Category: Work

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Okay, it's a funny meme, but it also reminds me of when I worked at DISH corporate headquarters in Denver. If you arrived after 9 am—a violation so grievous that it had to be justified by your supervisor and could result in disciplinary action up to and including termination—it was impossible to find a parking spot in the woefully undersized parking lot, often sending you off the asphalt and into the weeds. We used to joke that the annual employee purges were just a means to free up parking.

God I hated that place.

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And This is How Monday Began…

So far (and it's only 8:20 am) I ordered my coffee from the wrong Starbucks so I had to drive fifteen minutes out of my way. Then I hit every. goddamned.  stoplight.  red on the way to work. Work laptop locked up and then wouldn't boot (thankfully it was able to repair itself). Had to change my password (of course) and ended up locking myself out of the system. Logged into my admin machine with my admin credentials and—of course—it had to run Windows updates for ten minutes. Finally got logged in, reset my main account password. Tried to log back in with my main account and got "password invalid." Ended up locking myself out of the account again, so wash, rinse, repeat. Finally got in with the new password and Office 365 didn't like it. As I said it's only 8:20 and I'm already in a mood!

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Nothing's Gonna Get Done Anyway

This is the first year since I was in my 20s that I have the entire week between Christmas and New Years off. Granted, it's earned vacation time and not some holiday gift from the powers that be (the last time that happened was in 1979), but it's nice not having to go through the motions of doing anything at work when absolutely nothing is happening.

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Career Choices, Part One

Like most kids—and many young adults too, I suppose—my answer to, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" changed several times as the years progressed.

Initially I wanted to be an artist. My mom was an interior designer, my dad an architect, and our home was filled with art and art books. I sort of came upon it naturally.

But surprisingly, when my mom caught wind of it, she put the kibosh down on that idea hard. "You'll never make any money!" In all fairness, she did actively encourage art as an avocation or a hobby, but most certainly not as my main means of income.

So I took it up as simply an outlet for my creativity, giving up all dreams of ever getting good enough to make it my career. I started out attempting to paint the sci-fi visions that were dancing in my head as a teenager, something that was put into high gear with the release of STAR WARS in 1977. I was initially inspired by the work of Chesley Bonestell and Robert McCall (my parents taking me to a show of his at the Phoenix Art Museum). It wasn't until I saw this…

(Sorry, this is the only image I could find of that painting online.)

…a painting by Adolf Schaller at the University of Arizona Flandrau Planetarium shortly after I started school that I was in abject awe—simultaneously realizing I wanted to be that good and knowing I never would.

But I kept painting as time allowed. You can see most of my work here.

I had a brief period in grade school when I wanted to enter the medical profession. Of course my mother was thrilled at the thought of that. I devoured  every anatomy atlas I could get my hands on. I built the entire series of the plastic Revell "Visible" models (my folks gave me The Visible Head as a birthday gift in 4th grade), including many others not produced by Revell.

And then as quickly as my interest piqued, it waned, and I took up a new passion: astronomy.

Two telescopes, more books, and some rudimentary astrophotography later, astronomy was it. I was going to become an astronomer. I'd go to Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and get my degree.

And then the reality of the situation hit me. I learned how much math was going to be required of me and I knew based upon my own experience with math that I would never make it through. I barely passed high school algebra, and needed tutoring to get through trigonometry.

My next passion? Architecture; specifically, residential architecture.

My dad kept telling me to choose another career.

Undeterred, I kept at that one. I worked a couple summers for him during high school producing architectural drawings and also designed numerous homes on my own. (And we're not just talking floor plans and elevations. Having access to the entire Hallcraft Homes plan directory via my dad, I learned how houses went together—and coupled with the fortunate circumstance of living in a new, ever-expanding subdivision where building went on for the majority of my high school years I got to see first hand how the drawings related to the actual construction itself, and I produced entire sets of building documents for each of the houses that obsessed me…just for the hell of it.

(Oh, how I wish I still had all that work!)

Since astronomy was now out of the picture, that left architecture. Architectural school boiled down to two choices for me since I wanted to remain in-state for financial reasons: Arizona State, and the University of Arizona. Ultimately it all came down to the math. Again.

ASU required Calculus the first year. UofA did not. While ASU would've allowed me to continue living at home, UofA afforded me a degree of freedom away from home that all 18-year-olds crave—not to mention providing me the opportunity to finally come out as a gay man at a safe distance from my family.

Unfortunately, even though I graduated in the top 10% of my class, college courses—and life—were a shock. In addition, coming out during my second semester at school presented its own challenges.

I failed to pass College Algebra, necessitating a summer school glass at a local community college before I could continue on to Year Two.

My second year at the university went no better. After failing to pass Structural Engineering and barely eeking out a passing grade in History of Western Civilization, at the end of the fall semester, I quit.

I returned home and that spring started taking general courses at the community college while trying to figure out exactly what it was I wanted to do with my life. At the time I also started working as a salesgirl at Broadway Southwest.

Money was tight. While I was still living at home, between car payments, gas, insurance, paying against a loan on a very expensive turntable, and ancillary expenditures, I was coming up short. Shortly after the fall semester began, I knew I needed a job that paid more than the Housewares Department at Broadway Southwest.

I knew I had the skills and knowledge to get a job doing architectural drafting, so on a whim, I responded to a help wanted ad from an architectural firm in town. I took in examples of my work, and quite surprisingly, I was offered a job.

There was one catch; I had to quit school as this was a full-time position.

And with that—to the absolute horror of my parents—I became a college dropout. launching myself on a career that would continue for the next twenty years.

(To be continued.)

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I know I've bitched about this countless times over the years, but it bears repeating. 80% of my job consists of doing shit that people should be able to do themselves—if they had the least bit of curiosity in understanding how things work.

What I do isn't rocket science. So often I hear, "You're a miracle worker!" No Virginia, I just think logically, and if I can't find a solution to some obscure problem, I fucking GOOGLE IT.

What I've taken to doing lately is documenting how to do pretty much every simple, day-to-day thing that we get requests for and emailing the doc back to the user. It cuts down the amount of time I waste calling people and leaving messages (90% don't pick up, the listed number on the service ticket is incorrect, or they never return calls). That way, when the inevitable email comes through weeks later asking "Why hasn't this been addressed? I put this ticket in a month ago!" I can say, "Did you see the email I sent you the day you put in the ticket?"

"Oh, yeah. I didn't read it."

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Amen to That!

I have a colleague—let's call him "Coworker #2"—who is guilty of this shit.

He's always taking work home that doesn't need to be taken home with the excuse that "it's just easier to do it then."

He's currently on vacation in Hawaii and is answering calls from users that come to his personal cell phone—and then passing the info on to the rest of us to take care of.

What I don't understand is why he's always doing this shit; it's like he's kissing up to someone in an effort to look good. He's been at this place since the dawn of time and is as close to retirement as I am. (He could, in fact, leave tomorrow and receive his full pension, no questions asked.)

It's making me look bad because I am the exact opposite. My work-life philosophy is something I adopted at the urging of one of my supervisors twenty-five some years ago when I was slaving away as an IT tech in the basement (why are IT departments always in the basements?) of a national law firm in San Francisco: take your lunch, take your breaks, take your vacation, and above all, stay home if you're sick. I do what is expected of me, but I'm not an over-achiever. I don't stay late, I don't bring work home. I arrive at 7:30am, I take my full alotted 60 minutes for lunch, and I'm out the door (or logged off, in the case when I'm working from home) precisely at 4:30pm.

And except in very rare occasions, I don't check work email after-hours, and I silence and do not respond to any texts from my team. We aren't 24/7 support, so don't expect me to act like we are.

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Enemy Economics

From Infidel723:

The system is rigged against you..

The article I'm excerpting here is posted at CNN, a mainstream news site.  This is not fringe thinking.  This is a conventional view of how economics is supposed to work.  I'm not even particularly singling out this one essay, just using it as an example.  It starts by explaining that the shortage of workers is intensifying despite more available jobs and the end of enhanced unemployment benefits:

…..many expected workers to go back to work and the nation's labor shortage to ease significantly by September.  But recent data suggest that, if anything, the shortage is getting more severe.  And though the risk of a severe shortage continuing into 2022 is not the most likely scenario, the chances of it are increasing.

The article cites some reasons for people's continued reluctance to return to work, mainly high savings and fear of covid-19.  Shitty pay, shitty bosses, and shitty working conditions are not mentioned.  Then it gets down to the real core of the matter:

When businesses have difficulty recruiting and retaining workers, wage acceleration follows.  According to the September jobs report, average hourly earnings increased at an annual rate of 6% over the past six months. That is more than double the average rate over the decade prior to the pandemic.  Such wage acceleration will take a bite from corporate profits and may lead companies to raise prices. What's more, not only did labor costs dramatically accelerate in 2021, but the inability to find workers impacted some companies' operations and contributed to lower profits.

Lower profits?  Can't have that, can we.  Obviously, wages going up by 6% is a problem.  And problems require solutions.

The US needs to find ways to raise the number of workers through larger and more economically motivated immigration policies…..

I appreciate the reminder that immigration policy based on corporate interests is a gun pointed at the head of the American worker.  But that's a side issue.  Now, read the next part carefully:

…..a continuing labor shortage would pose a serious risk to the 2022 US inflation and economic growth outlook.  First, wages for new hires will continue to rapidly grow.  That, on top of an escalating cost of living, will increase wage growth for workers who stay in their jobs.  Across the board, higher annual raises and special adjustments to retain workers are likely to further increase companies' overall labor costs.  For the first time in decades, the scenario of a wage-price spiral, where higher prices and rising wages feed each other, leading to faster growth in both, could actually hinder economic growth.  In such an environment, the Federal Reserve will be forced to raise interest rates multiple times in 2022 and materially slow GDP growth by more than what is already currently being forecasted.

Yes.  It actually says that.  Rising wages for new hires, wage growth for existing workers, and higher annual raises constitute a risk.  They're a threat.  The Federal Reserve will "be forced to" take action to put a stop to this dangerous trend.

The skyrocketing wealth of billionaires, and its escalation to even more obscene levels during the recent pandemic, is perfectly OK.  When the supermarket check-out girl starts being able to afford better food and a few more toys for the kids, suddenly it's dangerous and drastic action is needed to grind her back down.  They don't even really believe in the free market.  As long as that free market is letting the parasite class skim off the extra wealth created by workers' increasing productivity, it's working as intended — but as soon as it begins to empower those workers a little, giving them a chance to improve their circumstances, the state needs to intervene in the economy by manipulating interest rates and importing more cheap labor to put a stop to it.  By these rules, we can never win.

Oh, and our rising wages could "materially slow GDP growth"?  Is the imagination of these types even capable of encompassing the possibility that the mass of people in this country no longer give a shit about GDP growth, when they pay the price for it in hard work and the benefits go to others?  When they sacrifice their time and energy and health and dignity to produce more and more wealth which ends up, not in their own hands, but in the form of more and more yachts, mcmansions, dick-shaped rockets, etc in the hands of a tiny aristocracy — and all this is recorded in the economic statistics as "growth"?

That pattern has prevailed since the Reagan administration:

Since the 1980s real income for the median and below has remained practically flat, even as productivity — the value those workers were producing — soared.  And if that top 5% red line represented the top 1% or 0.1%, the real parasite class, its rise would be far steeper.  That's where that extra value those workers were producing went, not into their own pockets.  The parasite class stole it.

If this is what capitalism means, then to hell with capitalism.

And yes, I take this personally.  The period from the 1980s to today is my entire working lifetime.  I spent those years producing a hell of a lot of value that was skimmed off by others.  The same is true for tens of millions of people.  It's a fundamentally different reality than what was experienced by someone who began his working life in, say, the 1950s.

The system is rigged against you and in favor of the ultra-wealthy, and has been for decades.  You owe it no loyalty.  Seize whatever advantages and opportunities you can to take back some of the wealth which you produced and which was taken from you.  And vote accordingly.

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Quote of the Day

As we head into yet another work week from hell, remember…

You'll never be criticized by someone doing more than you. You'll always be criticized by someone doing less.  Remember that." ~ Denzel Washington

(I'm looking at you, Little Miss Micromanager)