Office Politics | The Habitation of Justice

How my job screwed me over… again

Lincoln Adams | July 13, 2009 @ 8:03 pm

An update to the job situation at work: I am apparently so far low on the totem pole of importance that you’d have to dig 10 feet under just to get to me.

So there were all these openings resulting from union concessions and people retiring that I basically had the pick of whatever assignment I wanted, right? But since the notice went out and gave absolutely no information on these openings whatsoever, I stopped by Personnel and spoke with the manager.

“Yeah, hi, I was hoping I could find out more about these job openings, since there was no info given about them in the email?”

“What are you interested in?”

“Depends, I’m pretty flexible right now, so I could work in any assignment depending on the type of work involved. I’m working a night tour currently, so if there’s any night shifts available I might be interested in that too, that way I don’t lose any night pay just by transferring.”

“Actually we do have a few night positions available. Let me take your info down and once we get more info together I’ll let you know what positions might be a good fit. Since you’ve been here a few years you should have seniority over most of the other people also looking to be transferred, so you’ll be in pretty good shape to get whatever new position you decide to opt for.”

He took down my info, made sure my name was put on the list and said another notice would go out in the next few days that would outline all the new positions and what they entailed.

The next day it occurred to me that I should let him know about my college degree in computers, in case there was an opening in our Information Systems division. So I sent the personnel manager another email to let him know about my background in computers. Shortly afterwards I received this response:

Thank you for your email. Your request was given careful consideration, but all the positions have now been filled at this time. We will be hiring new staff in the fall and it is anticipated that another round of transfers will take place then.

Um, what? Over 20 positions were all filled already, in the space of a day? Really? And how long did you take me into consideration, the ten seconds it took for me to walk out your door before you took my info and threw it in the trash? Numbnut.

Around the same time I happened to learn my agency was chasing people who had retired off the job and bringing them back to work part time jobs, when those jobs should have been going to people like me full-time. It was a way to make an end run around the union concessions that had been made, which stipulated that a certain part of the workforce would retire early in exchange for having their positions filled by civilians who could work for less money. So now they get their full pensions as well as a part time salary, while the rest of us with weaker and weenier unions get hosed.

Nice. I had a feeling this was coming too, but I never thought the guy was going to blatantly lie to my face like that. If somebody ever BEGGED to have sugar poured into his gas tank, it’d be this snot monkey.

Ah well, there are at least some good news to come out of all this, and it’s that Mr. No-Personality will be carving out office space for himself instead of taking my desk, and that it would also be a few more weeks before he finally gets assigned here. My guess is that he is putting it off as long as he can in the hopes that something else comes up, but if not, he’ll just hole up in a corner somewhere and play Everquest all day. The best kind of supervisor I could ask for really: one who hides and stays out of my way. :ggrin:

As for the screw-over, I could fight this, but it’s pretty hard to top what I have now. The night pay accounts for $400 of my monthly salary, but my hours still fall mostly during the day, so it never feels like I’m doing a graveyard shift. Not many people can say that either. The job is easy and the workload has been getting lighter, the hours are good, the benefits are excellent, it’s just the office politics and my coworkers’ inability to engage in… intellectually stimulating conversations that tends to gum things up for me. I can understand now why there are those who never want to work in an office and would rather be out in the field working alone than deal with all the politics and BS within. And then of course there’s the fact that there is absolutely no career or promotional path for this job whatsoever.

But… for now it suits me. I would hope though that it won’t be my lot in life to drift through this job without ever making a real difference:

Tags: coworkers, dilbert, email, job, money, office politics, personnel manager, supervisor, transfer, union, unions, workforce
Categories: In The Coal Mine

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Countdown to Showdown

Lincoln Adams | November 25, 2007 @ 3:41 pm

This post is part of the series titled, "Waging War At Work." The table of contents for this series is listed below in chronological order:

I won a small victory at work, but it may not be over just yet.

Tomorrow I go back to my job for the first time in a month since this whole debacle began. Even though my union called and let me know the Devil Woman would be moved back to her old section, my coworkers were telling me a different story. I also heard that my supervisor might be transferred out as well, but nobody seems to know anything about that either. There’s a feeling that the brass might be pulling some maneuvering stunts here so that if my supervisor does get transferred out, they will move Devil Woman in his place and she’ll end up becoming my new supervisor after all.

I’ll know for sure tomorrow, at which point I’ll be calling in ahead of time to make sure she’s really gone. If she’s not, it’s war.

You know, finding justice is a noble calling, but the road to it is not a pleasant one, and there are no guarantees either. I’m in this alone, without the support of my coworkers, my union, or anybody else. All I have is God and a clear conscience in knowing I’m doing the right thing. The line has been drawn. This madness has to end now. People are getting hurt, and the integrity of our workforce is being compromised. And yet nobody wants to take a stand here because they’re all afraid for their jobs?

To hell with that. I’d rather stand in line at the unemployment office than take this kind of abuse. I want to go to bed at night knowing I stood up against evil and that I refused to be cowed by their intimidation and threats. I will not be their @#$% rug for them to walk all over.

And if they don’t know that already, then they surely will soon. :bat:

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Tags: corruption, debacle, devil woman, fight, God, guarantees, hell, integrity, intimidation, job, jobs, justice, madness, office politics, small victory, stunts, supervisor, union, workforce
Categories: In The Coal Mine

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When You Want Something Done…

Lincoln Adams | October 16, 2007 @ 8:00 am

Lately I’ve been trying to understand the nuances of office politics, and man, I’m telling you this is some messed up jojo that can seriously mess with your mojo. I have a supervisor that I’ve talked about before under different names, but for today I’ll refer to him as Sergeant Assfart. Sgt. Assfart has proven himself to be one of, no, scratch that, THE worst supervisor I have ever had. Our section is in shambles now because of his incompetence and laziness, and as a result it got me thinking about what course of action we should all take to at least minimize the damage he’s been causing.

One option would be to simply do nothing, and maybe even scale back on our job performance so our section REALLY implodes. The idea here is that the worse things get, the more likely the powers that be would notice and boot Assfart outta here. In fact this was more or less the approach we adopted, but as our section gradually continued to deteriorate over the months, nobody so much as batted an eye. I shouldn’t have been surprised though, I mean this is the same department that let a man die under their watch while they were all too busy scratching their balls.

But anyway, the second option would be to take the initiative and clean up the section on our own, or more accurately, MY own. The problem with this approach though is that the more work you do, the more they seem to expect of you. It also basically entailed doing the supervisor’s work for him, and worst yet, if things started to improve, guess who’s gonna take credit for it? I have to admit I understood how my coworkers felt. They didn’t want to go that extra mile because they didn’t want to do ANYTHING if it wound up making our supervisor look good. But our current approach wasn’t doing much either, and now our morale has sunk to the lowest it’s ever been since I started working here.

So for today, I finally thought, “Screw this,” and decided to clean up a few things. First up, one of our computer desks had been plagued with mouse droppings that were falling from the ceiling for months now. We kept waiting for FEMA to show up and quarantine the area, but I think our expectations turned out to be a little too high. We kept pleading, asking, begging Assfart and anyone else who’d listen to do something, ANYTHING to clean out the area. Nothing.

I took a look at the desk, went “hmmmm,” then went out and bought some extension cables. Came back and ripped out the phone, PC and monitor, then cleaned up a new desk and placed them all there. Then I hooked up the extended cables and wrapped it around the floor and under the cubicles so they remained out of sight. It took a couple of hours, but in the end I managed to set up a fresh new desk nice and far enough away from where the mouse poo were coming from. Then I printed up a big sign that said “WARNING: MOUSE DROPPINGS ZONE” and taped it on the wall next to the old desk. That might cheese off the Assfartster, but too bad.

I stepped back to inspect my work and sighed happily. This was the first time in a long time that I ever felt a sense of real accomplishment, but there was still plenty more left to be done. Next up, there are literally stacks of old computers taking up space in our section because our esteemed boss can’t be bothered to keep calling ISD (Information Systems Division) so they can pick up this crap. Our area looks like a junkyard for IBM for crying out loud, but incredibly, these old computers have been lying around here for a YEAR now. ????? So, I plan to call ISD, and call, and call, and call, then call them at home and on weekends, and if that doesn’t work, then I show up in person, in my underwear, where I will proceed to stalk them until they get the message.

And once that’s over with, then I’m gonna have a little fun. I’m planning to hit the local gag shop and buy up some seriously nasty items I’ll be using on our beloved supervisor. If he’s gonna stick around, then I might as well have some fun tormenting him till the cows come home. :naughty: