Month: August 2011

I relented. I decided that it was worth my while to divest myself of the company systems and close that door.

My desire to not show up to turn in my company equipment was nothing more than me wanting to inconvenience them as much as they have inconvenienced me over the past three months.

I made the 2 hour drive down to the office. I’m actually glad that I did, I got to see a couple of my favorite people one last time to say goodbye and good luck.

Of course the person doing the out-processing was for the most part winging it, and wasn’t entirely sure that the paperwork we were filling out was in fact the “Correct” paperwork.

I must say, I’m not surprised. Through all of this, the HR people have been notably absent and in fact left the final paperwork to a mid level manager who commented that there was no training. In my mind, this is a sad comment on the state of the company, and heralds what is to come.

It probably wont be tomorrow, or next year or even the year after that. But I foresee the company closing or being purchased then gutted for it’s patents or other assets. This assessment is based on my experience with other companies and what they were like as they got old and near their final death throes.

Happily I won’t be working for them as they implode and self destruct.

I received nothing in the way of information about my corporate savings account, 401K, COBRA, and I’m still waiting on my vacation payout. It looks like severance was deposited in my checking account.

Yet another aspect of how poorly implemented this whole layoff process has been.

I’ve been laid off enough times to pretty much know the process by heart.

In the layoffs where I was the manager, I had packets of information ready for each employee. Those packets covered every bit of information about the employees rights, their retirement accounts, how their medical was going to be handled, how to continue medical coverage under COBRA, who to contact with additional questions after they were laid off, and a FAQ sheet.

Any other questions not answered with the information on hand, and I’d get HR and / or Legal in my office or in a conference room to make sure everyone had the answers or knew that their questions were being researched.

But then again, I’m anal about such things and worked for companies that actually had a plan, clue, system, direction…. you get the picture.

So while I’m done with them mostly… I see that I’m going to have to be on the phone demanding an information packet and know that I’ll have to make that demand several times. I’ll start those phone calls on Monday.

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I watched the sun rise over the mountain this morning. It’s a pretty day and I’m in a pretty good place.

I’ve got three books I’m trying to read. One of them is a study guide for HAM radio. I think it’s about time that I got my license. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a number of years and well… It looks like I’m going to have a little time on my hands for learning something new.

I’m also thinking that learning something new, that’s fun for me will make it easier to get into a learning mode for any training that I may take for a new career or a new job.

After I was done with the company debacle, I treated myself to a $60 stop by Ham Radio Outlet in Anaheim.  I was studying for my license before the fire. I had the books, and a sweet little radio. All of that was destroyed with the house. The $60 was me picking up study guides for the Technician and General class tests.

Lately, I’ve been thinking more and more about disaster preparation and as part of that preparation, I think it would be a great idea to have a couple of small radios for local communication and a HAM rig for longer distance, so learning something new is a twofer…

Career choices are another matter I’m working on. I can continue on in the career path I’ve been in, or I could pick up some additional training and move into a slightly different and “new” direction. The problem is that the “new” direction may not provide many more opportunities for employment and could be pricey for the education. I’m still weighing that one out.

Alternatively I could leave technology behind altogether and go do something completely different.

Again, I’m weighing the options. I think a lot of it will boil down to a simple question.

What am I willing to give up?

Ahhhh…. there’s the rub.

It never ceases to amaze me how easily the lives we build for ourselves can become cages.

This is a mixed blessing, and a long time coming.

I wasn’t going to go in until next week. But I noted that a paper check had been cut paying me a lump sum for my vacation, and unused holiday time. So it’s convenient and profitable for me to drive down there to hand in my shit.

It’s also a nice form of closure I will no longer have anything that I have to be responsible for and with few exceptions the company and I will be done with each other.

In hindsight, I took the position for all the right reasons. There was no way I could have known just how screwed up the project would become. Bad management is as likely in one industry as it is in any other. That there is a concentration of crappy management in the aerospace industry shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

These people have existed within a culture of obscene overruns for decades. Most of them have the attitude that no matter what, they can always go back to the government for more money and in many cases they have built systems and procedures where that assumption is integral to any project they bid.

The movie Pentagon Wars was a comedy. Sadly, it is also surprisingly accurate in it’s depiction of how government projects work.

It’s a real pity that the bureaucratic red tape necessary to become a government contractor is so arduous that many companies simply refuse to even try. I think that it’s time for the government to reduce the bureaucracy in favor of better, more modern, less expensive goods and equipment.

The old guard contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop, Raytheon, and TRW need a good solid kick in the pants in terms of competition. Lessening the red tape and allowing new players and new ideas into contract bids would serve the nation well.

That’s just my opinion.