CafeChatNoir

Slightly better. I’m working at home today, finally. Focus is still a major problem. Got hit with SEVEN different requests upon arrival. Have basically given up on actual productivity during these 4 hours. Will likely just hit the multijob call tonight sometime when I have some peace and quiet and focus for it.

Still would prefer unemployment.

Under 15 minutes, 5 IM windows opened, I’ve been asked to mentor the newest employee, review the calls that the helper consultant took last week, been informed by my other newbie that “it didn’t work” in response to something she asked me last week, and I’ve actually had to start a list of what I am trying to get done today because I think my brain just melted. Which also led to the following IM:

pisceandreamer: OK, is it bad that i know if you’re going to dump a body, you plant a tree over it?
FunCoworker: OK having a bad day are we?
FunCoworker: Make sure it is a fast growing tree….like an Arborvitae or a Silver Maple
pisceandreamer: Needs a complex, rapidly spreading root structure
FunCoworker: Tulip Poplar is a good choice as are the faster growing maples

God help me if the FBI is watching.

Additionally, we had our end of busy season lunch last Friday, which I bailed on for 2 reasons, one being the consultant training, and the fact that every one of these, I’ve gotten stuck on a call at the last minute and ended up getting there 2 hours late, so it’s kind of pointless. Well, we had superlatives…some just silly, some sincere. Best hair went to the guy in tech that shaves his head – like he pointed out, you’ve never seen him with a bad hair day. Best team player went to my best bud over in tech. Me? I ended up with Most Inspiring. WTF? I would have figured “Most likely to get a 5 minute major for fighting.”

It’s gonna be a day of the tunes being played LOUD.

Ugh, do I have to go to work tomorrow? Last week just sucked SO badly – just not a good week to have when you’re trying to see if part time is going to work or not. And I get to go into the office and do more testing. Wheeeeeee. This week has GOT to be better than last week – it just HAS to. Thing is – one of the newbies assigned to me was out all last week. As awful as it sounds, I am not looking forward to her return – not on a personal level by any means, she’s great. However, the barrage of questions will start again, and it’s hard to describe how draining that is, but it’s pretty bad. Someone asked why I didn’t just take a few weeks off work – because I know I wouldn’t come back.

I’ve got audio and no video from IMAZ right now, so I am listening to folks finish – they just had a husband/wife finish together – how cool is that? Aaron (MCM) should be coming in soon – he was at the 17 mile mark on the run at 9:30, and Jess (Fellow BT’er) hit that point at around 10:30. (I was getting worried about her because they didn’t bother to update her 8 mile split time until they updated the 17 mile point.) And now the feed has been shut down. WTF, folks. These are the normal people that are finishing now – their accomplishment is just as big as the pros, and if it weren’t for them, you wouldn’t have much of a sport.

I still have a boatload to get done around the house tonight before I go to bed – cleaning ladies are coming tomorrow and there is quite a bit of crap in their way. And I’ve got a ton of things to get done this week outside of work. I’ve got the time now, lets see if I can shake the complete life-sucking stress that’s been the biggest problem lately.

I’ll admit I am incredibly frustrated with the work situation, and frustrated with myself that I’ve let it get to me so badly, and generally mad at myself that I let it get to me AT ALL. Though very few things in life change overnight, I was hoping to feel better and not worse after cutting back the hours. I’m already rethinking how long I let this evaluation period go on – it’s so tempting right now to just say screw it and not put myself through any more of it. In retrospect, I think I should have just said “No thanks” to the part time offer and just let it go.

AARON FINISHED!!!!!!!!!! 13:34:26

I have spent 80% of my week on one client. One. Client. That lied to me from the get-go. And I knew they were, but I’ve had to waste my time proving it, while they were complete asshats through the entire episode. And it’s not even over yet – due to the attitude of this client, I have to get one more thing from them so I can then turn around and say, “Hey, you lied to me, here’s the proof, plzdiekthxbye.” And they’ll still deny it.

It’s been an incredibly frustrating week, I’ve accomplished near nothing in the office, save this one damn client and getting another database patched up so I can test and NOT recreate the issues the other client is going through.

This sucks, and I still have another day of it, and I have to go talk w/the consultants tomorrow and the dingbat in charge of it put out the word that it was going to be a troubleshooting session, which it is NOT.

This really has to improve and soon.

OK, part time is just freaking weird. You’re talking to someone here that hasn’t had a part time job since high school. This is definitely going to take some adjusting to say the least. Having a hard time remembering half-time = half as much accomplished, and that it’s normal. Not helping that I am dealing w/ one client who is being a jackass and unfortunately, all we can do is look at their database and go, “WTF?” and another client for whom I’ve been trying to do some testing and was basically kicked out of one database (nicely, mind you) and at least given another database I can work with. However, said database is totally out of date and I’ve spent 80% of my testing time getting it patched up. So, hopefully things will settle down, because otherwise – as stupid as it sounds – I may not be cut out for part time work…

In other news, marathonfoto.com did the pics for the Cherry Blossom Run – site says they’re about 35% of the way through identifying them – they’ve already got one of mine tagged. Now, the person in the picture does look like me, and is wearing the same thing I was, but well, she actually appears to be RUNNING in the picture… :-D (And honestly, I can’t imagine how they tagged it because you can’t see my race number, so until I see a larger version of it, I honestly can’t be sure it’s actually ME, especially if she appears to be running…)

My head just isn’t in the game today at all, my body clock is still hosed from DST, I managed to walk off and leave my gym bag this morning. But no biggie, I can just go later… Except that then I came home, did a couple things around the house, took a nap (DST issues), then promptly forgot about the proposed workout and ate WAY too much for dinner… Tomorrow is another day, right?

40 days out til Virginia Run. Feeling good on that. If I can move continuously for 2:39 for the half-mary, I can do this. Especially since it’s a short swim… 82 until Lake Montclair, which is a much longer swim… Thank god it’s wetsuit legal. Which reminds me, I need to get over to Bonzai this week and talk to them about that. Also should get over and get my bike refit, slow little hybrid it may be, I need someone who knows what they’re doing to take a look and at least make sure that things are positioned right, cause it can make a big difference in comfort if not necessarily in speed.

I didn’t think it was humanly possible, but I think I am more stressed out now than I was before.

I don’t want to work part time. I just want to quit.

I am TRYING to be optimistic. I really am. But you know, I just don’t see how on earth this is going to work out. There is no self sufficiency, no sense of boundaries as it is, why do I keep thinking that will somehow change?

I am moving decision day back to May 1.

Next week, it’s bankers hours for yours truly. Boss sent out an email to the group yesterday w/my change in status – including the phrase “she tried to resign”, so folks got the message. We are waiting for dingbat coworker to demand PT status as well.

Now, here is something good for a laugh: Next Friday, guess who will be speaking to the new batch of consultants in bootcamp about what support does and doesn’t do? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yes, this should be highly entertaining.

I came into work to an email from our marketing department announcing the “marketing management team” – OK, sure, they’ve done some reorganizing over there, nothing wrong with letting folks know who is who these days.

However, we now have five VP’s in marketing, and a Director. The mind boggles.

Ever have one of those days where the coffee is just NOT kicking in? Today is one of those days so far. Maddening. Focus? What’s that? I think my weightlifting and swim last night left me a little too relaxed.

Oh boy…

34 hours and 5 more minutes of full time.

You know, I’d said I’d give it to May 15th.

I think I’ll be changing that to May 1st the way today has been going.

I should have just stuck to my guns and quit.

OK, I think I just need to keep reminding myself:

This time next week, I will be getting OFF work for the day.

That works.

and I am tired for whatever reason, despite getting to bed early, have a bit of a headache, and am having trouble getting my brain warmed up in general.

But I am just not feelin’ the love today. Between a snarky comment by the director on Friday that is still bugging me, and being bombarded with dumbassed questions this morning, I am wondering if PT will actually be worse rather than better. (I am already getting the impression that they are going to try to suck 40 hours worth out of me in the space of 20.)

However, I will put forth a genuine effort between next week and May 15th to make it work. I think 6 weeks is more than enough time to evaluate. If it’s working, fantastic. If not, we gave it the old college try – but I’m not going to drag it out any longer than that.

I really would like this to work, just not feeling optimistic about it this morning. But like I said, I’m also tired and a little off my game in general, which usually doesn’t result in my being exceptionally upbeat, because I am more thinking about a nap. :)

Our entire marketing department needs a collective swirly.

GO PATRIOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Damn, what a game – caught it at GD’s and what a great place to see it – every time we scored, the place went nuts. What an off the wall tournament it’s been – I have one team still standing in my brackets, and it’s Mason. They are up against UConn tomorrow at 2:40. You can bet I’ll be watching.

HR has to approve my PT status, but it looks like everything is a go on that. And apparently, 20 hours a week actually still qualifies for benefits – shocked the hell out of me. I really hope this works out well – but as I told my boss, if it doesn’t, we gave it the old college try at least.

Added another race to the season – GW Parkway Classic – 10 miles, starts at Mt. Vernon and ends in Old Town – should be fun. Next weekend is the Cherry Blossom 10 miler – looking to come in under 2 hours on that one – I want to beat my pace from the half on that one, which was 11m36s when you take out having to wait for the WC – I think it’s doable. I can’t help but be somewhat amazed by the fact that a 10 mile race is simply not intimidating to me anymore.

So, the government has decided that they want to beef up penalties for illegal immigrants. Personally, I think we’d be as well served to actually concentrate on enforcing the existing laws, but hey, what do I know. The part that actually baffles me is the protests that have been going on this week over it. Hi, folks, the key phrase here is illegal. I know that folks come here to get away from some pretty heinous situations in other parts of the world, and yes, they contribute to the economy, but still, if you’re here illegally, you are breaking the law, you know you’re breaking the law, and if you get caught, you’re gonna get your butt bounced out of here. I don’t see where the righteous indignation is justified on this one. Then again, I don’t claim to be particularly politically savvy, so maybe I’m missing something here.

Even though they broke into the cabinet today and broke the cookie jar from Germany that we’ve had forever. As I told the cats, THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.

I keep having to remind myself that all I have to do is slog through the next week and a day and then I get a BIG chunk of my life back. Things seem to be going through w/the PT status, apparently there are some things to hammer out w/HR, but it would seem that I will be on a 20 hour workweek starting 4/1. Seems I was the topic of more than a few conversations at the user conference, and the general consensus is “she cannot be let go.” (Which still surprises me, cause the level of fried has affected my performance – my A game isn’t exactly around these days, I figured they’d be happy to get rid of me and get fresh blood in, but it seems I know a lot of stuff that no one else does.)

6 full workdays… Just gotta slog through.

Good lord. So yeah, no one has told ME about my employment status, but there are NON-employees that know…

Seems director told training manager (who has a big mouth) who then told her husband (ex-employee) who in turn emailed my coworker saying he’d heard that I quit, but was now part time…

That right there makes me want to call all deals OFF.

Edit: Just spoke w/ my boss (reports to director) – she hasn’t been given a final go/no go either – she’s pissed off now too!

OK, so I tried to resign on Thursday. They offered up part time, we discussed further on Friday. Boss said it was all reasonable to her, but it has to go through the director (her boss). However, the director (who won’t make a decision w/out *her* boss, the VP getting involved…) was already on the way to our user conference, so I had no final answer when I left the office on Friday.

So, I gave her my cell # and asked her to please get the director to make a decision today and leave me a voice mail. I have no voice mails from her… Now, if it was completely no-go, I would have at least heard something from her. So, all I can assume right now is that the director is freaking out because they don’t like my list and yet, don’t want to lose me and don’t know what to do.

I don’t care that they’re busy at the user conference – this isn’t a hard decision to make. Yes or No. It’s not like I’ll have hurt feelings either way.

It’s been a screwy, screwy day on many fronts.

By this time tomorrow I’ll know if by 4/1 I will be unemployed or just part time. I attempted to put in my resignation today, they countered with the possibility of part time, we will discuss tomorrow.

News of my potential departure went through the building surprisingly fast and folks were rather distressed. Had more than a few people from other departments saying, “But you’re the only one that knows what you’re doing!” To be honest, that surprised me – my buddy J said, “Honey, you’re a celebrity here, didn’t you know that?” Um, no.

However, because I have to be in the office tomorrow negotiating my employment status, I have to get everything together for leaving tonight and that’s a pain in the ass. Really ready for the weekend to get here. (Well, as soon as the laundry is done…) Have made arrangements to meet up with some folks for dinner Saturday night down at the beach, so that should be a lot of fun.

I had an absolutely fantastic weekend, and nothing brings it to a screeching halt like Monday morning back at work.

My first client of the day is disgruntled, patronizing and generally unpleasant. The disgruntled part I do understand. The rest is simply not necessary.

There’s a lot going on that really has me shaking my head.

We received a rah-rah email from one of the VP’s. While it was an admirable attempt, it doesn’t actually address any of the issues, such as why we were so short staffed in the first place and how on earth they are going to keep folks from continuing to bail, and if they do, how to prevent the 6 month gap in getting replacements in.

The newer folks have all been assigned to a senior person. In theory, they now have one person to direct their questions to. In reality, it has turned into, “Work my calls for me.” So, despite being near fully staffed, the senior group is still doing their own jobs and half of someone else’s. This has been going on for a year now.

We have a user conference coming up and our “showcase” product just isn’t quite ready for prime time. This is causing just a bit of mass hysteria.

Upper management is also mad that there have been no referrals from the support group for said user conference. Isn’t that why we have this crack marketing team? Frankly, I think it’s also just stupid to expect anyone to “refer” them – we’ve sent out tons of stuff about it, the clients already know it’s happening and will go if they want – it’s really not something anyone has to pester them into.

Just a little nuts around here.

When I have a flag up on my IM that says, “I am at lunch until 2:15″ and you IM me and get the auto responder, do NOT then AIM me 10 minutes later asking if I have any suggestions on your problem. I AM AT LUNCH.

And no, I am not going to wait tail I have 0 calls to quit, just an amount that can be reasonably closed in two weeks so there is as little as possible to dump on my coworkers – and I am actually getting there, 30s now vs over 60 at one point week before last. (Yes, I know, it shouldn’t matter, but I am a dork that way.)

Well, the good news is I’m down to 35 calls. The bad news is that we have two people out on vacation next week – this is not going to help things. Former coworker gave me hell today for not quitting yet, but I’d really like to minimize anyone getting screwed over if I can help it. And of course, one of the people going on vacation is one of the newbies assigned to me, so I get one less person’s worth of questions, but I get her calls, too.

The madness WILL end soon.

Can you say “losers”? I thought you could!

Everyone seems to be having a suck Monday in my group, it’s the only other explanation besides “losers” for the fact that the front line isn’t picking up new calls, people are trying to IM me when I have my “I’m at lunch, STFU and go away” flag up and generally not making it easy for me to try and whittle down my 47 calls. (Which sadly, is a vast improvement over this time last week.) It’s not like I can yell, “How the hell am I supposed to quit my job if you don’t let me get my calls closed!” Well, I could, but I don’t think it would go over terribly well.

Weekends just don’t cut it anymore for recovery time, and frankly, I’m hating the fact that I have a conscience right now. I can’t bail while things are still such a mess, but at least I can get my corner of the chaos cleaned up before I go.

Ah well, such is life.

Final grade in class: A!

It’s not exactly been a stellar week, and I get to work tomorrow too.

You see Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.
Don’t… don’t care?
It’s a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime, so where’s the motivation? And here’s another thing, I have eight different bosses right now.
Eight?
Eight, Bob. So that means when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only real motivation – not to be hassled, that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

The decision is pretty much made, it’s just a matter of when and how to execute it properly. Someone once told me, “Are you leaving just to get away from something, or because you’re actually going towards something else?” It’s a little of both. I’ll fully admit I’m burned out because we’ve been so short staffed and I’ve been doing my job and half of someone else’s since about this time last year when we lost 3 people in one month. I’m not fond of the direction the company is going in since the new exec management team came in – they’re all about sales and marketing being what makes a company great – nevermind how you’re going to actually support those sales later.

I want to get back to school on a full time basis, learn something different, and be able to really dedicate the time and energy to it that it deserves – which I can’t do now, given that the job sucks a good 10 hours out of my day and immeasurable energy.

Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean that’s what you should be doing. (those wise words were from ) For the moment, I’m going to just go concentrate on ME for a change and getting MY calls taken care of. The rest of the folks can fend for themselves for a while.

I sit in a cubicle and I update bank software for the 2000 switch.
What’s that?
Well see, they wrote all this bank software, and, uh, to save space, they used two digits instead of four. So, like, 98 instead of 1998? Uh, so I go through these thousands of lines of code and, uh… it doesn’t really matter. I uh, I don’t like my job, and, uh, I don’t think I’m gonna go anymore.
You’re just not gonna go?
Yeah.
Won’t you get fired?
I don’t know, but I really don’t like it, and, uh, I’m not gonna go.
So you’re gonna quit?
Nuh-uh. Not really. Uh… I’m just gonna stop going.
When did you decide all that?
About an hour ago.
An hour ago… so you’re gonna get another job?
I don’t think I’d like another job.
Well, what are you going to do about money and bills and…
You know, I’ve never really liked paying bills. I don’t think I’m gonna do that, either.

I am so over this.

It’s only Tuesday, and I am barely functioning on the work front. I’m taking a break right now because I literally cannot think anymore. I’ve got calls that should be relatively simple and I am sitting here and staring at the data and just absolutely cannot absorb it at all.

We’re taking a new approach on queue management tomorrow – front line is responsible for new incoming calls, end of story. Each of the seniors is assigned one or two front line people. I have one really good person that will probably not ask much at all, another one that is coming along nicely, and a third person on Fridays only.

I am praying that if the front line is actually tending to new calls, I might be able to actually work my own calls. I don’t know about anyone else, but it would sure help me.

Today though, I don’t see how I am going to manage anything at all in the next hour and a half…

A musing posed to my coworker this morning: Looking at the queue, and looking at how fried everyone is, I can’t help but wonder if by continuing to show up for work, we are perpetuating a myth to management that somehow these are acceptable working conditions.

Sadly, I think rats learn faster than we do on some things.

Note to self: Get call count down, get townhouse sold.

Work is still weighing heavily on my mind – and dammit, it’s the weekend, it shouldn’t do that.

It’s not that I hate the work, or the company, or the people. It’s just that a body can only take so much, and I am just about done.

We started the year with 165 open tickets. We now have 335. This is with 10 people working full time. Not good. The problem is that the newbies don’t know what they’re doing yet and the old timers are rapidly hitting the point of non-functional.

I started the week with 40 tickets assigned to me, ended with 53, and still closed 104 in between, but we only managed to close 566 in total this week. My goal literally has been to just end each day with 1 ticket less assigned to me than I started with – obviously, that didn’t work so well this week. Even if I can manage that, it will take me until the friggin end of April to clear things out.

So, yes, I have 53 tickets in a 335 ticket queue, and of those, only 258 are actually assigned. Yes, I am carrying over 20% of all assigned tickets. Yes, that is hugely fucked up. Yes, I am kinda tired. It’s also a lot of stupid little things, too – my last call on Friday one of the newbies had picked it up, put a note in it of “will call in a sec” and then threw it back into callbacks and never called, so I get stuck with someone who starts the call with “I don’t know anything about billing…” that really should have been handled by someone else. I near put the phone through the window.

There is part of me that wants to just walk into the director’s office tomorrow morning and say “I’m done. You created this disaster, you deal with the aftermath, I’m tired of cleaning up after your unbelievable lack of foresight.” But, that’s also admitting defeat, which I absolutely hate to do.

As much as I’d love to stride out in a blaze of glory after cold-cocking my dingbat coworker*, it’s probably not the best idea.

So, I need to figure some things out.
1) How to deal without losing my mind in the short term and keeping work from continuing to negatively impact the rest of my life.
2) An exit strategy.

I am willing to give it a little more time and see how things shake out. But right now, I can’t see myself sticking around for yet another busy season, not if it’s going to even remotely resemble this one.

*Dingbat coworker is trying very hard to stir up shit. She does not realize how close she is to being very, VERY successful at it and getting her ass dragged out to the parking lot and having the crap beaten out of her while I quote Shakespeare. As many times as I have had to pull her butt out of the fire, bitch can take her superior attitude and shove it.

THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY?!?!

Work was mildly better yesterday. Boss was working from home w/a sick kiddo, and then around 6:30, long after she is done for the day anyhow, she gets back online and IM’s me & my coworker just to see how we were holding up, how the day went, had we killed anyone or taken out contracts for said killings, etc – just a nice thing to do that she didn’t really have to do. She points out that I don’t have a direct shot at dingbat coworker so I need to work on my over the cube wall hook shot w/the stressballs (aka, weapons) we got yesterday.

It is rough right now – I managed to close 30 calls. A very nice amount. We still ended up with a backlog for the day overall…and I still have 50 some assigned to myself. That’s just not good at all. We’ve got somewhere in the neighborhood of ~320 open tickets right now. Thing is, there’s just nothing we can do except just power through it as best we can, and I know that is the most frustrating thing for our boss – there just really isn’t anything she can do about it.

Random thing that made me smile: An IM of “I have an art question for you.” :-D Way better than “I have these three calls I need to escalate to you.”

In a brilliant miscalculation, management has provided me with a projectile weapon.

another 67 cents after taxes…

Work is sucking. One of my good coworkers is out for the rest of the week with a death in the family. My boss told me I wasn’t allowed to have a nervous breakdown – I relayed this to , who replied with “Prove her wrong.” And I nearly did.

The upside of the day is that I got to hang w/my Marine before he heads off to sandy places in the Middle East. The downside is that I’ve figured out (I respect OPSEC, he didn’t tell, I’m just not an idiot) that’s it looks like he’s going to be more in the thick of things than it originally seemed… Fuck. But, I did get to hear about the training time in Texas and damn, that sounds like a shitload of fun – just hope he doesn’t have to use any of it. (oh, , it was Ft. Hood.) I was happy to hear he scored quite well on his quals, but again, really, really hope he doesn’t need it.

I’ll admit I’m worried about him going. But at the same time, if it was me, I’d be chomping at the bit for it, too. Hell, I’d get on a plane now if I thought I could do any good over there. Lord knows saving a bunch of dumbass accountants from themselves doesn’t exactly make the world a better place.

It’s going to be another long day.