The only person in my chain of command at work that I consider a decent person has just quit. She is being replaced with someone who had the reputation of being very strict.
Chris Andersen, who has been in my chain of command for 4 months, is methodically interviewing all first line management to get a full job description of everyone that works under him. He has not yet interviewed my Boss. This includes all contractors as well.
We will be retiring or putting systems in VMWare so that we can reduce headcount. There are many legacy systems that can just be stopped.
I will think positive. And if they let me go, the only complication is my debt.
Being the company that they are, I wonder if they will make staff reductions in January, so that they don't have to pay those people their annual bonus, which comes due in February.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
The Benefit of a Good Night's Sleep
I have been getting a Reflexology massage each friday for 2 nights now, right after work. Then I go and buy some Fiji Water, and drink it all that night and the next day. Fiji water taste wonderful to me, so it is easy to get myself tyo drink a lot.
The reflexology treatment breaks up the toxins that have settled in the body. so the water is necessary to flush tem out. Otherwise, they just settle back into the body at various places.
My feet look 5 times better than they have over the last 5 years because of these treatments.
And I sleep well on Friday nights
It had been a hard week. I mis-managed my meds again, and this time it was serious. I forgot to pick up my refill of Xanax on the evening I needed too. So I went 2 days without Xanax.
One the second day, I felt depressed, groggy, slow moving and clouded thoughts. What made it serious is that I could not figure out why I felt this way. I could not remember about the Xanax right away. I finally figured it out, and sacrificed my lunch-period to go get it. I felt better quickly.
When I awoke this morning, my brain had figured out a big design issue in the project I am doing that I did not have a clear idea of what to do. I had partial ideas, but I just didn't pay attention to thisd because I was 100% involved on the part I am creating now.
I have seen this pattern regularly. When I get a good night's sleep, and sleep about 12 hours, I get wake up with really good ideas about whatever is bothering me or is an issue for me.
My peer at work, who I have been callling Sam, is such a pain in the ass.
I have been focusing on the display pportion of the WebApp I am building because I had to do that first in order to create displays that I could put in the design document. So I have not yet created any datasbase tables.
I did create a Java Bean that will be associated with a tabble this next week. Typically, you create the table, then the bean. Because of this, my peer assumed that I was doing somethign wrong. In our last project meeting, when I spoke about starting the SQL next week, he blurted out: "You know you have to create tables before you can write the SQL". I said "Of, course". I didn't realize what he had been thinking. I thought his comment was really weird. Why would he say such a thing? Then I reconstructed his bias. He has probably told this to our supervisor and my other peers.
Sam is poison to any group. He is "me first" and considers everyone else beneath him. As you talk to him, you can hear him snort-exhale in such a way that it clearly indicates he is annoyed. He consistently lies about his progress, claiming successes that don't exist, and points out others failures behind their backs.
He is still working on phase 1. It is not yet completed. I an wondering if our supervisor will demand that it be done and deployed before the end of the year, so it can be put on his A&D. The head of User Acceptance Test has been incommmunicado for 2 days, so something may have happened. She is the one that is keeping it from being deployed because she won't let Sam lie to her. Sghe catches him at it, and finds the errors in the code that he says he has fixed, and has not.
As far as Sam is concerned, if you don't know it is not perfect, then it's perfect. That's all that matters to him.
I keep imaginging myself in my yearly review next January with my Boss once again giving me an "Almost meets expectations" or whatever. As long as I have that review status, I cannot transfer to a new job. I envision myslef saying "I quit" as those words exit his lips. I see this as a day dream every few days. If I get as "meets expectations", he still has a hold on me until I successfully complete my current assignment. That's reasonable to me.
But he will be soryy when I am gone. There is no way Sam, or any other typical -programmer who will be able to maintain this application I am creating. It is Huge, and only someone real smart will be able to figure out how it works, and all the inter-dependcies so that they can make changes and not break it. Being smart has no value in my division. Being able to function when you are half-asleep is seen as far more valuable. Putting in 16 hour days using only 1/3 of your brain is considered very admirable - they call it working hard.
The reflexology treatment breaks up the toxins that have settled in the body. so the water is necessary to flush tem out. Otherwise, they just settle back into the body at various places.
My feet look 5 times better than they have over the last 5 years because of these treatments.
And I sleep well on Friday nights
It had been a hard week. I mis-managed my meds again, and this time it was serious. I forgot to pick up my refill of Xanax on the evening I needed too. So I went 2 days without Xanax.
One the second day, I felt depressed, groggy, slow moving and clouded thoughts. What made it serious is that I could not figure out why I felt this way. I could not remember about the Xanax right away. I finally figured it out, and sacrificed my lunch-period to go get it. I felt better quickly.
When I awoke this morning, my brain had figured out a big design issue in the project I am doing that I did not have a clear idea of what to do. I had partial ideas, but I just didn't pay attention to thisd because I was 100% involved on the part I am creating now.
I have seen this pattern regularly. When I get a good night's sleep, and sleep about 12 hours, I get wake up with really good ideas about whatever is bothering me or is an issue for me.
My peer at work, who I have been callling Sam, is such a pain in the ass.
I have been focusing on the display pportion of the WebApp I am building because I had to do that first in order to create displays that I could put in the design document. So I have not yet created any datasbase tables.
I did create a Java Bean that will be associated with a tabble this next week. Typically, you create the table, then the bean. Because of this, my peer assumed that I was doing somethign wrong. In our last project meeting, when I spoke about starting the SQL next week, he blurted out: "You know you have to create tables before you can write the SQL". I said "Of, course". I didn't realize what he had been thinking. I thought his comment was really weird. Why would he say such a thing? Then I reconstructed his bias. He has probably told this to our supervisor and my other peers.
Sam is poison to any group. He is "me first" and considers everyone else beneath him. As you talk to him, you can hear him snort-exhale in such a way that it clearly indicates he is annoyed. He consistently lies about his progress, claiming successes that don't exist, and points out others failures behind their backs.
He is still working on phase 1. It is not yet completed. I an wondering if our supervisor will demand that it be done and deployed before the end of the year, so it can be put on his A&D. The head of User Acceptance Test has been incommmunicado for 2 days, so something may have happened. She is the one that is keeping it from being deployed because she won't let Sam lie to her. Sghe catches him at it, and finds the errors in the code that he says he has fixed, and has not.
As far as Sam is concerned, if you don't know it is not perfect, then it's perfect. That's all that matters to him.
I keep imaginging myself in my yearly review next January with my Boss once again giving me an "Almost meets expectations" or whatever. As long as I have that review status, I cannot transfer to a new job. I envision myslef saying "I quit" as those words exit his lips. I see this as a day dream every few days. If I get as "meets expectations", he still has a hold on me until I successfully complete my current assignment. That's reasonable to me.
But he will be soryy when I am gone. There is no way Sam, or any other typical -programmer who will be able to maintain this application I am creating. It is Huge, and only someone real smart will be able to figure out how it works, and all the inter-dependcies so that they can make changes and not break it. Being smart has no value in my division. Being able to function when you are half-asleep is seen as far more valuable. Putting in 16 hour days using only 1/3 of your brain is considered very admirable - they call it working hard.
What will Monday bring?
As I have stated in previous posts, my work group is in trouble. The Program Managers (PM) are not cooperating - they are not opening charge numbers for us to use. My supervisor had uis change to use ALL available numbers - 2.5 hours each only.
I had predicted we would run out. I have only enough charge numbers for next week. I have alerted my supervisor. I suspect he will just put it back on me: "A competent engineer would find charge numbers to use", He said that before when it took months to get a new laptop. It's jusdt an insulting way to say he is not going to escalate it.
Maybe I should ask if I can recycle back through old charge numbers. If I had enough chaqrge4 numbers to get me through to 2013, then I could definitely re-use old chaqrge numbers, because the
2012 data isw not convenient to access. The PMs would not know I had laready charged 2.5 hours to these numbers.
Only 3 members of our group are authorized to use Expense. That leaves 8 of us, that are probably finding themselves in the same situation as me.
I wasn't pasying close enough attention to this because I have been working so hard. The time reporting tool only allows me to see 50 charge numbers at a time. When I deleted the charge numbers I used in November from my "available pool", then I was able to see the end coming.
So what will Monday bring? Will my paychecks just stop in a few weeks (meaning I have to take time off without pay)?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Addendum - I got enough charge numbers to get me through December. In 2012, it is my plan to reuse charge numbers. the fact that I run out of charge numbers at year end correlates with the Post titled "Yikes".
I had predicted we would run out. I have only enough charge numbers for next week. I have alerted my supervisor. I suspect he will just put it back on me: "A competent engineer would find charge numbers to use", He said that before when it took months to get a new laptop. It's jusdt an insulting way to say he is not going to escalate it.
Maybe I should ask if I can recycle back through old charge numbers. If I had enough chaqrge4 numbers to get me through to 2013, then I could definitely re-use old chaqrge numbers, because the
2012 data isw not convenient to access. The PMs would not know I had laready charged 2.5 hours to these numbers.
Only 3 members of our group are authorized to use Expense. That leaves 8 of us, that are probably finding themselves in the same situation as me.
I wasn't pasying close enough attention to this because I have been working so hard. The time reporting tool only allows me to see 50 charge numbers at a time. When I deleted the charge numbers I used in November from my "available pool", then I was able to see the end coming.
So what will Monday bring? Will my paychecks just stop in a few weeks (meaning I have to take time off without pay)?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Addendum - I got enough charge numbers to get me through December. In 2012, it is my plan to reuse charge numbers. the fact that I run out of charge numbers at year end correlates with the Post titled "Yikes".
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