1104 EST - I Officially Decide: "Fuck It"

The BBQ Pit
1

At 11:04 AM, Eastern Standard Time, Friday, April 6, 2001, I stopped caring about my job. That’s quite something because I am normally one to really care about my job, being as I am an enthusaistic and industrious person. But I no longer give a shit, and for the last three minutes now I have been trying to determine how I can best put in the absolute minimum possible about of time and effort while ensuring I can continue to enjoy paychecks, lots of company-sponsored Internet surfing, and free photocopying services for the resumes and covering letters I will soon be sending out by the score.

For me this is quite a leap. I am the sort of person who - this is literally true - will refuse to charge the company $10 for a dinner if I could have gotten home from a business trip before 8, because I always figure I could have eaten at home and not incurred the expense. I am fiercely loyal, as a rule, to my employer, not because I’m an overly dependent sort but because I always figured it was part of my job. For a year with this employer I have been an alactritous proponent of the service line I work in. But I no longer give a flying fuck.

This has been brewing for some time but here’s the backstory; last May the company I worked for then was bought out by the company I work for now. Part of the deal was that they wanted me to move here and work for them on the service line in question, a new business they were developing with huge promises and which, I should add, provides a very significant benefit to Canadian society. To this end they offered me not only employment, but a contract besides that guaranteed me three years here, to make up for the fact that i was moving myself and Mrs. RickJay to a new city and restarting our lives.

Within months of getting here things started to go wrong. The company began to have serious strategic problems. A new computer system (SAP) was a disaster, costing us millions. People got fired. The strategic direction was unclear. People got fired. Our business line stopped getting the support it needed - marketing, sales, and other business lines we depended on didn’t meet expectations. We were starved of funds in a general wave of cost-cutting mania.

Meanwhile, political turmoil began behind the scenes. A major division of the company began sabotaging our communications with the company president (I know this sounds crazy and unlikely, but it’s quite literally true) so that we’d look worse. This would allow the division to justify taking us over and counting our revenue stream towards theirs - a nice little maneuvre. The leader of THAT division was then summarily fired in an embezzlement scandal that lopped off a number of other heads and landed their finance guy in the hoosegow, resulting in mass confusion.

Now everyone in my little group is being sold and traded throughout the company like baseball cards. The program manager, my peer, was sent over to another division not for any practical reason but because they wanted to change the cost center on his salary for political reasons. Our contracted resources were all cut. Now we don’t have the labour to do anything and the executives are asking why we can’t do anything. When we explain we have no personnel, they say they’ll give us personnel at some indeterminate point in the future, maybe, someday.

Then rumours began to fly that I would be demoted and made into an operations guy - again, not because I’m bad at my job (I’m terrific at my job) but because they needed to do something political and planned to have another division usurp most of my duties. A month ago I went to my boss, a director, and carefully explained to him that I have a contract that specifically guarantees me a position and a salary; that I moved my entire fucking life here (a move they wouldnt pay for - for political reasons), trusting this company implicitly, on the assumption that this would be a mutually beneficial relationship, and that I would be very concerned indeed were my contract to be ignored in this matter. I wrote a carefully worded, detailed letter as well and submitted it right away.

He never got back to me. Earlier this week he promises to sit down with myself and the ex-program manager and explain what was happening. They he TOOK OFF EARLY yesterday (he’s not in today) and took a week’s vacation nexct week. Never spoke to us.

Today another director mentions in passing that it was decided TWO FUCKING WEEKS AGO that I would be switched to another division. I was aghast. He was surprised and apologetic; “what, (director name) never told you? Gee, I’m sorry.” ASS-FUCKING WEASEL! He’s been hemming and hawing about this and about everything else for a year. It’s HIS fault the ex-VP torpedoed us because he would never confront her, and now it turns out he’s such a fucking coward he wouldn’t even tell ME I was transferred. For the next week and a half I will quite literally have no idea what my job is, who I report to, or what the fuck is going on, and knowing the way things are working out it may be months before I know, if ever.

Of course, nobody else in this squirrel-fucking outfit knows anything either because we’re in a state of utter chaos. Morale in operations is now plumbing depths never before seen, and I can quantify it because we just held an employee opinion survey and I know what the results are and they’re record-setting in their awfulness. So I could go around my director to the Vice President of HR and ask HIM what the holy fuck is going on, but he probably won’t know either, not that that will stop me from trying.

To review:

  1. My boss is a lying, cowardly little fuck, and he will eat the peanuts out of my shit before I ever trust him again.

  2. The reason I moved here to work for these ass-reaming fuckwits is now completely defeated, and the complete and total failure of the entire business line is virtually assured, which will quite literally prevent us from saving human lives, and which my in fact result in the complete failure and bankruptcy of a 1,000-person company.

  3. I have no fucking idea what my job is anymore, but

  4. I have a pretty good reason to believe I have been switched around in a manner that violates a contract I signed with the fucking President, so now I have to call my lawyer.

  5. I do not give a fuck anymore. I just went into Wally mode.

I feel like shit doing this, but it’s lifeboat time, friends. I’m hitting Workopolis and monster.com this afternoon and spending the whole day on them.

2

So, to the pub or the bait store?

3

Wow.

Yea, go say hi to your lawyer.

And I vote for the pub.

4

Hope you feel slightly better for getting that off your chest, RickJay. Sounds like this company no longer deserves your services. IMO keeping the job while you check out your legal position is eminently sensible, I believe people have sometimes put themselves on dodgy legal ground by leaving, even under great duress.
I think feeling like shit is a waste of emotional energy tho’, they treated you like a fucking mushroom and seem more concerned with their little power games than running a good company and providing a good product/service, what the hell do they expect?
Best of luck with finding a better company that appreciates someone that actually takes pride in their work, they do exist, I’ve been fortunate enough to work for such.

5

Yup. Corporate life sucks. And this sounds like a new chapter in “How Not To Treat Your Employees”, yet another management book/seminar series that managers will never read or go to…

Anyway, my recommendation: Movies.

Specifically, the two best kick-ass job-quitting movies of all time.

Office Space

and

Joe vs. The Volcano

Good sources of perspective adjustment.

Good luck in your new, and hopefully much more fun, job.

6

I vote for a nice long book. I’m just staring “The Complete Essays of Michel de Montaigne”. It’s a monster!

On a serious note, that sucks, man. Do check with your lawyer. Be the model employee in the interim and then make them pay. A contract is a contract, no matter how bad they screw up!

7

RickJay, my man, deepest condolences on your finding out you’ve been baited into the dankest, skankiest corporate swamp I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear about. Were I in that situation, I believe I’d:

  1. Chant “This too shall pass” quietly and peacefully for about 10 minutes at the start of each workday;

  2. Pretend I’m doing the minimum acceptable amount of work (not that it seems like anyone there would know what that was at this point, especially given Point #3) while firing off resumes like a madman; and

  3. Hitting the pub on a Friday evening, treating Mrs. R to a couple pints as well. And buy something nice for the kid(s).

Having said that, I just want to add that

has been unanimously adopted into the Lexicon Olentzeri for repeated future use. A classic line.

8

What a bunch of dungfuckers. I wish you the best of luck. I’m “between” jobs myself right now. What a pain in the arse it is.

I dunno what type of job you do; if it’s IT or CS related, I have found the best contacts on this site.

9

Sue the dickens out of them and go to some ball games.

10

Dear Hero;

Want a beer? Or two?

Fuck, want the whole keg?

E.

11

I see. You’re a plumber! :smiley:

In all seriousness: good luck, Rick. Sue them for contract breach, and find a better job - since the best revenge is getting better, not bitter.

12

If you’re in Newfoundland, email me. I’ll treat you to the beer. :slight_smile:

I suggest a few beers, actually. Preferably during your lunch break next Friday. Following that, you can inform your boss that he’ll be tossing donkey salads before you come back to serve his mullet-infested worm farm. Then quit in fine style, complete with desk-toppling, shouting, and over-the-head arm waving.

FD.