So much to write about tonight.
Did y'all realize that 40 years ago today (Thursday if you are reading this on Friday) Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty? Yep! 40 years ago today was the opening salvo in the War on Poverty. Ya wanna talk about a quagmire? We got one here. We've thrown trillions at it and all we have to show for it is more poverty. Let's just give up and bring the troops home.
Long time readers know my three simple steps to avoid poverty. These work for 90% of the people.
1. Start working at an early age. Cutting grass. Raking leaves. Flipping burgers. It's called entry level and the work ethic.
2. Stay in school. Finish high school. If you can't afford college go to junior college. If you can't afford that, go to a technical school. If you can't afford that, join the military. That's what I did. I learned electronics and then went to college on the GI Bill.
3. Don't have children you cannot afford.
How hard is that?
But I don't want to talk about poverty tonight. There are more important problems. Like howza 'bout the long lines at women's restrooms? Guys just go in where all the dicks hang out, do their business and leave. For women it's a lot harder. It turns out that there's a solution that Schultzie posted. See. Now women can use urinals.
Enough of that. Let's talk about my yearly evaluation at TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name). I was tempted to get really shitfaced Wednesday night so I would look and feel my best, but instead I stayed sober and wrote a post about gays in the military.
I plopped myself in a chair in my CDSMŽ's(Clueless Dipshit Manager) office and prepared to listen to a bunch of bullshit. He tried the old buddy-buddy stuff and asked me if I had any exotic vacations coming up.
Me: Yeah, I'm going skiing the end of this month.
Him: Uh, you did that last year right?
Me: Yep!
Him: How do you do that? Do you like sit down?
Me: <under my breath> No you stupid sumbitch! I stand up. I'm a fucking cripple. How do you think I do it?</under my breath> Yeah. It's a special rig.
Small talk out of the way we now get down to the meat of the matter.
Him: You have performed in a steady manner just like you did last year (and the year before when you dropped my rating you sorry asswipe! But I'm not bitter.) You are a valuable member of the team. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Then we really get down to the meat of the matter.
Him: You do have this problem dealing with people who are not technical.
Me: No actually I have trouble dealing with idiots and people who are incompetent.
Him: (Taken aback by my honesty) Well, uh, most of those people are no longer with us.
Me: Yeah! They got fired. They got fired because they were incompetent, which is why I had problems dealing with them.
Now that brought us up to the new network guy whom I shall call IWDH (Incompetent Worthless Dickhead).
Him: Now you know that you probably know more about SNA than IWDH, but SNA is not really that important anymore.
Me: Yeah. And I know more about TCPIP than he does also. What's your point?
Him: Well he's not as technical as you are and I don't want you to lose your temper with him.
Me: You don't have to worry about that. I usually laugh when I have to deal with him.
Let me explain the IWDH. Over a year ago, our network guy said he would be leaving at the end of 2003. CDSMŽ's solution was to have IWDH take over. Unfortunately, IWDH didn't want to do that so he drug his feet. My team lead repeatedly told CDSMŽ that IWDH was not the solution to the problem, but, as always CDSMŽ kept his head buried in the sand and ignored the problem. Now, we're stuck with IWDH, which means that my team lead and I have to fix most of the network problems, like we did Monday, and try to explain to IWDH what we did.
Him: (Speechless at my honesty) Uh... Uh... OK. Now when is it you plan to retire (probably hoping it will be at the end of this month)?
Me: May 2005.
Him: Why then?
Me: Because that's when I hit my pension figures.
Him: Well, if we announce another package (probably hoping that we will) and you want to take that (Please! Please! Take it!), be sure to let me know. Now, when you do leave, would you like to come back as a contractor?
This is what he really wants. If I were a contractor, he wouldn't have to deal with me. He would not have to go through evaluations, career counseling, diversity meetings, and other corporate bullshit with me. Plus, I would not report to him. I would report to my team lead.
Me: Sure. I would probably come back just for the comic relief.
What? You said that?
Sure. What's he gonna do? Make me retire? What's kinda neat is I manage all the hardware configurations and the only place that that is documented is in my head. I just can't seem to find the time to document all that stuff. So, I would probably have to come back as a contractor to train my replacement and document the hardware confgurations.
Here is the problem the CDSMŽ has. A few years back I made him look like an idiot. He told one of the incompetent users who complained about me whatever it took to get him out of his office. He then called me on the carpet and told me a procedure had changed. I wrote a sarcastic note to all the people involved clarifying what my manager had told me and agreeing with the new policy. Of course this made my manager look like a butthead (he did all the work, I merely pointed it out), and he had to say that the procedure hadn't changed after all. It wasn't personal. Unfortunately, he took it personally. As a result, he dropped my rating and since it was personal, I could walk on water and I will never be rated higher.
So explain to me why I should put forth any more effort than that required to keep my job. My manager missed the part of management school that covered motivation.
Let me tell you sumpin' about myself. I am very good at what I do. I once described myself as Dilbert on crack. I can work rings around most MVS systems programmers. I could be one of this guy's most solid performers. I have a track record. My competent users have nothing but good things to say about me. Yes, I am a prima donna. I admit it. But not anymore. Now I am Wally. Because I pissed this manager off, he has taken a highly motivated person and turned him into someone who doesn't really give a flying fuck.
On the upside, I come into work, do what I want, laugh at all the bullshit (and there is lots of bullshit to laugh at) and go home. I don't bust my butt anymore. What is ironic about all this is that I could make this manager look a lot better than he does, but he allowed personal feelings to interfere with his management decisions. Of course, he could fix it by offering me lots of money (Yeah, I'm a whore. I admit it.) but that ain't gonna happen.
Him: Is there anything else you want to discuss?
Me: Nope. Send me the evaluation (electonically) and I'll sign it.
As I have said before, work is fun when you don't give a shit.
Posted by denny at January 8, 2004 09:34 PM