Right on the heels of getting out of debt for the first time in 13 years, I’m now hearing that my old supervisor will be returning to my section this week for the first time in 9 years. When I started working this job he was my first “boss,” and it wasn’t too long before I promptly got written up because I had dared to call an outside agency to ask them for advice on how we could make our section more productive and efficient. Back then I didn’t know then that doing such a thing was a no-no, even if my only intention was to help.

I had only been on the job for 3 months, and I was pretty green in the gills and naively thinking I could change the world then, only to get quickly smacked down by reality and a stupid dweeb of a supervisor. The whole experience had left a bitter taste in my mouth ever since.

In all fairness, I don’t think he intended to be malicious, he just wanted to cover his wide trailer, but I didn’t appreciate how he had talked down to me in his droning, Ben Stein voice when it happened. There were probably a dozen ways he could have handled it better and instead he chose the worst way, leaving me with a “friendly” reprimand on my record not even 3 stupid, fricking months into my job. He was unfriendly, uncomfortable to be around with, and micromanaged the most mundane things that had absolutely no relevance to the work we did. To top it off, the dude had no personality at all, I mean seriously NONE, almost as if he had been born without a soul. Ben Stein has nothing on this guy.

That’s why I was glad when he transferred out to what he must have thought were greener pastures. We went through a cocktail variety of supervisors since then, until the last one retired in a hurry and officially left us without a manager again. I ended up taking the supervisor’s desk, since there was no other place to sit, and carved out a little corner for myself in our section that kept me comfortable and boss-free for 2 years.

Recently however, they phased out Mr. No Personality’s position, forcing him to come back to our department once again, although not our specific area (yet). He had clearly done everything he could to avoid getting transferred back to our section, but it looks like the clock finally runs out this week. Judging from the look on his face every time I see him, I can see his untriumphant return as our manager is going to be a real pleasure.

When he does come back, one of two things may happen. He may play it smart and have maintenance carve out some office space for himself, or he may pull rank and evict me out of the desk I’m using now. The reason this is a big issue is because I work with 4 other coworkers, and they all have desks and computers to use. I would have to go back to standing around and waiting for someone to either take a meal break or go home before I finally had a desk that I could access and work on, this despite the fact that I’ve been here 9 YEARS. I swear it’d be like high school all over again, just floating around, never finding a group or a spot where I could finally feel at home.

Yep, this is gonna be fun. Of course, after several years on the job I’m not so green in the gills anymore, and Mr. No Personality will find I’m not the pushover I used to be when I rip his soul-less dweeb monkey’s face off the minute he starts in on me. There’s a reason why nobody wants to oversee our section ya know.

Ironically enough, while there’s no place for him to go, a wave of early retirements that began last week have opened up over 20 new positions for me to potentially choose from, depending on how my seniority compares to others vying for the same job. I know absolutely nothing about these openings though, the hours I’d work, what the people I’d work with are like or what the job entails, only that they’re now looking for people. This is the first time in several years that new openings in my department finally presented themselves, so it’s not something I can just blow off either.

Honestly, the thing that has always held me back from vigorously pursuing opportunities like this was my night pay. My night pay accounts for $300 of my monthly salary, and because a contract concession forces me to work two days a month without pay for 6 months, just the simple act of transferring to another assignment would incur a loss of over $500 a month in income, at least until December.

I hate the thought of losing that much money a month, but if it there was ever a time I could stand to lose it, that time would be now. I no longer need to worry about any debts cramping my finances, and the loss of night pay would just mean I’d have to wait a little bit longer before getting enough cash together to put down for a new apartment and move out. What’s a few months and a few dollars really if it means finally getting out of a job I have loathed for 9 years?

Assuming of course the new job I get doesn’t turn out to be even worse than the old one.

Tomorrow I’ll try to find out more info about these openings and see what’s what. I have to admit the timing of these recent events is pretty curious, and I wonder whether it might be a sign that I finally need to go? After 9 years, as much as I’ve whined and complained about my work, I’ve still gotten pretty comfortable in my job and resistant to change. Facing the great unknown thrills me in a way, but it also frightens me too. I’ve been conditioned to believe that nothing good can ever happen to me when it comes to life changing events like this, and if I do wind up working a job someplace else, I fear it will be ten times worse than what I’m doing now. I wonder if it’s better to deal with the devil I know than charge into the great unknown, even if the devil I DO know ends up forcing me to give up my desk.

I guess I’ll know more by this week’s end what will happen. Heck, I’ve already experienced one life altering event by finally becoming debt-free, so why stop there?

Tags: boss, coworker, coworkers, debts, desk, income, job, opportunities, reprimand, supervisor, transfer
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
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I was doing this for an hour:

Notice the 3 calls I put on hold so I could keep playing. 

Tags: bored, desk, football, work
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
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I walked into the Chief’s office and sat down. The chief took his seat behind his desk and leaned back a little in a more relaxed position.

“So, tell me what the problem is…”

…three hours later I got a frantic call from my lieutenant asking me to call him back as soon as possible. I guess people were finally starting to take me seriously.

It wasn’t easy though. The chief wasn’t willing to concede anything in my meeting with him at first, and it was looking more and more like I was going to get slapped for insubordination too. But I held my ground and made it clear I wasn’t going to let this one go. They knew I had a case, and they also knew they couldn’t intimidate me either.

In the end the chief finally called the lieutenant, who probably about crapped his pants when he realized I had gone over his head and dealt with the bigwigs. After leaving me an urgent message I called him back and we chatted for a few minutes. Devil Woman was finally being moved, this time for real. For now, the battle had finally been won.

The next day I finally went back to work after almost a month’s hiatus, the whole place abuzz about what I had done.

I passed by one guy who quickly called me out:

“LINC, you are da MAN!!!”

I blinked. “Umm, thanks?”

“Holy cow, if I had done what you did, I would have been kshhhhhhhh…,” he said, making a slashing motion across his neck. “You are DA MAN!”

My coworkers greeted me with much fanfare, then quickly ushered me to the same desk that had once been occupied by Devil Woman and my supervisor, who was now my ex-supervisor. If that didn’t speak volumes about the victory I had been given here, nothing did. I was now using the supervisor’s desk, effectively seizing what had used to be someone else’s “throne.”

It didn’t come without sacrifice though. I lost a week of vacation time, and I’ve probably been branded as a troublemaker now by some of the people here. Too bad, really. If rattling cages is what needs to be done to get some justice around here, then the world could certainly use a few more troublemakers.

Tags: battle, corruption, desk, devil woman, fanfare, fight, hiatus, insubordination, job, lieutenant, sacrifice, supervisor, troublemaker, victory
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
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Oh man, I’m in for it now. Without getting into too much detail here, suffice it to say that things have suddenly come to a head at my job.

One of the supervisors here is, to put it charitably, an evil spawn of Satan from hell. A few months ago she put my family through some tremendous grief because of her outrageous behavior, until the department finally found enough of their stones to transfer her out. Let’s not fire her though, the same woman who would follow men into the bathrooms just so she could continue wailing on them, the same woman who would throw herself on the ground and scream at the top of her lungs because somebody didn’t sign in on time, the same woman with a file so thick it’s got it’s own set of wheels. Nah, let’s transfer her out and then put her on a promotion list. That’ll fix her.

And now she’s back, all because of some spat my dumbass boss had with one of my coworkers, who then whined to the chief of the department, who then in a moment of what he probably thought was sheer brilliance, reshuffled our section so that Devil Woman ends up sitting at the desk RIGHT next to mine. But technically she’s not our boss, it’s just that the desk is the only place she can sit to oversee the “special project” the department head now assigned her, while our esteemed supervisor and bold leader continues to hide out in some corner of the building the way he always does. But she’s not going to bother us, right? After all, she’s still not our boss or anything, so she couldn’t possibly have the gall to start micro-managing us, turn off our radios, or scream in our ears whenever we make the mistake of looking her way, right?

Oh wait, yes she could.

This latest move was so scandalous that I was getting calls from coworkers warning me about what happened before I came in. So I called my union president and demanded that this be dealt with immediately. They’re trying to put off the inevitable by just moving her around as much as they can, but everywhere she goes she leaves a path of destruction, and eventually, there just isn’t going to be any place left to put her.

I drew my line in the sand though, and made it known that this crap was going to end one way or another, right here, right now. I took a personal day today, but as it stands, I won’t be returning back to work until she’s gone, or until they transfer me into a division where I’ll finally be able to get to work with real human beings who aren’t mentally psycho out of their arse fricking minds.

If nothing is done by this week’s end, I stand to lose about a week’s pay, but fortunately I’ll be off next week, so the sting won’t be too bad. But… if nothing is done by Thanksgiving, ho’ boy. I’ll also be speaking with the director of our agency (the head honcho), and from what I hear he seems to be a standup guy, but we’ll see.

What a mess. But really, enough is enough, and I just about @#% had enough of the corruption and depravity of this department.

Tags: bathrooms, boss, corruption, coworkers, depravity, desk, devil woman, ears, fight, grief, job, justice, lawlessness, lungs, mistake, outrageous behavior, psycho, radios, scream, supervisor, union, union president, workplace
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
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Here’s a scene you probably never want to see at your job:

When we got our computers upgraded, they opened up the ceiling and yep, down came the mouse crap, cradle and all. Then they just left the ceiling open like that. Are they nuckin’ futs???

When I went to see about contacting OSHA to clean up this mess, it turns out we’re not even within their jurisdiction. Instead, I had to contact an agency that belongs to the same local government I was employed by, you know, the very one that refused to do anything about these health code violations in the first place? Well that’s just… perfect.

In the end, I flipped off my useless supervisor and quarantined the area, then set up a nice, clean new desk for the coworker who usually sat in that spot. I may have to close up the ceiling myself, but since it’s directly above the next section as well, maybe I can get the supe there to bring maintenance down and clean it up instead before sealing it again.

Then I called up ISD and suggested in a polite tone what their mothers really did for a living, and if they wanted to restore the family honor perhaps they could come down and pick up our now useless 30 year old terminals and printers?

Turns out it wasn’t really their equipment to begin with (so they say). So I asked around and found out as long as I inventoried the terminals, I could gather it all up and dump them in the basement to be scrapped. So I filled out the inventory forms and asked my supe to sign it.

Sure enough, he refused to sign it. Evidently he doesn’t like his name being associated with anything other than his paycheck, so I shrugged my shoulders… and went over his head. I got the bureau head to sign off on it instead, grabbed a cart, and cleared our section out of all the old equipment we weren’t using anymore, then had maintenance come down and vacuum up everything that was left over. There must have been three inches of dust everywhere, and we were breathing this crap too. BUT, finally, after over a year of this nonsense, our section was cleaned and almost looked like an office again.

I was dirty and sweaty by the time everything was finished, but in the end I had accomplished more in one day than my supervisor ever did in the 12 months that he’s been here. I could already feel the morale lifting in my section. If my coworkers were happy now, then I was happy.

Just to spice up our section a little bit more though, I put up my lava lamp and pretty party lights again. I think I’ll also get one of those fog machines from Party City and install it under my supervisor’s desk. Our section might be clean now, but it does need some… atmosphere, ya know?

Tags: boss, cart, corruption, coworkers, crap, desk, equipment, incompetence, inventory, job, jurisdiction, leadership, local government, mouse droppings, osha, paycheck, printers, shoulders, supervisor, vacuum
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
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I have a coworker named Prue. I hate Prue. Prue takes to my desk like it’s her personal kitchen, leaving me a mess of Hurricane Katrina-like proportions that I have to clean up every time her shift finally and mercifully ends. Since I’m forced to share my desk with her due to the cramped conditions of our section, I have to endure a daily ritual of fumigating the thing so I can use it again after she leaves.

Today was no different, so I started checking the drawers for something I could use to clean up the coffee stains, grease spots, and other strange substances I’d prefer would remain unidentified. I found some nice pads in my right drawer and started scrubbing away. They seemed to do the job pretty well, and I thought maybe, for once, Prue had actually been considerate enough to leave some cleaning supplies behind, a humble admission to what a raging slob she was.

“Linc, what are you doing?” It was Leeza, a motormouth but a friendly coworker of mine.

“Just cleaning this crap up as usual.”

“But why are you using that??”

“Hey, it works good, and it was in the drawer, so why not?”

“Linc… that’s a tampon.”

I stopped scrubbing.

“What now?” I said weakly.

“It’s a tampon,” she repeated, then broke out in uncontrollable laughter.

My face darkened several shades of red as I quickly threw the “cleaning pad” away in disgust.

I hate Prue.

Tags: admission, clean, cleaning, coworker, coworkers, desk, disgust, drawers, hurricane katrina, job, motormouth, proportions, slob, tampon
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
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