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Update At 1000 Spoke with my boss from the contracting firm this morning. Seems that late last week a supervisor returned from a week's holiday and let fly with the cost-cutting axe. One of many victims? My contract. Yes, it was due to start - no, no word on whether this is a negotiation tactic or a true cost-saving measure. From what I know of the project, we were due to start big loads of work this week - as in five or ten times the amount of work we had when I was last there. I know that the tools that were in development were going to perhaps grant us a 25% boost in productivity - not the 2000% it was going to take to handle a three-person team being reduced to one, and a ten-fold increase in work for the three of them. So "shock" was a bit of an understatement. Heck, I'm having a tough time finding expletives with enough pungency to express my disappointment - no, devastation, really - at this occurring. If it's any consolation, I wasn't the only one blind-sided. From my supervisor at the bank on down, everyone seems (according to my boss) to be standing around with their mouths open, wondering just what in the heck is going on - especially since my portion of our project fits into a much larger project which the chair of the company has vigorously endorsed. Without our portion of the project, the cost-savings are lost - and there will be higher costs. But then again, what do I know. In the business world, I am, apparently, an oddity. I do what I say, say what I do, honor my commitments, and make none which could be misinterpreted. Nor do I give a false sense of expectation. But that's all water under the bridge. Here I am, again, looking for work. Ain't this a lovely world? Next time I start thinking optimistically, please, someone, thunk me on the head with many large, heavy objects until I either stop bleeding or start talking sense. The sickening thing is that I was feeling tired - a good tired, but tired, this morning. Then I got the call from my boss, and the sick-adrenaline rush occurred again - I feel queasy, untired, and I've got to get to work finding work. I remember saying some time ago that I wish my life was a novel - so I could skip ahead a few pages and find out that it all works out in the end. Part of me (that better angel, I suppose) keeps saying "well, you know, those are the good stories - it doesn't work out well for EVERYONE..." And before you yell "I should have kept looking" well, yeah, I did. I won't bore you with the number of resumes I've sent out. In fact, I won't bore you with the "new and innovative ideas" I've put to work on this job hunt that have found better people than I (obviously, they're working) jobs. I suspect that it's a case of what the military would call "age in grade" - I've done this too long. People these days do not expect someone of my skill level/skill set/experience to be looking for work in a support - especially hands-on support - capacity. Yes, I can do network administration - which is, unless you work in a large - VERY large - installation, little more than solving problems and hand-holding - or in other words, support. Many Network Admins lose sight of this. I've worked at firms which have Network Admins who have forgotten that without users, their networks are useless... I've also worked in product development. And there, more than anywhere, the roll is support-based. If people do not feel comfortable buying your product, there is a great likelihood that no one will purchase said product. I wish I could say "this, too, shall pass" but I've got a queasy feeling it won't. This is destined to be the rest of my life, I fear - and I do not like it one bit.
Update at 1400 Neither way makes me feel any better - well, that's not exactly true. Over the last four years, and two (and a half) layoffs, the employer has taken pains each time to point out that it's not me, my work, my knowledge, or my abilities, or my attitude, or, really, anything I could have done differently. It's been a case of "a new direction" or "easier to train a replacement than 150 people" or "sorry, the income's just not there" - or, in this case, "we lost our budget." Pain? Oh, heck yeah. Worse, in some ways. Out of the blue, no notice, no warning, not even a hint - then again, I'm not the only one standing around with my jaw on the floor. Far as I know, however, I'm the only one doing that that's not going to get paid for it. So yes, there is pain there. And no, it's utterly, completely, painfully unpleasant. I'm hopeful, yeah, but I guess there's damned little to do except make headway any way I can. |
Update At 0945 I started an earlier incarnation of this journal on May 5, 2000, to keep a record of what I'd done to what machines - primarily, a work log. It was mostly notes that had been cribbed on a palm pilot pasted into a frontpage template and added to as I had the time. I brought this great work of ... well, mostly excrement, I suppose - forth upon the internet on July 31, 2000. In the "Math I shouldn't have done" department, that means I started this journal in it's second incarnation back on July 31, 2000, 1,254 days have passed. 1,341 days have passed since May 5, 2000, when this thing "really" started. Of those, I was "gainfully employed" or "had a steady gig" for 685 or 772 days, respectively. Which means, sadly enough, that I have been employed for a whopping 55-58% of the time I've been doing this writing. Excuse me whilst I vomit under the table here... Some people can handle that sort of employment situation. Some people have the skills and attitude to deal with uncertainty. I am not, I do not, and I have not. Most emphatically so. I've learned to adapt, which is about like saying "well, kick me in the testicles enough times, eventually I lose feeling..." Pain? Yes. Do I enjoy it? You know what I enjoyed? I really, really loved? I loved getting out of bed, getting dressed, and going into a place where someone was going to ask me to do something so painfully, twistedly weird that I'd have to look at them for a good ten minutes before I realized they weren't insane - they were just passing on the requests of a supervisor. I loved trolling through eighteen months of text logs for 3700 firewalls, looking for each user's login/logout patterns. Weird? Heck yeah, but I loved it. And that was ASIDE from the normal job. As to the employment history, before you say "well, yeah, that's normal, man" I should probably point out that from July 5 of 1988 through August 11 of 2000, I was unemployed exactly none of the time - well, there was the weekend between the departure from one job and the arrival at another, but that was one two-day gap. Heck, when I went from Retail to "a Real Job" I closed the store on Sunday and worked Monday at the new place. Going back to college jobs, I had been steadily employed (but for a five-week gap when I left Wendy's and moved to the Cities) for fifteen years straight. Going back even further to junior high, never been out of work (when I was "allowed to work" - my parents were not rich but the agreement we had was seasonal jobs until high school was over. No, I didn't have the trendiest of clothes or shoes or anything else - I had a good roof over my head, warm clothes to wear, plenty (obviously) to eat, and I lacked for little - so yes, in Today's sense, I'm a deprived child). I'm not at all used to "well, we'll use ya when we'll use ya." I did communicate with a friend who has resources inside the client I'd been working for. Her resource has been there for some time, and so knows the ebbs and flows of this particular entity. The resource has said that there are business decisions being made exclusively with the pocket book, and not with the business or long-term shareholder goals in mind. Mind you, shareholder goals these days seem to be "up, up, up damnit, UP!" But it would seem to me (said the laid-off man) that businesses, especially these days, would do well to stop looking straight down at the tips of their shoes (and the bottom line) and start preparing to dominate their fields. If everyone else is standing still or slowly sliding backwards, wouldn't you want to get a running start - especially if the race was up-hill? So it goes. Well, I guess I can say for certain that life around here is never, ever, ever dull - nor is it necessarily sane. Such is life. Oh well. I guess at times like this I can only adopt the Proctologist's motto - Onward and Upward.
Update At 2245 There are a number of people whom I'd like to thank (and will do so via e-mail when I get my head on straight) for bucking me up today. When I got up this morning, I was fit to chew paneling (not that we have any). It's just not been a good day. However, and fortunately, through a little dumb luck, good for once, things are wobbling upright. I did manage to complete a "callico pen" (tm John Vogt) tonight. A beautiful piece of cocobolo was nearly done when the end splintered. Ouch. I'm beginning to think I should have started with the "cigar" pens and worked down to the 7mm thin-line pens - but then again, why start "easy" - now I know that I can do the thin ones, the fat ones should be no trouble at all. I should do something about the photography for this place - then again, if I did, that would cost money. Which isn't coming in, so I'll be damned if I'm gonna be shifting it out for something stupid like that. Well, I'm off to stare at the idiot box for a while and then go to bed - to count the bumps on the ceiling again. |
Update At 1545
pipe freams +gameboy
Sleep I guess I'm weird (guess? Hell yes I'm weird) but when I was a kid, I hated sleeping with my feet covered. Which is why I kicked out the blankets at the foot of the bed. When I got older, I just bagged the sheets in their entirety, and sleep under a blanket. I've got my own, and Ann is the same way (fortunately), so we don't even have to worry about blanket-hogs. But mine is getting onto sixteen years old, and is getting both thin and worn. Some weeks ago Ann happened to be at the right place at the right time when a friend of hers redecorated, and got a couple of newer blankets. Tossed one on the bed last night, and slept like a baby. Should have done that years ago.
We Need This Like We Need A Hole In The Head... I'm sorry, I missed the memo. Apparently we have 100% employment in this country, and things are so bad for those rich folks trying to hire help that they're bringing in illegal aliens and telling Bush "we DESPERATELY need these people." Sure - unemployment's dropping. You folks who've been here for a while know full well that I'm no longer "unemployed". I'm just "debris" according to the fine folks who do statistics for our government. So, obviously, we've got, what, 5.5% unemployment now? But why, pray tell, do we need to grant illegal immigrants "legal status"? Is it because George Bush is worried that he might not be able to find competent help for the TSA? Or is it because Al Gore took 65% of the Hispanic vote, and George is looking at that block and saying "you know, we need them Mexican-Hispanic folks to push us over the top." Don't get me wrong. I'm not blaming the folks that are in this country, illegally or not, for this plan. They don't write legislation. I'm blaming that flaming moron in the White House for thinking that this is going to win him votes. Here's a classic example of dipshit thinking for this sort of thing... Arizona Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe, for example, has called for a temporary worker program if employers first posted jobs on the Internet for 14 days to give U.S. citizens first crack at the positions. Right. Post the job on the internet for fourteen days? Come on. How about this, instead? Employers are required to post the position on multiple publicly readable internet sites, in addition to local newspapers and signs in the place of business where the position will be located. The position must be posted for thirty days. This way they'll have to prove it wasn't a wee link in the fine print on the bottom of their deepest, darkest page of their web site, they've done what's called "due dilligence" and they're prepared to pay the additional price for hiring non-residents. Racist? No. Reasonable. Protectionist, perhaps, yeah, but we're operating under a significant handicap here - first of all, there's a lot of jobs leaving this country, secondly, there's a lot of regulations (some of which make sense) which we have to work under. It's a handicap that most of the rest of the world (with the exception of Europe) is blessed with avoiding. So far. I most emphatically do not advocate closing our borders - er, as in, to immigration. Reichmarshall Ridge and Reichfuehrer Ashcroft have done wonderful jobs in making sure none of the riff-raff are getting in and causing trouble - and we're still the most beloved nation on earth. Gotta love that. No, I'm in favor of allowing refugees in (REAL refugees, not "I couldn't get Starbucks at home, so it was an emergency"). I'm in favor of allowing a certain amount of immigration - but let's do it LEGALLY. Here's a thought. We have national figures (the last two presidents for sure, and possibly three of the last four) who are either bald-faced liars or certainly incompetent in the extreme. We have "heros" who lie, stick to the lie for fourteen or fifteen years, and then we say "well, perhaps he should be in the Hall of Fame". We have people who are supposed to be business leaders doing everything they can to gut their companies and "get theirs" before they get caught. We have social figures who know the rules, who were responsible for monitoring and enforcing the rules, who instead blow them off and try to save themselves several hundred thousand dollars - and instead cost themselves billions. We have people who break wedding vows, who marry but at twenty-two don't understand what it means, and people who are "looked up to" simply because they are skilled in keeping their names in the public eye. We're a country which has, in the last two years, changed from "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave" to "Home of the Patriot Acts. Shut up, they're listening." Whyinhell wouldn't it be a problem to grant legal status to people who entered illegally? Why NOT just say "sure, go ahead, it's OK, we really don't mean any of that stuff we said." Like "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Whoops. I guess I was wrong. We should allow these illegal immigrants to come on in. And while they're at it, I'm going to open a giant toilet-paper factory just south of the Texas border in Mexico, where I'm going to print "Declaration of Independence" and "Constitution of The United States" toilet paper. Might as well have it in the bathroom - we sure as hell don't have it in the government any more. Update At 2300 I remember because only that December, I had to fly down to Iowa to be with my new wife and her mother as they celebrated their first Christmas without a husband and father - well, I was the new husband, soon (three years later) to be a father, and I had to work. See, I had to work because I was a nice retail "schmuck" and allowed my assistant manager some extra time off over Christmas. He had covered for me two weeks earlier because my father-in-law had died, and I had to drop everything and go to Iowa for the funeral for five days. I'd gotten back, and my new wife was riding down with some friends to her mom's - I was to follow the day after in our car. Except the temperatures that Saturday night in the Parking lot of the Eden Prairie center dropped to well below twenty below zero - and my car would not start. Of course, starting services were available - at a premium. What my vehicle really needed was a night in my apartment building's garage (heated) and an oil change - which I could have done quickly, had I thought it needed it. It should have been done like I'd asked when it was in the shop for repairs. The oil change was due because, on October 9th, four days before I was due to fly to Denver for a sales conference (my first time flying, mind you) and less than two weeks before our wedding (and, coincidentally, my father's birthday), I was hit by a woman running a red light because, as she told the police officer in the presence of witnesses "I couldn't see the color of the light, so I sped up." Um, yeah. Score one for dumb blondes too dumb to be blonde. She totalled her new 1991 Grand Am, nearly totalled my 1990 Ford Tempo, and bounced me off the front end of a 1989 Cadillac El Dorado. The reason we were driving a 1990 Tempo then was because my wife was caught in a rainstorm one May day and a rather moronic woman decided to make a left turn - out of the right turn lane. My wife, being relatively law abiding, had been in that left turn lane, waiting to legally make the turn. The woman did $300 or so worth of damage when she struck my wife's 1984 Ford Tempo - and another $2200 when she backed out. Considering blue book value on the vehicle at the time was something less than $3000 (despite the $1500 we'd put into repairs on the damned thing not three weeks before), it was totalled. So, now that we've run the timeline backwards, let's recap - May, car totalled. October, car struck - just before my trip to Denver, my wedding - car returned in mid-December, just after returning from my father-in-law's funeral, car froze up. Flew to Iowa for Christmas, borrowed a car for the return trip. January also stuck in my mind because my father would be getting a pacemaker (though I didn't know it then). However, January was also cold for another reason. I was in trouble with my boss. This was a huge change from a few months before. I'd been the fair-haired boy. I'd taken a store that was 33% below sales projections (our fiscal year ran October 1 through September 30, so that Christmas Sale Season hit the first Quarter just right, and I'd taken the store over in FEBRUARY. LATE February), and managed to end the year at something like 34.5% OVER - yes, I made up the deficit twice over. I'd also taken a store with huge display potential and done just that. When Microsoft released a new version of Flight Simulator, I promised a couple of kids some demo software (we had that in those days) if they'd bring in model airplanes. We made an airport in the front window - it worked, I sold out of three shipments of MS-FS. I also stuck to procedures. My store was between most of the exec's homes and the home office. Our higher-volume store in Edina was closer to that home office, but my store was easier to get to on the way home. It wasn't unusual for two or three of them to stop in - DAILY - on their way home. I had to be the guy on top of both sales figures, the hot titles, and what was moving. I was the fellow who also had managed to win one for the team. One lazy summer afternoon, a couple of suits showed up with a corporate Marketing person. We'd been carrying video games for a few weeks, and the guys from NEC were underwhelmed by our sales. "What can we do to improve our sales?" they asked. "Well, we've got computers that can demo most of our software" I said, pointing to a display wall with an Amiga 500, Mac Classic XL (I think, one of the last of the original one-piece units with the black-and-white screen), an IBM PS/2 Model 30, and a TV/VCR Combo playing some Godforsaken marketing tape which used Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" - except we'd corrupted it to "Nice Price Baby" - If I ever meet Vanilla Ice in real life, that boy's just dead. "What do you mean?" "Well, give me a video tape or something that can show off your graphics. I've seen the sales demos, and the graphics are almost as good as the Amiga. Show them off!" Step forward three months, and I walk down a hall in a Denver hotel room to the "NEC Suite" where the NEC people are showing off their latest TurboGrafix titles. "There he is" says the suit I'd seen that day. "The guy who started this!" I turn around - in the back of the room is a huge pile of hundreds - over four hundred, actually - NEC TurboGrafix boxes. "Each of you store managers needs to sign this form, and you will receive a TurboGrafix of your own. We only ask that between now and Christmas, you allow your associates to play with it, check it out, and use it for in-store demos. After Christmas, we'll send you a letter. If you've done all of this, sign and date the form and stick it in the envelope we'll provide, and you can keep the game!" Well, duh, who wouldn't say "yeah, I did that". Of course, the Sega people were furious. At dinner that night, John C. Dvorak announced to all of us that the Sega people would be shipping us our Sega consoles, and they would be in the store for us to keep after Christmas - we'd have them in two weeks. Then he pontificated a while on our industry. Some things never change. They even used my store when the bombing started in Desert Storm I - I remember distinctly because we'd had specific instructions for years not to speak to the media on ANY matter, but to direct any requests for comment to the corporate office. I remember that evening well. We had less than $100 in sales for the DAY - which was extraordinarily bad. I'd had $700 in sales in just magazines prior to the computer maker (Northgate - remember them? Yes, the same ones that had the keyboards Dr. Pournelle used to swear by) shutting up shop. That same night, some slackwit store manager opened his yap to a reporter who called for a comment, and there we were on the evening news as the lead story - "War-related software game sales expected to rise upon outbreak of hostilities in Kuwait/Iraq, says local Software Etc. manager." Oy. Fortunately for me, my boss asked the reporter to come to MY store and do a piece - with one of our corporate spokesbeings - to patch it up. I nearly ended up on camera because I'd spoken to a mother who had a son at home, and another flying bombing runs over Iraq. She ended up buying F-117 Stealth Fighter (a flight simulator of the time) so her younger son could see what his older brother was doing. She'd told me he was finally able to sleep nights - first time in months. No, I wouldn't go on camera with the story, my district manager would kill me, I told the reporter (Kevyn Burger - I think she's still local). So I was the fair-haired boy for a while. That was then - or earlier than "then" - we're up to a "earlier now" here in the narrative - specifically, we're up to Christmas, now. I'd gone to Iowa (with his permission) on a flying trip. Literally. I flew down, spent just one night (Christmas Eve) at my Mother-in-Law's, and drove back Christmas Day to be ready to open the store the day after Christmas. I'd left specific instructions for the guys on Christmas Eve to get things ready - when the mall closed, take an extra thirty minutes, drop the "Christmas Season" signs into the back room, haul out the dump tables with the clearance software, and be ready for the store to open. Of course, it wasn't done. And as you might expect, ten minutes after we opened, my boss stopped in and wondered just what the hell had happened. It didn't stop there. Our participation in the previous fall "video game inventory testing" program had both positive and negative benefits. It showed that we were following all store procedures for inventory control - and yet we had lost a number of video games and several gameboys. I had a hunch. One morning, I went to work early - rather than going to the store where my assistant manager was, I went to a nearby Arbys and spent the entire morning writing a letter to my district manager explaining that "Pete" had been a mistake as an assistant manager. I suspected him of the thefts of the video games, and I had a real fear that there were other problems in the store. I wrote the twelve page letter - and threw it out. So when my boss, the district manager, arrived at the store when I was opening the gate that Monday morning, I had a hunch things weren't going to be good. He was brief and to the point. "What happened on the day after Christmas?" "I was out of town on Christmas Eve, I left instructions for the guys to take care of things, they didn't. I arrived at the store straight from the drive up from Iowa - I went to work doing what I could, but two hours wasn't enough for one guy - I had five guys scheduled for a half-hour and they could have done most of it - leaving me only an hour or so worth of work" I thought, but did not say. "I failed." Came out of my mouth. He seemed slightly taken aback. "What happened to your missing video games?" "Because I've got a thieving assistant manager screwing with the counts. Most of the time after he closes and I open, the closing and opening accounts agree - but the sales figures from the previous day do not show him or anyone else selling the items that are no longer in inventory. I check the back packs and briefcases of everyone who works and leaves when I'm on, but I know he does not. I suspect him of stealing." I thought, but did not say. "I failed." I'd said it again. I think he was impressed, though he dared not show it. "Why is the store 20% below plan so far this year?" "Because we were 33% below plan last year in February when I took the store over. But there in front of you over my desk you can see the letter signed by the president of the company which came with my bonus check, thanking me for turning my store from 33% below plan to 34% above plan - and doing it WITHOUT a Christmas season of selling. Add to that an economic downturn, a delay in getting the hot titles this Christmas, and the shutdown of a nearby computer manufacturer which would account for 40% of my lunchtime business, which became 60% of my daily business, and I've got plenty of reasons " I thought, but didn't say. "Because I failed." Three strikes. "Well, John, maybe not you, but your leadership. You've got two choices. Resign now, this morning, give me the keys, return any company property you've checked out, and we'll have your final check for you by the end of business today." "What's option B?" I asked. "You can take a demotion to assistant manager at Edina (four times the volume of my little store, and conveniently replacing the assistant manager there who was going to take over "my" store), "and when the new store opens in Knollwood, I'll take a good long look at your progress." "I'll take plan B" I said. Within two weeks, the assistant manager had been terminated (suspicion of theft). 95% of the staff turned over - only one guy who worked only Sundays remained - and six months after that the store manager left to go to work for a competitor. The Knollwood store opened, and closed, in the same calendar year. Software Etc., went on to buy Babbages, Electronic Boutique, and other software retailers. I think they're still in business, but not in the same way they were when I worked there. So it goes. I'm used to taking one for the team, but from that day to last Monday, I don't think I've been quite as flabbergasted as I'd been when I was given the "Plan A/Plan B" treatment. Me? Six weeks into the "training program" I realized that a 25% pay cut was liable to be permanent if things didn't pan out. I applied for a "customer Service Position with company car after 90 days" and got it - full-time office work, hooray! Looking back at that period, I know the times were definitely dark. But things got better. There's the old saying that "it's always darkest before the dawn." I hope it's true, because it sure looks damned dark to me today. Which must mean things are due to get better - soon. |
Update At 0930 What set my blood to boiling was the part where the reporter called the Pentagon's chief spokebeing, asking for an updated list of wounded - or just the number - and he was told the Pentagon does not track "low-level" information like that, he'd have to contact Central Command. So the reporter contacted Central Command, which said "every day the Pentagon requires us to transmit to them the number of wounded soldiers, and whether or not the are combat or other injuries or illnesses." Okay - so when this guy is asked "why doesn't the Pentagon know about this" he said "That's very interesting." After some digging, the reporter got the number. I figured "okay, killed, less than five hundred so far - wounded, figure five to eight times that." Wrong. Try eighteen times - over 9,000 have been wounded or taken ill since we arrived. Some of those you can blame on accidents, certainly, but it seems pretty obvious that Bush & Co. do not want a parade of body bags coming back from the Mideast. Wonderful things may be happening in Iraq - it'd be nice if they could be happening WITHOUT our having required them in the first place. Wouldn't it just suck to have it proven once and for all that Saddam Hussein was telling the truth and George W. Bush was the liar?
Truly Unremarkable Day After getting the assorted individuals off to their appointed destinations at the appointed times with the assorted gear, I worked on the computer for a bit - then, when I could not keep my eyes open any longer, I gave up and took a nap. From 11:15 to about 1:45. Amid the phone calls (no one left messages, and the numbers were "unavailable" - go figure), I snoozed more than a bit. Got up, shaved off most of my beard, showered, the kids came home, we got Ann, we had dinner, I went to a Scout leader meeting while she took the kids with her to a Girl Scout meeting. Came home, I'm writing this, and then I'm going to bed. Tomorrow, I'm going to finish the sanding on the pinewood derby cars and start the priming. Then we'll paint and get things REALLY going... |
