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Was having a conversation…

I commented on another WordPress post

The original poster on Army Vet Chic was talking about office politics and that they’d been told, based on their social media that perhaps they weren’t the right person for the job.

I suggested that perhaps social media could be used to make people wonder and thereby figure out who could and could not be trusted.

Social media cutsThe original poster said they’d normally do just that but they’d already figured out the lay of the land and that they were going to just keep their head down and do their job.

As I wrote my response (below) I thought it might make an interesting post. So without further preamble here it is.

Got ya, and in times past I’d say that’s a great option.

I work in a company that is basically “Romper Room” too. What I’ve encountered is that from HR & upper management down, everyone is looking for something to hold over someone else’s head.

The environment is not about doing good job or rewarding a job well done. It’s about punishment.

Everyone is repeatedly punished for the “sins” of a few. I think this is because the company is terrified of appearing to be “unfair” to those that are taking advantage, so rather than address issues with the select individuals they make the entire department pay.

I’ve found that keeping my head down and doing my job well isn’t the way to promotion, it’s the way to be ignored.

At the same time when you’ve been maintenance free for a while, and then have any kind of issue it’s treated as a much bigger deal than it should be, or actually is.

Because I don’t post my life on every social media platform 24/7 it presents a problem, because my word isn’t good enough.

This new business model seems to expect your employer to be able to research your social media to verify that you’re actually taking time off to attend to family matters, they expect to see a timeline of posts that you or your loved ones have been diagnosed with some disease.

Only then will they be reasonable about letting you have time off without penalty. Which is why I have over 100 hours of vacation time and can’t get permission to take a few days off for personal reasons.

“Business Needs” are always cited.

I said to my supervisor, “So you’re telling me that the company would rather lose the investment they’ve made in my understanding of the product over the past few years, and have to pay out all my vacation time and current pay period, than let me take a few days off?“

My supervisors response floored me. The answer was, “Yes“.

I think it’s about to change, as companies and poor management come to realize that with a dropping unemployment rate they’re going to have to stop thinking of their employees as replaceable machines.

After I’d posted the comment I thought to myself, “This is why so many companies are in trouble.” This may also speak to why interviews have become “interview by committee” and have the same feel as becoming prom king or queen instead of being about whether you and the hiring manager can work together. 

A department that an employee will never interact with, should have zero say in another manager’s hiring decision.

And yet interviews have become popularity contests and about checking off irrelevant boxes instead of looking at what the potential employee can actually do.

I really miss the good old days when you sat down with the person you were going to work for and actually discussed the freakin job.

Social media may in fact be the worst idea ever. I have nothing to hide, but I also see no reason to stand naked on my front porch.

No-one is perfect and everyone needs privacy.

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I’m getting mean

Not intentionally mind you.

It’s just that everyone is so self centered and in their own little worlds that interacting with ANYONE is becoming so fraught with getting sucked into their shit I’m happier simply staying disengaged.

Almost everyone I’m forced to deal with at work are needy, whiny, people that want to drag me into their victimhood. Deal with that 30 or 40 times a day and add to it the situations where they’re trying to con free shit out of me. It’s only heightened my already suspicious nature.

People on the freeways, in stores, at the apartments are all ONLY about their needs and completely oblivious to the fact that other people are in the world, not to service their whims but to just try to live life.

In the past 45 minutes, I’ve been run over by a woman with a shopping cart who made eye contact with me and could plainly see that I had nowhere to go but she absolutely refused to stop before she hit me. WTF?

I said something to her, “You saw me here, you saw I could not get out of your way, and yet you ran your cart into me despite that. Just what did you think was going to happen? Did you think because I was a guy I’d take it and say nothing? Did you assume that I DESERVED punishment for some perceived slight, or was it just that I am a man and you could get away with it?”

She said nothing, abandoned her cart and fled the scene. REALLY???? Accept some responsibility for the situation that was of your own creation. For all I know she ran to the police or the store manger saying I’d hurt her feelings with harsh words.

Minor damage to my hip probably some bruising and now that I look at it, minor abrasion. I’ll heal. 

So then I walk back home from the grocery store, wincing with each step… Gee Thanks Lady!

I get home carrying my bags and there’s this man, not much older than I and he’s barking “Hey You!” from across the parking lot. I don’t know him, I’m not sure who he’s barking at. As I round the corner to my apartment, he raises his volume to a bellow. I ignore him, he’s yelling, now I’m sure that he is trying to get my attention.

I obviously have my hands full, I’m limping a bit, and he wants me to … WHAT? Help him with his shit??? 

Are you kidding me? I ignore him, I’m not in the fucking mood.

In what universe does anyone think that I or anyone should be obligated to drop their parcels, limp across a parking lot to carry your shit up the stairs for you when they’ve obviously got their own stuff to deal with.

I understand the need for help but how about using some common sense?

I need help sometimes, but I ask people that are able to help. I don’t ask people that are obviously unable to render assistance.

WHY would I place a burden on someone that obviously couldn’t help? That behavior is just bad manners.

Lately it seems that people are just checked out.

It seems that my reaction to it is to check out too.

I wonder if this is some kind of cascade, the “ME” generation of selfish humans has contaminated all the rest of us. We are all reacting to selfish assholes by becoming selfish assholes.

 

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Rain… Yea, I don’t have to wash my car

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Aside from the freeways being a mess, the rain is good and we need it.

I woke up to the sound of rain on the roof and thought, “Nice!” 

It’s been coming in waves which is a good thing up on the mountain. The pauses give the water time to soak in.

Later in the day there’s supposed to be snow, but I’ll be slugging my way toward San Diego when that starts.

The rain will clean the dust out of the air and off the leaves. It will also strip the last of the Autumn color from the forest leaving only the green of the pine trees.

So while many people say they hate the rain I’m one of those that likes it and appreciates the break from, “It’s 78 degrees and sunny,” weather forecasts day in and day out.

I’m also amused by the traffic and weather people gushing about water accumulating on the street, oh my goodness! Whatever will we do? To hear the local newspeople, it seems like everyone should be building an Ark.

Enjoy your day, the free carwash, and drive carefully. No, I don’t mean 20mph on the freeway in the fast lane. Just move at some speed less than 90mph and for god’s sake stay off each others bumpers. Allow a little space, try a little courtesy and everyone will get where they need to be safe and sound

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Happy Thanksgiving

For those of you who may have to work, thank you and I hope you’re able to get home to your loved ones and a nice dinner as soon as possible.

For those of you who are not turkeys, have a great thanksgiving dinner. 

For any of you who may BE turkeys… RUN!

Hoping that everyone has a safe and happy thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving Image

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The Job search continues…

I’m at a tipping point now.

Our team has returned to answering the phones full time. Oh Joy!

Our team was set up to fail from the beginning.

We warned the supervisor, and she chose not to listen. She actively deluded herself into believing that everyone was her friend.

Now she’s terrified that she’s going to lose her job.

That little tidbit is something I’m going to get a lot of milage out of. I have been and will continue to use that the give her a taste of what her inaction has done to all of us.

She refused to stand for anything and has demonstrated graphically, Those who don’t stand for something, stand for nothing, She didn’t stand up for us or her team, instead she was off in her own little world. We, her team, did all the heavy lifting and we got raped for it.

Now we’re being used and abused by anyone and everyone.

She’s weak, and once it became obvious that she had no clue about any aspect of what we did, questions were asked. Shortly thereafter there was blood in the water and her friends started taking bites out of her.

It sounds like I’m describing sharks…

Comparing the management at my company to sharks is an insult to sharks.

Perhaps Jackals is a better comparison.

Now, I’m enjoying playing Loki. The right word in the wrong ear, and chaos rains down. I’m enjoying watching these jackals trying to figure out who they should attack. What’s happening is that they can’t identify their enemies and are unsure of past alliances.

The supervisors are dividing and isolating themselves. They’re having a taste of what they’ve done to their employees over the past few years.

The two brightest of my colleagues figured out what I’ve been doing and they’re as amused as I am. Where there was one – now there are three… They’ve joined in.

At the same time all of us have stepped up our job searches. We sniffed something in the air and it’s since been revealed the upper management is doing two things that are not unexpected, but are tell-tails of where this is all heading.

They’re moving the mahogany row offices to towers in the sky, only a short 15 minute ride away. It also appears that a new office that replicates all our functions is being established in another country.

This means an already checked out and clueless management will move further away from the wage slaves they’re supposed to be “connected” with and they will become more removed from the actual work being done.

“What was it that management said about not closing our facility? Did former President Obama ‘if you like your health care you can keep your health care’ join the board of directors?”

Well Mr. President, I liked my healthcare and lost it in the first wave of changes.  Due to the confusion created by the sweeping healthcare changes, I also paid for more than a year of healthcare insurance for which I received no benefits and subsequently filed 

and WON

a suit against the insurance provider. Truly a case of winning the battle and losing the war. So as the costs mounted, was it any surprise that insurance companies started bailing on ACA?

I digress.

I’m listening a lot more to the talk of my coworkers.

The bottom line is that none of them are happy or care about doing things the right way anymore. It’s not that there is a right or a wrong way to do things (There is) but in what we do there are shades of gray. Most everyone is not even worrying about situations where they’ve missed the mark entirely. After all the client will call back and bitch about it later anyway, to someone else.

Burnout is evident everywhere. I think of it as repetitive stress in your brain.

We deal with people on medicare. They’re the worst. Don’t get me wrong it’s not about agism, after all I’m almost there too. It’s about so very many of them being technologically ignorant. They’re not dumb or stupid, they’re just fighting through a system that is stacked against them. Icons that don’t convey the entire message, equipment that is difficult to read for aged eyes, and instructions that are unclear.

By the time these people call in, they’re pretty frustrated and pissed off. There are a number of them that completely miss the point of the devices we support and do things that make no sense.

These people take time to address and sort out. Often you can’t answer the question from a technological standpoint, you’ve got to make the information relatable to the person. This  takes more time.

These days, it’s time we don’t have. We’re constantly asked why a particular call is taking so long. This of course makes us try to hurry the process along and often results in miscommunication. Which leads to additional calls from the same person because now they’re expecting the equipment to behave in a particular way and it’s not.

The medicare person’s frustration is compounded by fear, confusion, and long telephone hold times. Lots of my younger coworkers will say just about anything to get a medicare person off the phone, it not that they truly don’t care, it’s that we’re in a toxic environment and the priority is to get to the next call.

This has devolved into a strictly numbers situation. The employee is only as valuable as the number of calls they answer, not whether the client hung up the phone knowing what they needed to know and how to actually use the equipment.

So in addition to the frustration of working in a truly shitty environment, we’re all dealing with the truly shitty job of finding another place of employment.

President Trump talks about fake news, he’d totally lose his shit if he had to deal with fake job leads.

While it sounds racist, I’ve gotten to the point that if I get an email from someone who is obviously Indian (Dot, not feather) the email goes straight to the SPAM folder. 90% of the time these are emails completely unrelated to qualifications spelled out in my resume.

I really love the emails that start by telling me the sender has spent hours choosing me for a position that is nothing like what my resume says. Those assholes are immediately deleted. My next favorite email type, are the ones where the city, state, or job title is completely misspelled and also on the other side of the country. Uh yeah… you did a lot of research to make sure that you presented a professional appearance.

I’m changing the job search paradigm. Blindly sending resumes to positions posted on job search sites isn’t working. I’m looking for companies that are interesting and checking their “careers” sections. I’m applying directly rather than on sites like Dice, Monster, LinkedIn, and the rest.

Thus far the results aren’t any better in terms of interviews, but at least I’m cutting out the middle men.

I’m also trying to build connections with other people. That’s a lot harder than it sounds. Where do you go to meet people these days? Social media is right out! No one on social media is what they claim to be.  Besides, I hate social media!

Anyhow, if I’m not writing very much or only posting sporadically it’s nothing personal. I’m just preoccupied with more immediate issues.

Hope that as we head into the holiday season you’re all doing great.