Listening To: Old School Anthems : Various Artists

Current Horn Factor :

Horn Factor = Nnnngh!

Quote of The Day

David Finally. It works. My Palm is working.
schnorks Now you can hold stuff

Looks like it’s a been a while between drinks again at ye olde TROYL bar, my blogfriends. Surprise, surprise eh ?

I haven’t been posting for a variety of reasons. One of these is the fact that the divine IG and I have just been to Europe for 3 weeks – Czech Republic to precise. It was fantastic to get away for a while and catch up with family that I haven’t seen for a few years, as well as introducing them all to the woman I’ll be marrying in another 6 months. You’ll find some photos from our trip at the above blog, including some very tasty shots I took when we did a sight-seeing tour of a brewery. Mmmm … pivo (beer in Czech). Not to mention some shots of me looking even f@*#ing fatter than usual … if there’s ever been a time to start exercising again now is definitely it, before I start giving Laurie Oakes a run for his money as Australias fattest political commentator ! Of course he’s already got one up on me – he actually gets paid to make and break the public careers of our ‘elite’ whilst hiding behind the facade of objective journalism, whereas I merely skirt the periphery of libel law as a ‘hobby’. For me it’s all about the love, y’all …

The other big reason I haven’t been posting is of course due to work committments – that perennial old chestnut. The last three months since Easter have been a real bitch, and the fortnight before we went away even more so, as I dutifully engaged in a flurry of training and documentation activities to try and get everyone (including my immediate supervisor ‘D’) up to speed on the tasks I’d be delegating to them in my stead whilst overseas. No time, energy or much congnitive coherence left to spare after getting home from the salt mine, hence no blog posts. I thought it couldn’t get much worse. Niave little me …

We came back from Prague on Monday morning around 6 a.m and both go straight back to work on the Tuesday – as you do. That’s when I find out that D hadn’t bothered doing the most crucial of the tasks I’d left him; to whit compiling our team and SBU performance & KPI statistics. Normally I collect, compile and report these on a weekly basis, as well as producing monthly, quarterly, annual, and ad-hoc (usually client specific) reports, analyses and summaries for various stakeholders within management and our organisation as a whole. Technically this is all supposed to be a part of D’s job rather than mine in the first place, but I was ‘volunteered’ for it by our division head over a year ago when D was first promoted to the position of our team leader. Nonetheless you’d think he would have made the effort to do it just this month while I was away. Hell … if he was feeling particularly ‘snowed’ he could have always asked the person who used to do these reports before I did (and who still works within our organisation, just in another capacity) to give him a hand.

But no,

D’s left the whole fucking pile of paperwork – all 3 weeks worth, plus the one missed monthly reporting deadline meaning no report has been sent to regional HQ in Hong Kong, sitting on my desk for me to try catch up on when I have time !!!

Great ! Don’t get me wrong – as a person D is a lovely guy, and probably the nicest bloke I work with. I’d go so far as to say he’s up in the top 3 nicest bosses/supervisors I’ve ever had (and I’ve had a few), number two being Taz (a mate of mine from highschool whom I did some call centre work for a few years ago), and the top spot going to a truly awesome man from Shri-Lanka named “Duleep DeLivera” who used to run the Diners Club Business Card call team @ C&R in Parramatta just before the tsunami hit South East Asia back in 2002 (?) and I got out of the call centre industry. I also understand that D has a lot on his plate, given that along with our team he concurrently heads up our small despatch department and still maintains his previous role of in-house trainer for our production/programming team. Nonetheless, the fact that he’s left all this work for me to catch up on now that I’m back really pisses me off, and if I wasn’t so into maintaining a ‘calm facade’ at all times (read “passive-aggressive”), I’d tell him exactly how cheesed off I am !

I’m still quietly fuming, and trying to think of what I’m going to say to our division head to buy myself some time to polish off the steaming pile of paperwork dog-turds which D’s left in my in-tray, when said division head comes over and drops an even smellier brand of horseshit right in my lap. Sit down now boys and girls, and let me give you the ‘gen on the latest travesty in DB’s World ‘O Work (TM) .

Without going into too much detail, our company has been trying to transition from one in-house data processing system to another for quite some time now. We’re about 5 years behind schedule, to be precise. It’s actually become a bit of a running joke, mentioned with self-deprecating sniggers at various meetings over the 3.5 years or so that I’ve been working here. After leaving the company for the first time, I came back and actually worked in our conversion team for six or so months of “staring-at-the-screen-all-day” hell. As you and I both know however, coders have poor personal hygiene, no social skills, play World of Warcraft online, and smell vaguely of corned beef and pickles – so I got myself out of that particular team as fast as I could.

Recently however the ‘running joke’ has come back to bite everyone on the arse, as our senior management along with region, have started to push for the completion of the aforementioned conversion project. Just before I left for Prague, yet another set of deadlines was announced for the coding team – the final, final, FINAL, no more exceptions, no more ‘crying poor resources’ (always a fair call in our permanently understaffed organisation), no getting away from it this time set of deadlines. “You poor bastards” I thought to myself, as I happily jetted off for 3 weeks of drinking beer and catching up with the fam in the sweltering European summer heat.

I get back on the Tuesday and as I’ve already discussed, I find out D hasn’t done any of ‘my’ (his) work as he was supposed to. I’m pondering how to negotiate for enough time to catch up on it with our division head, when she comes over and ambushes me with the following bit of wholly unwelcome news:

I have just been tractor-beamed back to the conversion coding team (albeit temporarily, but given the history of this project who knows how ‘temporary’ that will realistically be), along with various other people who no longer work as coders in our organisation, including one poor sucker who hasn’t coded for more than a decade, and a few people who didn’t work for us at all anymore prior to my holiday, and who’ve been lured back on temp contracts. We’re expected to work 13 hour days, 6 days a week. None of this is optional. Do not pass go. DO NOT FÇ•CKļNG COLLECT $200 !!!

OK, that last bit isn’t entirely accurate. Extra working hours mean overtime rates … but when you’re only earning $19 odd dollars an hour, the extra pay isn’t going to amount to that much (especially when you factor in Australia’s exhorbitant marginal tax rates). Besides, when thinking about these things I always like to keep in mind what my highschool economics teacher used to tell us “never forget to factor in the opportunity cost”. It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon, and I’ve been stuck @ work since 08:30 this morning. I could be at the beach, I could be going for a bike-ride to shed some Laurie Oakes, I could be messing around with my keyboards trying to write the next number 1 dance hit that will end up being used in a Heineken commercial, I could be getting drunk with my girl @ home or at the pub, I could be getting hot and steamy with my girl @ home (maybe not at the pub, although a porn career might be one alternative way for us to pay the bills ….zzZZT not!) … I could, in fact, be just about anywhere but fucking (butt fucking ?) here !!!

So jaaaaa … I was already looking into a career change before I went on holiday. Keeping my options open, whilst still trying to exercise some degree of selectivity. I actually had one interview just before we went away for a job which would have involved about a third of the responsibilites I have now (correction had – before the tractor-beam), but paid $68K. Didn’t get it, obviously. Right now though – I’m almost ready to actually ditch selectivity. I was talking to mates the other night, and together with my fiancé they’ve managed to talk me out of going the “night-shift security” route. I did pick up a job application form from my favourite service station on Victoria Road this morning though. I simply can’t stay here any longer. God knows I’ve been talking about leaving for long enough (almost as long as I’ve had this blog, more or less).

This time though I really need to do it. I’ll give it another week or two at most … just enough to see some of those overtime hours flowing into the wedding savings account. Then my friends I really need to tender my two weeks notice. Otherwise, I fear – to paraphrase Cornelius (Edward Norton) from Fightclub – “this buttoned-down psycho will stalk from department to department, armed with an Armalite-15, indiscriminantly mowing down friends and co-workers. It could be someone very close to you … someone you know”. Alright, OK … it wouldn’t be anything that dramatic. It would probably result in the most public dummy spit this company has seen in at least as long as I’ve been working here though, and dummy spits are bad. You need to retain at least semi-cordial relations with former employers for those all-important “reference checks”.

So with that in mind – Lisa, Mel, and anyone else reading this blog who either has a say in the recruitment process at their work, or can influence someone who does – if you know of any openings, please let me know. All serious offers, interview requests and “I know a friend of friend who might be looking for someone”s will be considered !

Peace out.