A dragon on the wing

I finally heard something definitive from HR today -- they offered the position to the other candidate. 8-(

On the "plus" side, the interview apparently went very well -- to the point that the HR lady asked me today if I'd taken some sort of interviewing training class, because I was nailing every one of the questions right off the bat. It literally came down to the fact that the other candidate was already in a leadership position in the group that performs that same function here, and I didn't have experience with what that group does nor in leading that particular type of group.

Oh, well. I'm kinda bummed out about it right now, but I'll bounce back.

I ran into one of the interviewing managers today, and asked him when he thought they'd be making a decision on the position I put in for.

"I think it will probably be sometime this week."

Which makes this the third consecutive week during which they expected to have a decision.

Ya gotta love red tape...

After 33 months, I FINALLY get to park on-site! Granted, it's still "surface" parking (i.e. the "open air" parking lot, instead of the indoor parking garage), but it's a definite step up from riding the shuttle!

Apparently some of my co-workers decided to have a little fun with one of the managers here, so for the holidays, they wrapped his office.

Completely.

No, *really* completely.

His desk. All the chairs. His monitor, keyboard, and mouse (each individually). The pictures on his wall (still hanging). His dry-erase board (also still hanging), including individually wrapping each of the markers and the eraser. His trash can. His telephone, including wrapping the handset separately from the base. His filing cabinets.

The lightswitch on the wall, which I'm really impressed by!

... and his plants.

Fortunately, our VP was in on it, so he didn't get too upset when the manager hung up on him 4 times trying to get through the wrapping paper to answer the phone!

And the manager says he likes it this way so much that he's going to leave it all in place for as long as he can -- he's hoping for June! LOL

Oh, and they left just enough of the dry-erase board uncovered to leave a message: "Merry Christmas! Signed, The Elves" 8-)

I really hope one of the "perpetrators" took pictures!

getting messages from your boss like "I need you to get on a conference call, here's the number" and that's it?

That's what happened to me today. So I dial in to the call, and they start asking me detailed questions about a trouble ticket that came across my desk weeks ago. I have a pretty good memory, but come on, people!

So it turns out that not only are they not happy about how I handled something, but at least one of them was ticked that it had been like that for almost 2 weeks now.

Oh, well. I did it the way I did because with the information I had, that was the logical way to do it. Under the same circumstances, I would very probably do so again.

Sorry, just bitching tonight. Feel free to ignore.

The negotiations are over, and I start my new job the first Monday in November!

WOO HOO!!!!

Now I'm going to go drag my wife out for a celebratory dinner!

And then I need to make a CD with such things as "Take This Job And Shove It" and "Kiss This" and other such classics, as a suitable method for telling my supervisor that ... I QUIT! 8-)

Nashville has actually put an offer on the table! 8-)

It's a decent offer, but a bit lower $$$ than I'd been hoping for, so they're going to go back to the bean-counters and see if they can't raise the amount a little bit. Hopefully, they'll be able to get back to me on Friday with a new offer -- although given the extremely laid-back way this place seems to run, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes them until Monday.

But... WE'RE GETTING OUT OF HERE! YAY!

You have no idea how much I am looking forward to turning in my notice at work. In fact, I've already gotten a copy of Johnny Paycheck's "Take This Job And Shove It" that I am getting more and more tempted to play...

I've been working on this current project for roughly six weeks now. It has been completed several times, only to have my Group Lead completely disregard the packet of specifications and programs I sent him, and tell me that we needed to add X, or change Y...

Well, lately he's been breathing down my neck about "We've got to get this done ASAP. Top Priority!" (Which is his code-phrase for "I've told someone it will be ready by such-and-such date, without bothering to check with the developer to find out whether or not that's possible.")

Yesterday he tells me that it *has* to be done that day. Fortunately, I'm far enough along that this is actually feasible.

At 4:30, I am able to successfully test everything. All of his latest changes are in place and working.

At which point he tells me that no, this and this and this are wrong... and gives me 13 major changes -- all of which he still wants done that night, and all of which have been in place since the very first version I sent him back in August, as well as every other version since then.

Basically, he's been told repeatedly over the past weeks about these things, but now at the 11th hour these huge changes *have* to be done... and so I end up being in the office until after midnight last night.

And it strikes me as odd that on the one hand he's insisting that these new changes are the way things were always supposed to have been, while on the other hand the directories and such that *he* sets up for use by this process don't exist for the new version, but only for the old one.

Why haven't I killed this man yet?

Okay, now I'm starting to get frustrated...

I was supposed to have an offer letter by last Friday. Then, because people were heading out early for the holiday weekend, that got pushed back to Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. When I called yesterday afternoon, I got told that the person who'd given me these dates was no longer the person handling my application, so I left a message and sent an Email to the person currently handling it.

Today I call and get told that they don't have any information for me yet, but that I should call them tomorrow at 3:00, and they'll try to have some info for me then.

And if that isn't frustrating enough, the position in Memphis that I'd written the code for and had the phone interview for said they liked what they saw, they wanted to set up one more interview... except that they've just been told that they can't fill the position until the first of the year. 8-(

God, grant me patience... RIGHT NOW!

It really is amazing how much more work we've gotten done in the last 3 months without David there -- *at least* as much as we'd done in the almost-6-months of this year prior to his departure.

3 months ago today that we were "liberated"... 8-)

Now if I can just find some time to explore the new functionality of my LJ account...

Well, right now I'm waiting to hear back from two companies about possible positions. I'm *expecting* to hear back from one of them this week, and I *may* hear back from the other one this week, although the latter company tends to move rather slowly.

I'm torn between feeling optimistic, and trying not to jinx things. =G=

Keeping my talons crossed!

Have I mentioned lately that I hate being bored? ::G::

Really slow day at work today. The bossman, Kumar, was out today -- which is definitely a blessing ::G::, but by mid-day I'd gotten my project as far along as it can go without having the other piece that has to fit in with it. Unfortunately, Kumar hasn't finished writing the specs for that other piece yet, so I was having to hunt for constructive things to do.

Oh, well...

About to head over to the gym and see how much abuse I can heap on myself. ::G::

No, not The Phantom Menace, although a lightsaber and a blaster or two would certainly improve things around there a bit... ::G::

It seems that my former Group Lead, David, hasn't been taking his termination gently.

He has apparently gotten a copy of the Policy Manual and read through it, and has discovered that if someone is fired for a Compliance issue, and the person who filed the Compliance complaint lied, their positions become reversed -- the terminated party is returned to his job, and the one who complained is terminated.

What good he thinks this will do him, I have no idea, but he seems to think he will be returning to us soon.

He also told one member of our team that he knows this person was conspiring with me and the Indian gentleman he thinks filed the complaint. Apparently, this person was telling the two of us what to say, and to whom, in order to get David fired.

Somehow, I've just never quite seen myself as the "puppet" type... but apparently this person has been pulling our strings for a while now.

I wonder how much of a fight I'm going to have on my hands over this, since David seems to be including me in his little persecution-and-revenge fantasies now?

It has definitely been an interesting day...

Around 10:00 this morning, my Group Lead gets called into a meeting. A few minutes later, he comes storming back into our bay, slams his notebook down onto his desk, and starts taking stuff out of his overhead bin. Trailing shortly behind him are two representatives from the contracting agency he was working through, and a security guard.

One of my team mates asked what was going on, and David (Group Lead) says, "I've just been fired."

The guard told him he had to stop what he was doing and come to the main entrance. David ignored him, continuing to pull stuff out of the bin, out of drawers, etc. David started yelling, everything from "Get out of my face!" to "I'm an American, and you shouldn't take someone else's word over mine if they aren't one, too!"

Back in December, a teammate of mine filed a religious discrimination charge against him. Why he wasn't fired *then*, I have no idea.

It seems that another complaint/more complaints got filed against him, this time for ethnic slurs.

Out of all of the developers in our bay, only 3 of us are "natives" ::G::. We have quite a few gentlemen from India, and one from Taiwan. Whenever they get a phone call from someone who speaks their native language, naturally they use that instead of English.

Whenever David hears this, he will usually start making cracks about, "We'd better run, they're calling in airstrikes from their terrorist buddies!"

So it all came back on him today, and they told him that comments like these were why he was being let go. Judging from his comment about taking a foreigner's word over an American's, and from something he said in a phone conversation this afternoon with the fellow who will probably (hopefully) be taking his place as Group Lead, he is pretty sure that the complaint came from one particular Indian fellow who sits in our bay, but isn't part of our group.

I wonder if anyone has bothered to point out to him that this person just got back yesterday from being on vacation for several weeks to get married and go on his honeymoon? What, he thinks this person took time out from his honeymoon to phone in a complaint? Or possibly that he filed it before he left, and they let it stand that long without acting on it?

Whatever. He's gone now... and it will be interesting to see how things go without him.

Personally, I suspect it will be a significant improvement.

And yes, I know who filed at least one of the complaints, but I'm not inclined to include that at this point.

I could certainly use it right about now. I think I should start wearing it to work, strapped across my back.

One of my team-mates at work today let me know that he'd gotten a look at an Email that he wasn't supposed to see. In it, our Group Lead was campaigning to get rid of me.

That just really made it a *perfect* day, you know? Knowing that the person who sits right behind me is doing his best to slide his knife between my ribs...

I'm pretty sure I know why, too. I made two cardinal mistakes. First, I refused to falsify my timesheet when I was asked to, and it made certain people look bad. Second, I had the audacity to tell someone they were wrong.

Oh, and I have a habit of helping answer questions when someone else on our team is having a problem.

Clearly, I'm a troublemaker, and should be gotten rid of immediately, if not sooner. Which is, of course, why they recently renewed my contract.

Maybe that has something to do with it. They wanted to renew for six months, and I said I only wanted to renew for three months. Maybe I p*ssed somebody off with that, who knows?

So now I'm finding myself examining every little thing that I do or say at work, wondering if he's going to try to twist it into something he can use as ammunition against me.

It seems that my manager thinks I'm a mushroom, too... she even started to put some teeth marks on my tail today.

A bit of background:
We used to have (and *officially* still have) six areas on our computer for testing, to be used in sequence. They were:
User -> Test region -> Unit region -> System region -> Quality region -> Production region

Well, because of various permissions issues, etc., our Group Lead told us -- repeatedly and vehemently, although never in print -- that the Test region "no longer exists" (direct quote). Yes, the section still physically *exists* on the system, but in the version of English that I grew up speaking, a statement like that is a pretty clear indication that you're not supposed to have anything further to do with the item in question.

[Our "command structure" goes Developer -> Group Lead -> Team Lead -> Manager, just as an FYI]

It seems pretty obvious to me that if Test no longer exists, the progression now runs User -> Unit -> System -> Quality -> Production, right?

So why did I get called in for an ass-chewing by the manager for doing it that way?

Fortunately, she's a fairly reasonable woman -- most days. She asked me to explain why I'd done it the way I had, and when I told her, she nodded and said that it didn't sound like I was trying to "get around" the established procedures, and that we would get back together soon, along with the Group Lead and Team Lead, and make sure everyone's on the same page.

I just *love* getting yelled at for doing what they've *told* me to do....

I just *love* being given impossible assignments.

I don't mean merely difficult ones, or even the ones that would require a team of 1,000 supra-genius programmers working around the clock in perfect concert to accomplish -- I've actually gotten used to those. ::G::

No, I'm talking about the ones that are physically impossible to complete by the deadlines they've specified.

For example...

In our office, we have four levels of program development. We do our initial work in Level 1, then have to meet with the Group Lead and the Team Lead in order to move it up through the remaining levels.

Monday around noon I was given an assignment by the Team Lead and was told it had to be at Level 2 by the end of the day, and at Level 4 by the end of the day Tuesday. No big deal... except that the Group Lead was on vacation, and the Team Lead was unavailable for the rest of the day.

So... if he knows neither one of the required people will be available (and *both* are required, not just one), why set those deadlines?

So much for the Business Analyst position at FedEx.

Apparently, it came down to me and one other person, and he had more directly-related experience.

Drat.

On the other hand, tomorrow I get to go to the Czar's exhibit and lunch with my lovely wife, her radiantly pregnant sister, and their mother. Even with the mother-in-law along, it should be a good time.

Well, I've been meaining to get out of that job for a while now. I just would have preferred to pick my own timing...

This morning, we heard through the rumor mill that the #1 Mainframe programmer in the facility had been laid off. Shortly thereafter, our supervisor called the whole team into a meeting.

We all thought it was to tell us that Mainframe dude was gone.

Nope.

The supervisor, who happens to be *the* sharpest programmer in the facility, got laid off.

Then, when we get back to our desks, several of us discover that we can't log into our computers any more. Oh, and by the way, would we please step into this conference room with the H.R. manager...

So yours truly is once more a free agent, although I do not expect that to last for long. In fact, I've got an interview already lined up for tomorrow. 8-)

That is the question. Whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take stand against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.

At least, that's as best my memory can reproduce it at the moment.

I always kinda liked the version I heard from a comedian years ago, doing his impression of Jack Nicholson playing that role...

To be or not to god-damned be, that is the question. Whether it's nobler to put up with their bullshit or to sling it right back at 'em....



Yes, we got re-orged yesterday. 2 or us (me and one other) are still under the same manager, just on a different project, but still the same basic type of work (compiled languages). The other 6 people have been moved to a new manager, but still doing the same basic type of work (web design).

All in all, it could have been a *lot* worse. As it is, I think I'll still keep looking for new employment, but I'm not at all upset about being one of the two people my current manager kept. In fact, considering the ones he parted with, and considering that I know he only had a total of 3 slots open, I think I'll take it as a high compliment. 8-)

Heh. I suppose that when I do find another job, I'll have to list the 'current music' as "Take this job and shove it!" LOL