Category: Work

The past three years have been a bit of a waste. Don’t get me wrong, income is a good thing. The problem with income where all you do is tread water, is that you’re not pushing the ball forward.

When I joined the most recent company I thought it was an entry path to Software QA (my primary career) in the medical field (new territory). Unfortunately, the company tends to silo each of its departments very heavily. The HR department doesn’t really look at the employees as assets, they only think of employees as components that are replaceable as was so vividly demonstrated.

My Career arc is funny. Not haha, but strange, when I started out many years ago, I had technical aptitude, and the ability to repair machines that some people described as uncanny. Not surprising since generally I like machines better than I like people and so I had an understanding of machines that I still don’t have with people.

I carried a tool kit in those early days, and moved gradually, as I was able, into positions of greater responsibility. I’ve worked a lot of jobs in the technical industry gradually moving up the corporate ladder and accumulating a lot of experience and knowledge.

Problem is, a lot of corporations don’t really like that kind of employee. It’s tough to silo someone like that. Folks like me tend to just fix a problem, we don’t worry too much about coloring outside the lines. We’re dedicated to the mission, getting the product out the door, and we figure the toes we step on will be bandaged, and the paperwork can be finished up after the launch party while we’re counting our bonuses.

In most situations this worked very well. The old saying “The proof is in the pudding” won out. Then sometime in late ‘80s it started to change. The workplace became more political and forgiveness was harder to come by, especially if your decision was glaringly the correct one.

It wasn’t that big a worry for me because there was enough “old guard” management who appreciated someone who not only would make a decision to move things forward, but who would also stand behind that decision and take the hit if things went wrong.

By the late ‘90s political machinations were so entrenched in technical corporations that making an independent decision was tantamount to corporate espionage. In some cases it was worse. This was especially true if you happened to step on middle management’s toes. 

There seemed to be a trend toward vendetta, and loss of sight about getting the job done. People spent more time covering their asses, and currying favor, than they did actually working. Those who sat quietly doing their jobs were forgotten and almost never acknowledged for their contribution.

The only time these folks were acknowledged is when they needed time off for medical procedures, or to tend to family business. Then, their request was subjected to a bureaucratic nightmare of discussion and rules & regulations.

It didn’t matter how many years they’d worked in silence or how many weeks of unused vacation time they had, or that they’d never asked for time off… after making a request they were on the radar and were considered a “problem”. Often, “business needs” was used as an excuse to deny the employee’s request. This left the employee in a difficult position of quitting their job to meet medical or familial obligations or ignoring those obligations altogether. 

The political machinations only got worse throughout the ‘00s. 

At some point in the 2000’s I decided that I wanted something different and that I wanted to contribute to our country’s well being. In the mid 2000’s I found a job that paid a bit less and was a lot further from my home in the defense industry.

Generally speaking, I loved it. There were frustrations to be sure. But as long as I could avoid the politics that were growing like a malicious weed, I was a happy camper. I was fortunate to have a couple of bosses that thought their job was to insulate their employees from the endless bullshit or the politics so that the employees could get the job done.

Under their umbrella, I could just work, be productive, and happy.

That changed after the 2008 election. Then, there was no protection from politics. Because the US govt. started switching funding on and off. A lot of great people lost their jobs through no fault of their own, because our politicians loved playing games with each other and gave no thought to unintended consequences.

That led me to unemployment and experience with agism coupled with full blown corporate politics and this rather strange philosophy that regardless of your experience if you’d not completed college you couldn’t possibly know anything. Or that whatever you knew wasn’t relevant to the job you were applying for even if the job requirements were exactly the same as the position you’d previous occupied.

At my most recent employer, there were a lot of people about my age who experienced the same bias I had, and who’d taken this job to get a foot in the door. What we didn’t know was how different things had become, or that the company was going to doom us to a “boxed in” position where the only options were suck it up, or leave. 

As we learned that hard lesson, we began to start looking elsewhere and many of us found other positions, though in the San Diego area there aren’t many positions to be had for experienced older workers. The pay scale for those available positions is representative of a two class system. (Obscenely high, or barely scraping by.) With the cost of living in the area, many of my former coworkers  have relocated, just as I’m doing. (I do hope someone remembers to secure San Onofre before the last “old guys” leave or are forced out.)

I think a lot of my former coworkers realized they’d made a mistake before they were out of their training classes. I know I did, but like “Old guys” we figured it was a mistake that could be corrected after we’d paid our dues. Turns out we were all operating under old rules that no longer apply in the Corporate America of today.

I’ve decided that I’m going to chalk this experience up to, “The School of hard knocks” and I’m going to focus my attention on getting a job in the defense industry. At least there, people are more results oriented and appreciative of someone that will make a decision, take action, and move the ball forward.

I’ll be looking over other positions and will apply to those that pay well and are also within my experience base. But my focus will be on defense jobs, I really need to work someplace where I fit.

My next challenge is getting my former company to send the check to a valid address or better yet do what they say they’re going to do in the exit paperwork. Then I need to re-establish my access to ADP for my tax records (yeah, looks like they turned that off).

I just want to close the book on this whole wasted time, and move forward.

I suspect that dealing with the company’s HR department is going to be as difficult as they can possibly make it. It’s been their modus operandi for the past three years, it’s unreasonable to expect anything different now.

So it’s off to have the car serviced, then back to packing for the move.

Wish me luck, and as always have a good day.