Tag Archives: job

Temporary no more…

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The paperwork needs to catch up and I’m probably making myself a tempting target for Fate by even breathing it aloud, but the word is that I’m in the process of completing the world’s shortest temporary promotion. In fact, it’s been so short that it isn’t even effective yet and won’t be until this coming Sunday. About a month later the powers that be have decided they’ll convert the temporary assignment to a permanent promotion. Still non-supervisory. Still in the same office I’m in now. Basically we’re formalizing the fact that I’ve been doing the job for the last few months without benefit of pay or grade. I can’t deny that it’s nice that they’ve noticed I was punching well above my weight class for a while now. Through a fortuitous convergence of other personnel departures, the fact that I competed for the temporary position, and a few other bits of administrative minutia, it seems that all things are possible.

As is my custom, I’ll be nervous and jerky every day between now and then from knowing nothing is real until the paperwork says it’s real. I’ve been burned one too many times on that front to be fooled again. Still, fingers are well crossed in hopes that the human resource professionals don’t fine a way to foul the lines between now and the end of February.

If anyone needs me I’ll be in my corner trying not to say, do, or think anything that might somehow inadvertently change the course we’re currently following.

Twelve…

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Twelve years ago this morning, I was a 24 year old former teacher who had just resigned in disgust from what would have inevitably been a soul crushing career touching America’s future. It was basically a choice of self-preservation more than anything else. I’d interviewed for a new job over the phone, filled out a staggering amount of paperwork, and moved what few household goods I had accumulated since graduating college 129 miles south to embark on a new career. Early that long ago morning I met 30-odd strangers at a Shoney’s in Petersburg, Virginia waiting for an unknown future.

We were met with boxes of additional paperwork and a day’s worth of in processing. We raised our right hands and said the words and poof, we were the most endangered of all Uncle’s animals – we were federal interns. Like everything else in the government, the word “intern” means something completely different than it means out in the world. For us, it meant full salary and benefits and two guaranteed promotions if we managed not to get fired during our probationary employment period.

Since then, it’s been off to the races. Some of it good, some of it bad, but very rarely has it ever been dull for more than a few days at a time. I’ve been equal parts ambitious, discontent, proud, and horrified of the career that day launched. Uncle has given me the chance to go places and see things I never would have done or seen of my own accord. Alternately he’s driven me to drink and to ponder the rules governing what makes a homicide “justifiable.”

With a little bit of rounding, it’s now 12 down and 21 to go – or a little more than a third of a career now in the books. That figure is alternately depressing and incredibly hard to believe… or at least it is until my back starts hurting, there’s a throbbing in my knee, or my shoulder slides out of joint. Then I can tell exactly where those years went. It should be interesting to see what kind of mess I can make of the next twelve.

Tentatively temporary…

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It’s an open secret that for the last six months I’ve been casting around looking for a new gig. Although I was focused on staying under Uncle’s umbrella, it felt like time to branch out into other opportunities. The environment had gotten a little too toxic for my liking and all-in-all, my career path was looking like something of a dead end if I stayed put.

I launched out a fair number of resumes. Had a few interviews. Got a few call backs. But there really wasn’t anything that clicked – either for me or the people responsible for hiring, it seems.

A few weeks ago I threw my hat in the ring for a temporary promotion (back to my old grade without the enormous hassle of supervising anyone) with my current office. Last week I interviewed for the position. A few days ago the HR office called to extended a tentative offer. This past Thursday I accepted. At some point in the next couple of pay cycles I’ll pick up a few extra bucks for a little extra work. Feels like a fair trade and it sets me up for possible options in the future that don’t involve another round of packing and unpacking household goods.

I didn’t start this process looking to stay where I was, but if I’m fair and balanced I’ll admit the bosses are taking legitimate steps to improve on a number of the sore points of the past. I’m willing to stick around for a while and give them the chance to prove it’s a real change for the better and not just a change until the heat’s off. The proof is in the pudding, but I’m happy enough taking their money while the proof sorts itself out.

Now it’s just a matter of the final paperwork coming through. Somehow I feel like I’ve done all this before.

Something something chickens hatching…

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Long, long ago someone told me something about chickens hatching and getting the count wrong. While out and about surveying the fine interstate system here in my home state this morning, I had plenty of opportunity to run a few basic calculations – mostly involving the cost of fuel, my own average miles per gallon, and my best guess about what next year’s pay tables might look like.

If for some reason yet to be determined my daily commute were to more than double in distance the corresponding increase in salary I might expect due to this unforeseen circumstance wouldn’t quite cover the additional cost of fuel expended in traveling to and from. It certainly wouldn’t cover the cost of acquiring and maintaining a secondary, more fuel efficient commuter car. Even if it did, I’d then have to dig into my pocket to hire a dog walker due to the presumed two hour increase in the duration of the commute.

Now these chickens I’m looking at aren’t even eggs yet, but my natural tendency with life is to play all sorts of interesting “what if” scenarios out in my head. Barring a change in one of the inputs, I don’t see a clear path to balance the equation. That bit is troublesome to say the least. Of course it’s all speculation and conjecture at the moment so we’ll just proceed on assuming there will be eggs or chickens available at some point in the future. That fact too remains to be seen.

Blurred…

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So we’re officially back in the mode of operation where it helps to just turn off the ol’ brain box and try not to dwell too much on any one thing. The first three days of the week have blurred into what feels like one very long day. I don’t see that changing between now and Friday. In fact my forecast is for it to get appreciably worse the closer we get to the weekend – just another in the long line of weekly reminders that Friday is no longer to be trusted as a bringer of good things.

I’ve gotten better than I care to admit at just grinding out the work. I’d like to say it doesn’t get under my skin, but it does. At it’s heart my job is fundamentally about compiling large amounts of information in insanely short amounts of time, facilitating the flow of that information vertically and laterally through the bureaucracy, and and trying to make sure the decision makers have the right information at the right time. Basically, I’m a problem solver who’s expected to either know how to do something or figure it our pretty damned quick.

At nearly every turn this week I’ve run into my mirror image – the ones who say, I don’t know how to do that, or I haven’t had any training, or it’s too hard. Once they proclaim something too hard too do, these bastards look at you blankly, like an infinitely patient and utterly stupid dairy cow waiting for you to offer to do their job for them.

I don’t know how I seem to always find the jobs in every organization that requires miracle working as a principle skill set, but next time I switch offices I’d damned sure like to land in one where it’s ok to walk through the day being only slightly more intelligent and productive than the three week old sandwich slowly molding in the break room fridge.

Should’ve learned to weld…

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Monday evening. Milepost One in the long march towards the three-day weekend. One of my go to responses to many events at the office these days is an exasperated reminder to the world that I could have learned to weld, apprenticed to be a plumber, or picked up any number of practical skills that ensured my long term employability. I’m told that at least one of my high school teachers recommended that amidst my perpetual struggle to grasp the basic concepts of algebra. Perhaps the old crank was on to something after all.

Instead of doing something productive like learning carpentry, I went to college and promptly put the thought of alternatives out of my head. I do wonder sometimes at what kind of difference it would have made had I found myself practicing an occupation where the end result is something to physically show for your efforts at the end of a day’s work. At least part of me thinks that’s got to be personally fulfilling on some level. Or maybe from where I sit it just seems more fulfilling than being the guy who churns out the memo with the fewest spelling and punctuation errors.

At the rate my bits and pieces seem to be grinding down, I’m not under any delusions of transforming myself into a tradesman at this late date. Between the shoulder problems, lower back pain, clicking knee, and the occasional bit of foot trouble behind a desk is probably the most reasonable place in the world for me to stay. While I’m there, though, I’m going to spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking that I should’ve learned to weld. With all the wisdom of hindsight I think a career that results in something less ephemeral than a voluminous stack of PowerPoint slides would have suited me.

Three shall be the number of the counting…

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When I started in the current gig way back in ye olde 2010, there were 8 people doing the job in my little corner of Uncle’s vast universe. I won’t tell you that we were always busy, but we had our moments of mayhem and chaos even when all hands were on deck. That number ebbed and flowed – up one, down one – over time, but was remarkably steady until about six months ago when people started racing for the exits. From there, it’s been a foot race to get out of Dodge.

By this time next week, the number of the counting will be reduced to three. By all outward appearances, we’re just going to reallocate the workload and drive on as usual. That strategy might be ok when you drop from 8 to 7, but by the time you go to three there simply isn’t enough time in the day to keep up. You reach a point where doing more with less isn’t just impossible, but it becomes detrimental to an office. It reminds me of an vintage Dilbert strip where Pointy Haired Boss tells Dilbert to pick up someone’s functions. Dilbert’s response? “I have infinite capacity to do more work as long as you don’t mind that my quality approaches zero.” I wish I could tell you that was farce, but it bears too much resemblance to reality. With every position left vacant, the quality of the work is diminished. Getting the job done just to that “good enough” standard is something that makes me just a little bit crazy.

I’ve worked in places that were more toxic, but the older I get the less tolerance I seem to have for the asshattery of it all. The only reason I’ve let it ride as long as I have is I happen to enjoy the particular piece of geography we occupy. I supposed even that’s not really enough to hold me if a change needs to come. As much as I don’t want to dive back into the land of the three hours commute, it’s time, past time, to put all the options on the table.

Renewed…

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Based on the email that arrived overnight from my domain registrar, it looks like http://www.jeffreytharp.com will be sticking around for at least another year. I suppose that could be good or bad depending on your point of view.

Taken wholly out of context, the email left me thinking about the issue of renewal in more general terms. It strikes me that this is a chance to evaluate where this blog has been and where it’s going, what’s worked well enough, and where I’d like to nudge it in slightly different directions. None of that is the work of a single day and certainly not of a single post.

Lately I’ve been kicking around the idea that I need to tighten up the focus of my writing a little bit. As you’ve no doubt seen, what shows up here tends to be sort of wide ranging, off the cuff ideas and commentary. That’s one of the aspects of this blog that I’ve always enjoyed. It has occurred to me, though, that in order to make it more than just whatever happens to be on my mind at any given point in the day (and to broaden its appeal beyond people who know me and want to see what I happen to be ranting about), there needs to be some kind of method overlain onto my particular brand of madness.

When it gets right down to where the fingers meet the keys, I don’t know exactly what I want this space to say about me and what I’m trying to do with my small slice of the internet. I have a hard time imagining that I’d be able to stay focused on just one or two main themes after I’ve spent the last seven years blogging about whatever notion captured my interest. With all that said, I want to believe it can be more than what it is currently. You might say I have a passion for this kind of writing. The commitment I’ve made to keeping this page current – now racing towards it’s eighth anniversary – is the longest commitment I’ve ever willingly made to anything in my life. If that doesn’t speak to passion for an activity, I’m not sure what would.

Now if I could just gin up a way to make this work a little less pro bono and a little more income earning, we might be on to something here. Then again that one time when I tried to make my living from history, my first passion in life, it quickly turned into work and a situation other than fun. Maybe I’d be best served by not trying to make a buck off of this one and just keep doing it because it’s what I love.

All of that because Go Daddy sent me an email. Sometimes I really do wonder just how the hell my brain works.

Interview with a misanthrope…

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I had an interview this morning, a something a few of you might have guessed by the fact that I had bothered to put on a tie. Generally speaking a tie is only something I wear when it can’t otherwise be avoided. As a rule of thumb, that means when the number of stars in the room is equal to or greater than five – Five one star generals = wear a tie; A three star and a two star = wear a tie; Reanimated corpse of Douglas MacArthur = wear a tie. It’s a simple rule that I adopted years ago to prevent any confusion about what to wear and when to wear it.

fBreaking with that longstanding custom today made me feel a little awkward. After all, two of the three people on the interview panel were people I’ve worked with for the last four years. Surely by now they’ve caught on to my basic reluctance to willingly put my neck in a noose each morning. With that, wearing one today felt like something of a cop out, a unilateral caving in to the throat constricting requirements of social convention. It made me feel a little dirty and a lot like a sellout.

Interviews are always a roll of the dice – especially since this is the first one of done live and in person since July of 2000 when I was hired as a first year teacher. All my other jobs over these last 14 years have been gotten as a result of phone interviews or directed moves into new positions. That being said I think I answered all their questions effectively and efficiently, while interjecting my own brand of folksy humor and sarcasm at appropriate points. How well that translates into the live interview process remains to be seen.

I work with at least half the people in the running for this gig. They’re good people with solid resumes and every bit as reasonable a claim on the job as I feel I have going for me. I’d like the chance to do something different without traipsing halfway across the country to find it. I’d definitely like the grade and corresponding income bump. Still, knowing who else is in the running I won’t shed bitter tears if I didn’t make the cut on this one… though that’s no promise I won’t be more sulky and irritable than usual for a while if the vote breaks against me.

So you just graduated?

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The whole world is open before you. Congratulations! I won’t mention that you’ve just been booted into the real world into the teeth of one of the worst job markets in living memory, or the fact that your degree doesn’t actual qualify you to work in your field, or that you’re about to enter a soul crushing, mind numbing grind that will rob you of your youth and keep up its blistering until you’ve dropped dead or saved enough money for retirement – whichever comes first. I won’t bring any of that up because your graduation is a time of celebration. It’s a chance to recognize a milestone achievement before you go off to make your way in the world.

Life after graduation doesn’t have to be doom, gloom, and the choice between living in your parent’s basement or your own studio apartment with an endless parade of ramen for dinner. Sure, you’re going to want you weekends to stretch from Wednesday afternoons until early Monday morning, but a few rounds of sitting through some mindless 8AM staff meeting will most likely break you of that desire. It’s just one of the machine’s many ways of breaking you down so it can building build you back up into a useful and productive cog.

Hope isn’t lost, though. The good news is that countless generations have preceded you. A few of their number were even thoughtful enough to write down a the tips and tricks that will help you navigate the professional world you’re about to enter. Now I could let you in on all these secrets for free, but that really defeats the lesson I’m trying to teach here – that sometimes free advice isn’t worth the electrons it was written with. Sometimes if you want the inside scoop, you’ve got to be willing to pay.

Let’s face it, at the low, low price of $2.99 for the ebook, knowing what you’re in for before it happens would be deal at twice the price. So, my newly graduated friend, I invite you to head on over to iTunes, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon to pull back the curtain and take your first steps into a broader world forewarned and forearmed. Nobody Told Me: The Cynic’s Guide for New Employees is the graduation present to yourself that you didn’t even know you needed.