Mythical Magical Land of Canadia bitches!

I'm headed to Canada for vacation. I have no idea what all I'm gonna do up there except sight-see and drink.

Working at Lexmark sucks and I want a new job.

Lexmark gets in my way of doing anything the way I want. They don't challenge me or provide me with real work. I don't think i care if I'm here any more. Awesome.

I have helped them as much as they are going to let me help them and now they are not only asking me to help them but they are getting in the way of me helping them.

Time to Go.

I've re-un-quit

So first I quit.  Then they talked me down and I un-quit.  Then things went really shitty and I re-quit. Now we got my replacement in and she got scared off after one day and they really want me to stay.  This morning I re-un-quit.

Nothing I do is normal.  I can't even quit a job like a normal person.

Hail Eris; Out in space
Punching Assholes in the Face.

I've requit

After the horrible debockle of this weekend I've come to a greater appreciation for how happy I was at my old job and so I have re-quit.   I'll be moving back to Karen's Team.  Karen's okay with it, Walt is okay with it, Kelly is okay with it, Erin is okay with it and I'll be happy again so I'll be okay with it.  I won't even miss the money. Every time I start to miss the money I'll remember the stress I no longer have and the ability to relax that I've regained and everything will be okay.

The moral of this story is that just because people think the bigger job with the more money and increased responsibilities is what you ought to do doesn't mean they are right. Just because they are trapped in a cycle of pointless careerism and are striving to do more doesn't mean I should also. Happiness and personal well being is more important to me than following the societal pressures to do stuff that causes me stress and makes me contemplate killing myself.

Yeah I thought about it in a sort of hap-hazard way. The stress is that bad.  Don't worry.  I'm okay now.  I'm taking care of the problem and will be alright.

Now I will hopefully have enough energy after work to get in better shape.  Maybe start dating again. Daydream. Write. Make Art.

Who Knows. The World is my oyster and I'm starting to get hungry again.

I've un-quit

My Boss talked me down off the ledge.  He's going to let me change my job around so I don't go crazy ... er. More insane. On the upside I'm not a quiter and I'll keep getting the awesome money and I get to rework my job so I feel better. I'm taking the weekend off and jetting to Indy for GenCon.

Hail Eris

Thats all I can take

Well I sorta quit today.

I called up my old boss and asked if she had a job opening. She did and told me to talk to my current boss and see if it was cool if I changed jobs. I talked to my current boss and told him I'm fried and that my old boss had a job opening. He told me that he'll need to work out some sort of deal with the old boss for support coverage but that he knew I'd been struggling to keep it together. He told me he hated to see me go and thanked me for my work. It is pretty much a sure thing that I'll get a job with my old boss.

The pay loss is gonna be pretty bad. I also feel kinda crappy about not being able to cope but I think I was being asked to work to hard; not only for the pay but just personally.

However I'll only be doing 1 job for the money instead of 5. If you look at it by percentage then this is awesome. Mostly the reason I'm doing this is that I won't have the stress or the demand. 40 hours, 8 to 5 and not a bit more. The money is great for the job and the work is very easy. I'm depressed but i'll get over that and the first month of good sleep and I'll be great.

Hail Eris

I'm burnt

I am once again burnt out on work.  I just don't have the impetus to get anything but the most trivial of chores done. Right now all I want to do is react to problems instead of working on any projects. ::sigh::

Once I get this major project done I can take a vacation. ... so that I can leave this mess and have it still be here and worse when I get back.  It's like I live in a house with a bunch of other people and they have no responsibility to keep the house clean but I do.  They'll get angry at me if i don't do the dishes while they are busy dirtying dishware.

Ug

Step three!

Okay. The face to face interview is over. They flew me down Thursday night of the 12th and the Interview was at 2pm Friday the 13th (a bad sign?). I rolled around Morrisville and looked at Crosstimbers apartments. 875 sq feet for 700$ a month; not bad. The manager interview went awesome. The technical interview went poorly. They asked me a bunch of questions I didn't know the answer too. I tried my best but still don't feel I did well. Hopefully I tech out at 2 and can get the job. Now is the time of the waiting. I hate waiting

Meanwhile Lexmark is still lexmark; kinda crappy with promises of crappier later.

I really hate waiting. It is a never ending waiting and checking for information about something that is very central to your life. It's like waiting to find out if you have cancer.

If they make me an offer I'm gone.

Back to step two?!

>???????? so after I thought I wasn't going to get a job they called me up and told me that they wanted to fly me down there to interview a bunch of people for a bunch of jobs. Don't get me wrong; I'm happy, but confused. The recruiter is a salesman so he can't talk plainly which makes getting straight answers out of him very difficult. I've said screw it. I'm going to go down there and have fun and interview and talk to people and do my thing. My hope is that I'm going to impress someone and get a job. For preference 1st shift but I can cope with 3rd and if I absolutely have to maybe 2nd. I want 55k a year and basic bennies. I'd like relocation but I think i can make due without it.

HooRay? Good Times?

Why am I filled trepidation? This should be a time for joyous celebration. With Bitches! We'll see how it turns out.

Hail Eris!

Back to step one

Well my pessimism was well founded.  I teched out at a 2 instead of a 3 which means that I can't have the tech 3 job.  However there is a tech 2 job open for third shift that I think would be fine.  Down side is that they aren't interested in flying me down there to interview for that position which means that if they want to interview me for that position I'll have to fly down there on my own dime, but that isn't a guarantee that I'll get the job. This is depressing but not unexpected. I still want outta here and now is the time.  I'm having the recruiter talk to the manager to see if we can do a phone screening before I spend a bunch of money to get down there and have them tell me no.  If the manager bites then I'll pay to fly down there and crash on John's couch.

If this fails I'm going back to support here  one way or the other.

Suck.

Step one and two thrids

I had the tech screening.  I feel I did okay but not great.  The guy (Paul Nelson) said I did good and said that my NetApp experience was a "BIG plus" but I am, as always, full of doubt.  The recruiter sent me an email at 1:30 Friday but I didn't get it until 4:30 and by then he was gone for the day or not answering.

That meant that I waited all weekend not knowing my fate and it fills me with a sense of anxiety and self doubt. Horrible.  Plus I hate waiting for important things; I'm not good at it.

I called the guy this morning but didn't get a response from him until I emailed him at 10:45.  He is going to call me this afternoon. so maybe I'll know in 3 or 4 hours.

God I hope so.

Step one and a third

I have two tech screens most likely meaning that I have two managers fighting over me. I have a screen tonight at 8pm and another at 8am.

THIS IS FREAKIN AWESOME!

My only concern is "teching out" at a high enough level for the job. I have to tech out at the highest level they have cause the jobs they are offering are all 3rd level support. Lets hope I'm awesome enough. I have to guess that they think I can do the job because they want to interview me for it.

I guess the only thing that modulates my enthusiasm is that I doubt my knowledge. I always feel like I don't know enough.

That having been typed I'm still totally pumped and am going to do my best because I sure as heck don't want to get stuck holding the bag at Lexmark

Step one down

There are three steps. There's a phone pre-screen w/ the tech recruiter. Then a phone screen w/ someone from the team. Then, they fly you down for a Tech interview, and a management interview

I am past step one with flying colors. To quote the guy "I think you'd be a good fit."

Next step is the tech screen with someone from the team. I've been studying their documentation.

I hope this pans out quick.

This place gets about 70k resumes a year. They interview about 1000 people a year. They hire about 200 a year.  Since they are interviewing me I've gone from 350:1 to 5:1.

That is fscking awesome. I am now 70 times more likely to get hired now.

Life is strange

So friday morning (the 23rd I'll have you know) I had decided to give up waiting for NetApp to contact me. It had been a month since they had gotten their new money; when I had expected to get contacted. I was getting down about not getting contacted; like the really good guys didn't want me. So I decided to let it happen when it happened and keep trying to make Lexmark work. No sooner had I resigned myself to the idea and told a friend of mine about it than I got an email from NetApp. They want to have a phone interview with me tuesday or wednesday. If this goes about like the hiring of my former co-workers I can expect a second interview about a week later (if they like me) and then a contract a week to two after that. So maybe three weeks before the contract is dry. I'm gonna need to give my current boss some time; at least two if not three weeks or four. If I give them three, tell NetApp four, we are talking about 7 weeks before I start the new job and 6 weeks before I have to leave Lexington.

Eeek.

If I get signed I'll start gutting my apartment of things I don't need soon after. I'll have about 3 weeks to get rid of the crap I don't need, give away crap other people can use, and pack the rest. I'll have to get a place in NC and then get all my crap there in a week. It'll be a lot of work and my reward will be a strange foreign place that I won't know and will be stuck with for a while.

Also eek.

Have I really become this much of a coward? Is this what happens when you get old? Is my desire for stable and ease made me so hesitant? I really am going to miss my friends. I'm worried I'm going to become one of those old guys at the bar that doesn't have anyone with them and talks to everyone who looks at him. It's like I want to get set in my ways. How is that any way for a discordian to live?

Strangeness abound. Interesting times are a double edge sword that cuts both ways. Hail Eris even if she is a bitch sometimes.

Well ...

I feel so done. I think my work going to shit has brought on a case of mid-life crisis.  I'm going through the sophomoric philosophical questions and despite them being exceptionally trite I don't have answers.  I'm not really having fun here any more and one of my co-workers has gone right around the bend. There is too much work and too many expectations.  I've got a fair amount of cash stowed away but I loath the nervous feeling of not knowing when new money will come in. ::sigh::

Rational Business Practice or Hyper Paranoia

So RAID 5 backed up hourly and daily to other hard drives. Weekly backups to tape and off siteing of those tapes to a underground location that maintains security and environmental conditions. Spreading your data storage devices to other buildings so that fire/earthquake/tornado/ect. has less of a chance to take your data. 24 hour by 7 days a week hardware, software and network support to make sure that if anything fails it can be replaced quickly while a redundant process takes over.

And these fuckers want more protection?! What the fucking crap! Calm the hell down you paranoid bastard sons of bitches!

Seriously. Some corporate god up on high decided that we need to consolidate the practical outcome of which is that I have some new customers that I didn't pick nor approve of and am not allowed to get rid of. They want a primary and secondary person that they can get hold of at any time and a rigid overly redundant system of responsibilities so that if anything goes wrong they can know exactly who to blame. The biggest problem I have with this, besides the ass-hattery of their blame game, is that we don't have a 24x7 system and I don't feel we ought to put one in place just for a bunch of back-stabbing jerks that were forced on us.

I am a Greater Unslept

So very tired. Worked 6 hours on a freakin sunday. Didn't get to sleep till 1ish. In need of a nap.

Come in this morning and am running fast till lunch. Whats up with that? Look let me lay out the schedule for yous guys so's you know the deal. Below is work time that I'm willing to share with people.

Sunday NO!
Monday 10am-11:30, 1:30-4
Tuesday-Thursday 9:00-11:30, 1:30-4
Friday 9:00-11:30, 1:30-3
Saturday NO!

Incompetent Tits!

The Twit that works for us as work station support, who claims he was a Domain Admin and that we should trust him, can't manage to figure out a simple DNS resolution error by himself and instead of asking a user for information about his computer needs he asks me; basically meaning that I have to do his job for him. He claims he was a Domain Admin and he can't resolve basic hardware, software, and configuration errors! GaRRRR! What a freakin' newbie! It is bad enough that I have my job and part of my old team leads job but I can't do his job also.

I need to order some more nerves because these assholes are going to break my last one

I'm sick. I spent all superbowl weekend on my couch in a mild fever induced trip cramming myself full of vitamins and cough syrup. The people at work all saw me leave with the early on-set of death plague. Walking into my office this morning made it abundantly clear that while I had conquered death at her own game it had cost me something; in short I still wasn't back to my normally staggering amount of awesome.

We had a drive in our filer go bad. This isn't a problem. Every tray of hard drives has two hot spares ready to leap into action the moment one goes bad, and, in the highly unlikely even that three hard drives go bad all at once, the filer next to it is a hot copy that will auto swing into place. So one drive blowing is not bad. Especially since the filer calls the manufacturer, transmits the problem, and orders a replacement drive. When I got to work at 8:30 I found out about the problem and by 9 the drive had been picked up from the dock and slotted in the filer and everything was good.

Chet; my twit co-worker, who so wants to be my new team lead despite the fact that he can't find his ass with his hands and the help of a gay proctologist, comes in and starts asking me if I knew it had happened and telling me what I needed to do to fix it. He cut what is an incredibly easy procedure into the smallest possible of steps and then questioned me if I had done them yet in a manner that suggested I was a god damn retard incapable of listening and breathing at the same time. After I had explained to him that it was covered; an hour and a half before he showed up to work, he starts going into things I ought to do which I have already planned to do when I get a spare moment. I'm sick and it's early, but what the hell, suffering fools is good for the soul. I shush him up and tell him there isn't anything about this that he can request of me that I haven't already done or plan to do since it is my responsibility and not his. Politely told to shut up and leave he goes and I take several small breaths to restore my blood pressure to something that doesn't make me feel like I've got a chest burster about to pop out and kill half the crew of my starship while I have bad 80's hair and skimpy white panties .... sorry.

Two hours later when the old foggy that ran our NOC before my last team lead shows up; thats 12:30, 3.5 hours after I've fixed the problem, he starts in on if I knew of the problem and did I know how fixed it. But this guy is different slightly in that he doesn't stop to get my answer to his questions. He asks a question and then immediately goes into long excruciating detailed explanation of why it's important and how he'd have done it.

At this point I lose it. I just start chanting "I've already done that" with breaks only for breath while rocking back and forth. When the foggy stops talking I keep going; chanting my mantra. Eventually he is lost; not knowing what to do when a co-worker obvious has gone absolutely barking fucking mad, ape shit crazy in space. Then I seem to break free of my demonic possession, look at him, and tell him that if I've already done the next thing he asks me about this that he has to leave. He thinks about it; desperately hoping to pick something obscure so that he can continue being a obnoxious know-it-all and asks his question. Before he gets it all the way out I know I've already done it. "I've already done that" and point to the door. I kinda wished he had tried to keep talking so that I could just start barking and slathering at the mouth but he realizes I'm an inch from filling him full of squirrels and leaves.

I think I ought to post a list of warning signs so that co-workers and users don't cause me to burst because I can totally see me blacking out one day and coming to while repairing a computer; replacing parts, screwing and unscrewing stuff, when SWAT rolls through the door and tells me to put down the screw driver at which point I'll realize it was a dead bloody body that I was putting a new hard drive into.

I feel sullied in unusual ways

I'm going to have to drink the cool-aid. I've been avoiding it thinking maybe I could get on the mothership by climbing on through the landing gear. I was wrong.

I'm going to have to learn VBScript.

::retch::

Evil Masterminds at Work! Caution!

Well work has gotten interesting. I think I've gotten my friend Gene a job at Lexmark. I think I've gotten my friend Casey a job at Lexmark if he wants it. I am going to be getting a new job there also. I talk to a person here, I talk to a person there, and suddenly everything I've been working towards for months happens right now. We'll see how this plays out with my trip to Thailand. Everything is going to be crazy and difficult but from chaos and hard work comes vast riches if a Discordian knows his way around a whelk.

Hail Eris; that crazy bitch!