me and said she had openly mocked the email in front of the entire team. So professional, that one…
That is just another example of why—unlike all the other places I’ve worked—my department has a horrible—and well deserved reputation within the company. The frat-house mentality (that I’ve mentioned previously) I work in has not gone unnoticed, and my only question at this point is why its been allowed to continue.
When I brought this up in a one-on-one with my manager, her response was, “All PC Techs are like this.”
Well, no they aren’t, honey—and if you think they are, you need to get out into the world more.
One of my colleagues has told me I should consider putting in a transfer to another department, but what good would that do? The body rots from the head down, and after the recent purge of approximately 50 employees from the entire I.T. Division and their frog-march out of the building (WHY was I so unlucky not to be among them?!), shows me that ██████ management doesn’t really give a shit about any of the people who work there.
I—like I’m sure many of my readers—have had some pretty shitty jobs and have worked for some awful companies, but during the 35 years I’ve been working I’ve only walked out of three of them, the most recent being my last one. That is the reason I can’t do it now—as deserving of it as it is and as much as I dream of it every. single. day. (If I’d only known what lay ahead I would never have left my previous company because that was a slice of heaven compared to my current place.) So I have to do the responsible, adult thing and make sure I have another job lined up before leaving.
(Or I could test the recent edict that going out the wrong door will result in my immediate termination.)
But not to come off as a completely Negative Nelly in all this, I’ve also had the pleasure of working for a some truly outstanding companies; places that were very difficult to leave even when circumstances demanded that I move on. Two of those were small architectural offices, and one was the healthcare company I worked for in Phoenix. In each of these cases, it was only my relocation to a new city that forced us to part ways.
In all those cases, I had a trial-by-fire before finding myself in their employ. I’m hoping that is the case here, and that the “third time’s a charm” adage holds as true for Denver as it seems to have for every other time I’ve found myself in a new locale.
I’m registered on all the job boards, and I do get occasional calls from recruiters, but so far the jobs are either too much of a commute (sorry, I’m not driving to/from Boulder every day) or not enough money. (I recently laughed at a recruiter who was offering a position doing what I’m doing now that required a degree and multiple certifications that was paying $9 an hour. Yes, NINE DOLLARS an hour. Are these people on crack?)
I’m sure something good is going to come along…it’s just a matter of surviving in the increasingly toxic environment at ██████ until it does.
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If you’ve been considering visiting the Georgia O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, think twice before plunking down the $12 admission fee.
Ben Howard Walzer, 1958-1987
