At work we have a client that is extremely unhappy with us, and has threatened to take their business elsewhere. They have a large contract with us and where their loss wouldnÂ’t be devastating; with the state of the economy we just donÂ’t want to lose anything.

In order to appease this client some very unorthodox concessions were made. Without going into too many details, what they are asking for would be something akin to those that work in a manufacturing area having each individual part made by hand instead of using machines. Coiling springs, bending tubes, filling bottles, loading trucks one piece at a time with out the used of any mechanical assistance or tools, each piece being identical and still keeping the same deadlines. Yea, trust me, itÂ’s like that.

This agreement was entered into by executives and marketing with full knowledge that our painfully inadequate systems couldn’t handle the request. They turned the “how to” over to our director to work out. Now I’ve had my falling out of favor with my director and upper management since Okla-farooking-homa. Heck, remember I was in talks with the state’s attorney last December and January over possible fraudulent activities. I’ve pretty much been persona non-grata for so long now that they don’t even complain when I don’t go to meetings.

When I was called into a meeting with the director and she was asking me what we could do to implement this agreement, I was floored. They havenÂ’t asked my opinion on anything in so long that at first I just sat their quietly thinking she misspoke. When it became abundantly clear she hadnÂ’t, I really wasnÂ’t sure what to say. We spoke for a good hour on the situation, kicking around various ideas and doing the pros and cons over the different solutions. At the end I was assigned a task of overseeing the creation and implementation of the agreed upon procedures.

She gave me full control to make any changes I deemed necessary and to use any resources I felt necessary. I asked if I was going to have to run anything past my assistant manager or managers. The director advised me that for this case, I only had to keep her informed and run any major changes past her. I would have no “interference” from upper management in the office “like in the past”.

IÂ’ll be honest, my jaw about hit the floor.

My being a normally suspicious person, I started to think they were setting me up. I started adding caveats to various things like, “I can’t guarantee” or “There’s too much room for error” and the like through out the conversation. My director flat out told me, “There is a huge percentage of this failing and our loosing the client. We know that, but we want to do everything in our power to keep them.” I couldn’t help but ask why she chose me for this task. Actually hearing her say that she felt not only was I the best person for this job, with my background, skills and abilities, but that I would work the hardest to make sure everything was done to please this client in her opinion left me stunned.

It almost made me feel like they appreciated me.

I wonder what sheÂ’ll say on Monday when she finds out we are already ahead of schedule.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:10 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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A man sits in a meeting. His attention has waned because the topic of discussion does not apply to him or his department. At one point his mind starts to drift to thoughts that ought not to be had in a work environment. His name is called and heÂ’s pulled out of his day dream, slamming him back into the cold, ugly reality that is the conference room.

Since he wasn’t paying attention, he doesn’t know what was asked of him, only that he heard his name. “I’m sorry, what was the question?” was his response. Everyone else chuckles because they know he was not paying attention. The person holding the meeting laughingly asks, “Not paying attention?”

“Oh, I was.” Says the man, “Just not to you.”

The rest of the room erupts in laughter, the host nervously laughs.

Two hours after the meeting, the man is told of another meeting he has to go to now. One that involves his manager and assistant manger.

All the man can think of is, “where did I leave off in that day dream?”

Posted by: Contagion at 05:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Sometimes people meet just don’t get along. It could be because of political or religious beliefs. Maybe it’s because of an incident in their past, such as a perceived slight or insult. Sometimes it’s just because their personalities clash. I’m sure we’ve all seen this. Ron meets Jerry for the first time at a friend’s house. Afterwards while speaking with the mutual friend they make the comments, “I don’t know, I just don’t like that guy. He’s a total douchebag.” These are the most fun, because they can spiral out of control quickly. They almost look for things to not like each other about.

Now these two can be even more “fun” in the workplace. Yea, you may not have to like each other, but you have to work together. They will do good for a while, and then something will blow up and they will drag everyone they know into it.

Well, I have this situation at work, and me being me, I couldnÂ’t help but to take advantage of it for nothing more than to make myself laugh. I have a Peer which henceforth shall be known as Talkative Peer (she never shuts up and turns a 15 minute meeting into a 2 hour meeting), who has a personality clash with another member of management that will be from now on referenced as Sports Girl, because she coaches and plays a lot of sports. Sports Girl and Talkative Peer have disliked each other for at least 3 years. They have always clashed and sometimes the arguments get so involved it was brought to staff meetings to resolve. We donÂ’t dare let them be in the same room alone. Yes, they hate each other that much.

Sports Girl used to be a peer, but she took a voluntary re-assignment to an Inventory Management position (similar to one I used to have). She didnÂ’t like the responsibility of having direct reports. In her position, we report to the same asst. manager. On Friday before I left for the weekend, they dropped the bomb on us that our current asst. manager is being moved to the other department in the office, and my entire department is going to report to one asst. manager, instead of two. Because of this Sports Girl is now going to have to report to someone at my level instead of an asst. manager.

IÂ’m sure you see where this is going, but IÂ’m going to finish the story anyway.

I walk up to Sports Girl this afternoon and say to her, “I hear you are going to be reporting to Talkative Peer” (Talkative peer has other management reporting to her, so this is a plausible situation.) Sports Girl eyes grew three times their size, her jaw fell into her lap, the blood drained from her face leaving her once copper tanned skin the moon pale look of a night shifting computer geek that only sees the sun when he has to wonder to the comic book store to buy the latest limited edition Laura Croft action figure to “play” with.

She looks at me with a horror that I had truly never seen in any humans eyes before in my life. Tears started forming, and her eyes became bloodshot. You could actually watch as the tiny veins filled causing the read lines to spread across the sclera (White part of the eye). Her breathing increased and small beads of sweat started to form on her forehead. In a very thin and wispy voice she says, “wh-what?”

Now I could have been nice and let her off at this point, but to be honest IÂ’m not that nice. So I said:

“You’re going to be reporting to Talkative Peer.”

Her eyes almost rolled back in her head and she wobbled a little in her chair.

Her, “Really?”

At this point, before it turned into a medical emergency because she was starting to hyperventilate. I let her off the hook with a, “Nah, I’m just horsing around.”

Her look of horror contorts into a glare of anger. Her wide open eyes narrow, her almost corpse like complexion flushes back to an angry red. I swear you could almost see the veins in her eyes bulge! Her muscles clench as if sheÂ’s getting ready to try to attempt to remove an arm and beat me with it.

“THAT’S NOT FUNNY!!!!”

Me, “The hell it’s not!” Meanwhile I’m barely able to stay upright from the laughter. The rapid and complete change of moods from content in work, to deep seeded fear and finally to rage in under 30 seconds. The complete physical transformation that went with it was HILARIOUS!

I’m holding onto the edge of her desk because I’m laughing hard enough to get dizzy. I’m trying not to laugh so loudly I distract the entire office, so I’m trying to hold it in. Watching me laugh so hard, she started laughing. Called me a jerk and said that “I was a real bastard” She only got away with the last one because I actually like her.

She told me that since Friday when she heard about this whole issue, she had feared that was what was going to happen to her. So when I verbalized her “worst fears” the thought that they wouldn’t have told her first ever crossed her mind. We then had a brief conversation about who she doesn’t want to have as a boss. She said she would rather have me then most of my peers. I told her she was a damn liar. Of course that got a chuckle out of her.

This is good, because sheÂ’s a bit uptight. Okay you could put a lump of coal up her arse and get a diamond in 24 hours.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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My company has decided that it is going to start to experiment with the new frontier of cost containment, employee retention and moral boosting. They are going the way of Work From Home!

We have been discussing this for over a year now. We’ve had some employees that already were working from home, because their jobs required a lot of travel and they where issued corporate lap tops. Over a year ago they decided to start rolling it out to positions that normally were “in the office” only. With the success they had there, they expanded it and just 2 weeks ago I sent a third of my minions home to work.

I have fifteen minions that directly report to me. There was a battle over which ones would go home. Now, I had wanted to take them out to the parking lot and have a last person standing competition for the slots, the other lairds decided that “No, we’re only going to send the best of the best home!” Okay, sure they deserve it, but what fun is it to determine where they get to work based on merit and ability as opposed to which one can claw the other’s eyes out faster? I’m kidding; don’t go all offended on me. I wouldn’t want one of my minions to loose an eye… then I’d have to hire a new one because the old one would be useless. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

Seriously though, since IÂ’ve sent my five minions home, they have not only shown an increase in productivity, but they really seem to like it. At first all five had the same concern about missing the social aspect of working on the job. Through the use of IM, e-mail and phone, they all say that they really havenÂ’t lost that much contact with their fellow minions that are working in the office.

For me itÂ’s nice because I get 1/3 less interruptions during the day. Where in the past they would just walk up to my desk and start spouting questions, now they have to call, IM or e-mail me. I can ignore those until a more opportune time to answer it. It frees me up to be able to manage my time better.

The only down side to this is that it is much harder to play pranks on people. Plus when I’m horsing around with them, I can’t give them an empty box when they “Cross the line” and tell them to pack up their desk. I mean they’re already home! I don’t want to have to go get that stuff from them!

But there are still ways to do it.

Like “turning off” their IP address on the firewall and telling them that their ISP is no longer an accepted carrier due to security issues and that they will have to return to the office permanently. My minion called me instantly when she saw that IM. That was hilarious. I only wished I could have recorded that phone call to share with all of you. She wouldn’t let me get a word in for five minutes as she gave me excuses and what she’s going to do to fix it and all of this other stuff before I told her that I was kidding and “turned on” her IP address. Funnier still was the IM I received an hour later, “I should have known better but I thought you wouldn’t be able to pull pranks on us once we were out of the office.”

Yes, a new and challenging form to have fun!

Posted by: Contagion at 06:32 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Last week my work sent me to Springfield (state capital) for an overnight visit. I have an easy time finding my hotel, but when I get there, the entire parking lot is blocked off. There is no way in or out. Now I'm not a fan of the hotel I was staying at, I only went there because that was the only hotel my company would cover the expenses. I have to park in the overflow lot.

After a nice long trip, I really wasn't in the mood for this crap, so I focused on getting to the door. I tried to keep my frustration and annoyance under control. Then when I get to the door with my one small bag. It was only an overnight trip. I'm stopped by a guy asking me, "What is your business here at the hotel". Of course I'm a little miffed because I'm thinking what a bunch of pretentious bastards. There hotel isn't that swag that they have to keep people out. I explained to the guy that I have a reservation to stay the night and that I need to check in. So he lets me go.

I'm swearing under my breath.

I get to the desk and check in. So I can't help but to ask, "Hey, what's up with the parking lot?" The girl at the desk responded with, "Obama's coming". I knew he was coming to Springfield for Lincoln's 200th birthday, but what does that have to do with their parking lot? When I asked her, she clarified, "No, Obama is coming HERE, he's staying in the hotel." When she said that, little things started to stick out in my memory. What vehicle's that were parked in the roped off area were all black and some kind of nice heavy SUV. The guy at the door, all the activity. It started to make sense.

After putting my bags in my room, I headed out to dinner. As I'm walking out I look at the guy(s) at the door and notice the ear pieces this time. I look at the plates on the big heavy SUVs, and they all have government plates. Some were senate plates, some where house plates, some were just Fed and State government plates.

When I checked out Wednesday apparently I missed Obama by a couple of hours. Honestly, that's as close as I ever want to get to the man.

Then the fun really began when I got to work on Wednesday. I walk into the office at 8:00 AM to hear that the entire building is being besieged by a computer virus. I spent the next 16 and a half hours helping coordinate the clean up with the IT guys that my company shipped in from all over the state. Yes, I said 16 and a half hours. I started my job at 8:00AM and didn't get off of work until 12:30 AM. I was tired as all hell.

I get home, and crash at 1:00AM only to get up at 4:30AM so I can get to work by 5:30AM. I needed to finish up what we started the night before. I was so tired that I kept making some very interesting verbal mistakes. Like telling one of my bosses that "this virus sucks the sweat off of a stump broke donkey". Yea, she gave me the same look you probably have on your face right now.

Since then I've still been doing some clean up on the computers at work. Which is why I haven't been my normal chatty and active self. It's also why there was no beer review last week.

Posted by: Contagion at 08:14 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I leave today to head to Springfield, Illinois on business. My company is sending me down there for a seminar. It sounds like it's going to be a really interesting one too! I'm pretty sure I'm going to be sleeping through most of it. They had two dates for this seminar, February 11th and February 12th. I had to attend on one of those dates.

All of my peers are supposed to attend as well. They, being undecisive lemmings that they are, decided to wait and "discuss it at our meetings" before signing up for a date. Me, I choose the date that worked best for me and signed up right away. When they finally got around to making a decision, they all had to go on the 12th. So I'm the only one from my office going on the 11th! Not that I have a problem with that at all.

For a week now they were all planning on leaving at noon on the 11th so they could go shopping when they got to Springfield. They included our office manager. When they said that, and I knew I was going to be going by myself I thought I would leave early to scout out Springfield for my trip next month for IGOLD.

I a meeting they were discussing when they were going to leave and it turned out they couldn't leave until 3:00 because of anotehr meeting our manager was in. Then I was asked what time I was leaving today. I told them, "I'm leaving at 2." I didn't figure it was a big deal.

When one of my peers asked kind of snottily, "Why are you leaving so early?", I was a little taken back because she was one of the ones pushing to leave at noon to go shopping. So I responded with, "Well I don't shop, but I decided to go down early to get some range time in."

Another one of my peers responded with, "I didn't know you golfed"

I responded smugly, "No, shooting range."

At that point they let it drop and wouldn't make eye contact with me for the rest of the meeting. Hopefully they learned to let their double standards go.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:10 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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My day at work was spent mostly in meetings. From 30 minutes after the time I arrived until 45 minutes before I left. I had a 15 minute break in the day for a lunch, but that was it. Of course I put in a 10 hour day on top of it.

You'd think I would have completed something, in the end nothing was accomplished other than me wasting a day.

I feel so productive.

Posted by: Contagion at 09:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm sorry about the tardiness on this update, but it's been a hectic day.

Ktreva came out of her surgery with no complications. They took more surface tissue off and again, the wound is open until the get the rest of the biopsies back. She's in a lot of pain right now. The area was already sensitive from the previous surgery and now the added procedure just compounded that pain. She's being a trooper about the pain.

However, she is still NOT following doctor's orders. She was told not to stretch, lift anything over a gallon of milk at the most, and to just rest and take it as easy as possible. Yea, well she's not doing any of the above. She stretched to hang up Christmas cards, has lifted suitcases and laundry baskets, attempted to put groceries away before I could get to them, etc. Yea, she's on the naughty list... and not the good naughty list.

Her stocking would be filled with coal, except I can't afford coal, and actually with the asking price, it's a pretty expensive gift!

Other than that, she's doing good. We are expecting to hear what else needs to be done with in a week. We know she'll have to have at least one more surgery, to close the wound. Hopefully that will be it.

On a bright side I did get some good news on my work situation. I'm pretty much out of danger from going to jail. Sarbanes Oxley (SOx) doesn't apply to my company. Even though we are voluntarily complying for with it's regulations. My company is a not for profit company and not publicly traded. SOx is designed to protect investors after the Enron and MCI Worldcom scandals. Thus, thanks to that loophole I'm clear of any unintentional or accidental wrong doing! Either way, I've amended how I sign off on the reports.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to go make sure Ktreva is sitting down and taking it easy.

Posted by: Contagion at 08:05 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Some things have come to head today at work, and I'm really, really worried that I may end up going to jail.

Before I went to Oklahoma, my office started some practices that were a little questionable. Now before I go any further, it's not my company, just the local office where I work. When I returned from Oklahoma I started questioning their new practices and work flows. In October I pointed out how because of these flows could be causing us to violate state law and federal law. Things got worse and when I had proof that we were indeed violating law, I pointed it out to management, which they ignored.

In November when I had to approve the pay out of fines and penalties, I gave them reports and documentation of the various violations that were perpetuated due to their decisions and policies. My information was ignored and the decision was made to continue on with their existing, and non-working, policies and procedures.

I kept warning, advising and documenting everything for management, going up to the director level... and it was all ignored. Last Wednesday, in a review, one of the managers made a comment that we were doing something that we absolutely were NOT. At that point I kind of came unglued and in a rampage worthy of my being sent to sensitivity class again, I spilled the beans. Including making the statement that, "I've been warning you since September about this, and you all ignored me." Later that day, in another meeting about something completely unrelated, we were interrupted by another member of management questioning a couple of inquiries. A blatant lie was told and I came unglued again. This time I went off with enough force that I really think I scared the management in the office that I might do something drastic.

One of the managers made the comment, "If you knew this was happening and these policies wasn't working, don't you think as a supervisor you should have brought it to managements attention?" I don't think a nuclear explosion had the volatility as my response. I pointed out that I had spoken up since September, that I pointed it out in various meetings, e-mails and memos. It was all ignored or swept under the rug. Then I broke the bombshell that I had proof and documentation of it.

Since then it has been an never ending cycle of management higher and higher up getting involved and it's the same thing every time.

Today we had a huge meeting regarding this issue and the director involved made a comment regarding a new plan... which is just like the old one... to resolve the problem. This time I couldn't hold myself back at all and made the comment that if they enact that plan they may want to talk with the State's Attorney because we are going to have their office investigating us by the end of the year.

I even made a comment that, those that have spoken with me may find this shocking, "(this) is completely unethical. I can no longer stand by and watch as policies and procedures are enacted that violate every moral and ethic of my being. You all acknowledge that what is going on is wrong, yet you continue to do it in hopes of covering up what was already done. My morals and ethics demand that I do not participate in these policies and procedures that I know are resulting in blatant violations of the law." For those of you that don't know me personally, I tend to joke around that I have no morals or ethics.

I had a one on one meeting with the director and explained that I can no longer instruct my staff to continue following these policies and procedures and I will not. I left her office to go back to my desk to issue new instructions to my staff and gather documentation to cover my arse.

As I was doing so I discovered that a little report that they had me checking and told me to "Sign off on" every week wasn't for exactly what they told me. It was part of the record retention for Sarbaines-Oxley (SOx)

Now I had been signing off on these thinking they were one thing, but in reality they where something else. It's my name on these reports and for what they were intended, they were not exactly accurate. Now I'm worried that when the investigation begins, I may end up being prosecuted since it's my name on these reports and I can NOT produce on ounce of evidence that I was instructed incorrectly.

Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

Right now as I sit here drinking a bottle of whiskey trying to calm down, I'm worried that I may end up going to jail.

Posted by: Contagion at 09:23 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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A peer of mine came to me today to warn me about a nefarious plot. Allegedly some of my peers have spent weeks gathering information to prove that I have not been doing a certain task on a daily basis that I'm supposed to do. Of course this is going to be brought up in a meeting tomorrow morning.

As my peer was telling me about it, I picked up a stack of papers and said, "Yep, I haven't been doing these on a daily basis. Heck, if they asked I would have told them." My peer just stood at my blankly for a second and just burst out laughing. Her response was, "Good lord Contagion, I didn't think you'd actually admit to it!" My response was, "Why would I deny it? I haven't been doing it daily for 6 months. It's a waste of time. It only needs to be done twice a week." We both laughed at the whole thing, because the project I didn't do, was one she gives me daily.

I mean seriously, I never claimed to be doing it. I never said I was going to do it daily, and I never, ever, agreed that it should be done daily. Thus why would I deny not doing it daily?

The best part is that they spent all this time trying to nail me with something by trying to catch me in a lie. Yet, if they had just said something in a meeting I would have admitted it right off the bat. So now I'm going to ask tomorrow in the meeting why my peers felt the need to spend all this time trying to monitor me. Isn't that my supervisor's job?

Posted by: Contagion at 08:19 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Well, after a month of being back work is starting to return to normal. I'm still getting the shaft, but I'm not getting screwed.

Our inventory manager went off on vacation and since I used to hold a similar position to her, I got nominated to cover for her while she was gone. Of course I wasn't in the meeting that this was decided. They communicated I was going to be doing it by e-mail, why I was in a staff meeting. So I didn't find out until I was out of the meeting. When I responded by e-mail to the inventory manager that she would have to show me what to do, I received an out of the office message. Come to find out she left for her vacation right after she sent me the e-mail.

I've spent the last couple of days trying to figure out how to do her reports, which are completely different from what I used to do. Then I've spent hours trying to figure out how she got her data, which I'm not being very successful. Unfortunately I'm not getting very far. I'm getting pressure from other people in my office, however they aren't willing to step up and help. So I'm just doing the best I can and letting it go, my excuse is, "I'm teaching myself."

Now I'm going to sit back, have a drink and work on my resume.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:22 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 People suck.

Posted by: Rave at October 08, 2008 06:33 AM (2M/UD)

2 Yeeah, sounds to me like a set up. People suck.

Posted by: Wes at October 08, 2008 07:38 AM (1crE/)

3 for crying out loud that place sucks! Make sure that resume is really good!

Posted by: Carmen at October 08, 2008 01:38 PM (ICKzK)

4 oh yea - saw a pic of you in your "celebrate diversity" shirt - I bought the same one for my husband - he loves it.

Posted by: Carmen at October 08, 2008 01:38 PM (ICKzK)

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Well I've been in the office a whopping whole 7 business days. In that time nothing has been brought up about my little, uh, heated expressing of dissenting opinions. However I have discovered that I have reached a level of "I don't give a damn" that I've never reached before. Including, I think, a nasty case of self-sabotaging behaviors. Such as telling a manager that bad management by her does not mean that there is an emergency for my team.

Oh something about the BlogCrawl must have gotten out at work. Some rumors about me, and AK-47 and a printer are working their way through the employees.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:17 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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One last explosion from Coo Coo for Cocoa Puffs.

Two hours sitting on a tarmac at the Tulsa Airport due to flight delay because of weather

Three seats in a row, me in the middle

Four and a half hours of being stuck in the plain on a 1 hour 45 minute gate to gate flight.

Five buses that arrive and leave before my bus arrives to bring me from O'hare to Rockford. Due to a traffic accident on 90 holding everything up.

Six hours and 45 minutes from boarding the plane, I finally arrive in Rockford.

It's all worth it to be home.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:39 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Have you ever been pushed so far that you just can't take it anymore? Well I hit that point today. Since I've been down here in Tulsa this round the communication has been absolutely horrible. I get told one thing from one person, another tells me something different, then a third contradicts both of them. What the hell is with that?

I came down here with a set of directives to get accomplished. The first week they they changed those directives 4 times, most of the time I'm not finding out about it after the fact when someone gets pissed because my team didn't do what they wanted done. Then they were making changes with my classes with out telling me and then expecting me to be able to support all of this when they spread my resources to absolutely nothing.

I couldn't take it anymore after everything else when I had a peer down here get on my case because I was teaching something that someone else had told me to teach. All my frustration, anger and irritation over this whole thing came to a boiling point.

I

went

OFF!

After a bout a 30 minute tirade involving three peers and a manager down here and my basically telling them where they can shove their support for the next three months, I finally calmed down. Even as I walked back to my desk I knew that probably was not the wisest decision to make. It's pretty much guaranteed to be repercussions for my actions.

Flash forward to 4:30. I get an IM from my manager. She wants to talk to me about the support for the class. Okay, I kind of new that wasn't all she wanted to talk about. She told me she was going to be on a conference call until 5:00. I told her I'd be back in the hotel by then, but she could call me on my cell.

I get the call. We discuss changes back in Rockford the need for support for that, the classes, personel and finally she says that they decided that I would better benefit the company back in Rockford than down here.

Fine

By

Me.

So I'm coming home on Friday for good. I will not be coming back down to this cesspool of a project. I'm washing my hands of it completely.

Thank Jebus.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:18 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Before I came down here, Blogspawn Bruce advised me that my traveling companion is a couple of sandwichs short of a picnic. I never realized that she truly is insane. I'm not sure if she's bi-polar, paranoid, manic depressive or what, but damn the girl is CooCoo for Coco Puffs. I'm talking boiling the bunny crazy. She also has the social graces of an 8 year old.

She's staying down here this weekend with me, and honestly I'm a little afraid. I'm big enough that I can take her physically, but she might have that captain insane-o strength or just do something when my back is turned. So if for some reason you don't hear from me in a while, let me tell you now; Those of you that know my traveling companion give the police her name.

I'm going to try to avoid her as much as possible over the next couple of days, but I don't know if that's going to be possible. Next week I'm going to try to stay as far away from her as possible, which will be hard when we are in the same room.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:54 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Geeze louise... my work is simply overwhelming - yours is downright scary!!! Holy crap boy. Take care of yourself.

Posted by: Teresa at September 04, 2008 09:53 PM (mMa3+)

2 Dang, this makes me wonder who it is, but chances are pretty good I wouldn't know her anyway...

Posted by: Shadoglare at September 05, 2008 05:37 AM (jHfl8)

3 Hell I work with barking mad people all day and they are driving cars and trucks. As to the problems at work it might be that the reason your having all the trouble is the folks on the other end found out that their jobs are going south. So they're being alittle difficult. Just some thouhts of a former diguntled worker.

Posted by: wil at September 06, 2008 07:40 AM (Xw6pC)

4 Heh- you have my business card dude. And if worse comes to worse, call 911 and ask for a C.I.T officer....they know what to do.

Posted by: Rave at September 06, 2008 09:17 PM (hVKpB)

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After last weeks debacle my stress level was through the roof. Then I had a great relaxing and fun weekend. Now today I was at work no more than two hours when the stress came back. Everything started falling apart. I started catching flack for shit other people did. Finally, the staff that I was promised didn't show up today.

I couldn't locate them anywhere. Fortunately they were on a different flight and someone forgot to tell me the change in flight plans. But for about an hour I was stressing over how I was going to handle the week.

My slightly mental companion returned this week and is back to old tricks. That really wasn't what I needed. I've figured that she doesn't realize that I don't play games and that this is going to come back to haunt her. Either way it is not helping me out.

Now the upside is that I have more support than what I need this week. One office sent an extra person for support and another office sent a person up that wasn't supposed to. I don't know what I'm going to do with all of this support. Especially the office that sent a person that wasn't supposed to, she doesn't know the book of business that we are training.

System issues that were supposed to be taken care of last week, weren't. Access issues that were supposed to be completed two weeks ago weren't. And stuff that was supposed to be in place today hadn't even been started.

I'm pretty sure once this project is over I'm going to actively look for a new job. I know it's going to kill my re-enacting, but seriously my grey hair is coming in so fast that for those of you that know me, I'm starting to get the Reed Richards (Mr. Incredible, Fantastic Four) look. You know, where the side of my head is mostly grey.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:43 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Okay the first week in this trip to OK is done. This time things are going much smoother than the last trip down here. We did have a couple of major set backs, but I've taken care of those. There was a snafu with the plans for the next part of this conversion. Some are saying the next classes are canceled and I won't need to come and others are saying that we still need to be here. We aren't sure yet what is exactly going on. Because of the canceling of the next class I determined that it wasn't cost effective to have my traveling companion for this week to be down here.

She was to learn the product so that in October she could teach and help with the classes. But if they aren't having the classes in October then we don't need her down here learning this. They felt they had enough staff that additional classes wouldn't be needed by then and that they should be able to handle it.

When I told her that I was going recommending she be sent back home. She came unglued and went a wee bit psycho on me. I'm actually a little afraid she might do something stupid. She made accusations that I was stabbing her in the back... (Which I don't understand because this project has nothing to do with her.) Due to us not having any confirmation on what is going on with the next class I determined that I was going to let her stay, but that's only because I don't have any other resources.

Ktreva is going to a Re-enactment this weekend. It's her first without me. Originally she was supposed to work this weekend, so I didn't even try to get out of working this weekend. Then she didn't have to work, but it was too late for me to make plans to come home. Thus I'm down here for the holiday weekend and she is off re-enacting. Yea, I'm a bit jealous.

However, I get to do a little road tripping this weekend. I'm going to Oklahoma City to meet up with Rave of Quid Nunc and then I'm heading to Dallas to hook up with Bloodspite of Techography. So I'm going to have a good long weekend ahead of me. I may not be re-enacting, but at least I'll be busy!

Posted by: Contagion at 05:53 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Oh that's great - Rave is a great gal!! Have fun!

Posted by: Richmond at August 30, 2008 02:24 PM (TwLUK)

2 I told you......Let me say it again...I TOLD YOU!!!

Posted by: Bruce at September 02, 2008 04:56 PM (G9jO6)

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Things are going much smoother with project this time. There have been a couple of set backs and hitches that we didn't foresee, but other than that everything seems to be going really smoothly. I don't think I could have asked for this to go any better than how it is going right now.

The other bright side is that the last time I was in Hilton Doubletree in Downtown Tulsa. This time I am in the Hyatt Place suites. Which are really nice. I have a kitchen sink, fridge, work desk, 44 inch plasma TV with HD connections, A sectional couch with a large ottoman and some really nice decorations. This is a really nice hotel. I'm really more comfortable here than at the other hotel.

The Hyatt is a bit further away from the office than the Doubletree, but it's worth it. Especially since there is a ton of places with in walking distance for food, drink and snacks. Since I'm going to be here for five weeks, that's pretty handy.

I'm still looking for anyone down here that wants to get together. I'm working on something with Rave of Quid Nunc for Labor Day Saturday, let me know if you want to join us.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:49 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Ahhh you were actually able to get them to cough up a few more bucks for an extended-stay hotel eh? Cool deal.

Posted by: Shadoglare at August 26, 2008 09:12 PM (zCpon)

2 Are you going to visit the museums and be a tourist? If so, let me know how it goes. I love first hand info on different cities.

Posted by: vw bug at August 27, 2008 04:10 AM (FPOeI)

3 So this is what the rooms look like? http://www.hyatt.com/hyatt/place/virtual.jsp?room=g Wow, pretty dang swanky...

Posted by: Shadoglare at August 27, 2008 03:11 PM (Volhe)

4 Glad things are starting to look up for you dude. Take care.

Posted by: Wes at August 28, 2008 07:19 AM (1crE/)

5 tiffany rings,tiffany Necklaces,tiffany Bracelets,tiffany Earrings,tiffany Charms,cisco routers

Posted by: tiffany jewelry at February 10, 2009 12:21 AM (zfzkt)

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After my overly morose and really depressing posts of yesterday IÂ’ve drank my way out of my funk. A case of beer just doesnÂ’t last as long as it once did!

When I walked out of the hotel this morning it was already a baumy 92 degreesÂ… at 7:45AM! The high today reached a heat index of 110, the low tonight is 79. ThatÂ’s not a low, thatÂ’s a farooking high! While it was so hot they had various heat index warnings issued for the area, back home was gettingÂ… is gettingÂ… pelted by storms. My support was supposed to fly in and be here by 10:00AM, basically leaving me on my own with the trainees for about 2 hours.

Well those storms really screwed up those plans. They were scheduled to depart at 8:00 AM. They couldnÂ’t board the plane until 8:45. Even after boarding they were not allowed to take off. The plane was taxied all over the airport to different run ways only to be reassigned to others as the weather broke. Employee-M called me on her cell phone at 9:15 AM to tell me that they were trapped on the runway. Finally the plane was able to take off, at 10:15!

Since they had been on the plane so long, Employee-M had to use the restroom. When she got went in, the toilet was full. Not the unflushed kind of full, but as the tank is full and there is no room left in the tank for you to flush anything more into. She called it to the attention of the flight attendant. Apparently they were not planning on a lot of people using the toilet, so the tank wasnÂ’t emptied between flights. Well an hour and a half on the runway would fill most tanks on a commuter toilet. The flight attendant had to get onto the intercom and let all the passengers know that the toilet was full. They still had an hour and half flight ahead of them. From the way my staff reported, the smell was horrible and permeated the entire cabin.

They finally got to Tulsa at 12:15PM. Then it was back to class. Fortunately the class seems to be doing really well with the materials and was not much of a trouble at all for me by myself. When they were finally in the classroom with me, I was able to sit down and get caught up on some of the other work I needed to get done. There is a better than good chance that I can actually make up a lot of time this week.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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After getting up and the butt crack of way too early, I jumped my turbulence strewn flight to Tulsa. Folks, let me tell you somethign right now. If you've ever flown out of O'Hare, you know it's a nightmare. Tulsa Int Airport is the exact opposite. The people here are polite, friendly, helpful and actually are civil... completely unlike O'Hare.

When I get into the office, I check to see if the access to the programs I requested last week finally went through. Which it hadn't. After making a dozen phone calls, sending out a couple dozen e-mails and then finally reading someone the riot act, access was granted and we were able to get work done. I'm supposed to finish up tomorrow, and that may actually catch me up to only 2 days behind schedule!

That's good news.

However, they pretty much confirmed I'm going to be down here off and on through September. They are going to let me stay home for two weeks, and then send me back for another 3-4 weeks. So all of you Oklahomians (Oklahomites?), If we weren't able to get together you still have a chance.

Posted by: Contagion at 08:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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