I'm Over Contract Work, Thanks

I have been working on-contract since 2006, when Cingular bought AT&T and handed me over to a boss who was "passionate about delivering quality metrics." I had no upward mobility in that organization, and was so angry about the jackload who was managing me at the time being allowed to manage at all that I took off. I said "Later days, better lays" and went the contract route. It's been good and bad and not great ever since then. Sometimes it's been a clusterfist. It has all been about making money, and that's not always a good thing. When you're making money, more than some folks you work with, you can still be on the shit-end of the butt-wiping stick.
Here "why" is.

Apropos of nothing, I can NOT get a good cup of coffee today. It's thrown my day off-center. Usually I get 2 cups of coffee in over the day, with 2 cups of green tea in there, but ride my ears if I find a decent cup in this dump. MultiBILLION dollar comp'ny, zip-point shit for coffoise. BALLS.

Contract work allows one the freedom to move from company to company as soon as you screw up a project. If you're good at what you do, like I am with building requirements, determining requirement-design gaps, project management, business intelligence, interviewing, and redirecting fart-blame, your contract runs out close to the time you achieve Full Immersion and Momentum! on a project. Kinda like being in the act of coitus and the interruptus happens right about the time you realize you're setting some new stamina record, but OH HERE COMES THE FANTASY SYRUP and then BLAP...
you're cleaning out your desk with a loin-heat unlike any you've ever felt, and you're out of work again.

But if you're under 30, unmarried (or financially secure with your partner's money), and without children, Contracting is a great way to build a resumé. Otherwise you wanna get in a place and put down roots. Here's why:

Contractors are treated like rent-a-Cops at concerts. Necessary, sure. Doing a job some folks could not do, or are just too busy for. You are good enough to work AT, but not FOR, that company. Don't forget that.
Contractors get scraps. If your company has an all-day off-site meeting with guest speaker Alfonso Ribeiro, that's EMPLOYEES ONLY, mmkay? So you sit tight and finish working while the Employees go nuts watching The Carlton Dance up-close.
Benefits aren't great. 3rd-tier health care. Little/no retirement investing. You're on your own to drop $ into a Roth IRA or 401k, and don't expect the consulting company you're with to match it.

So I am 100% thankful for, but now totally over, my Contracting experience. I am actively pursuing full-time, in-house positions with a number of companies, but I think a lot of it is going to be contacting my friends at these places. Which I'm happy to do. I interview a lot so I'm comfortable widdit. I just hope the coffee doesn't taste like trucker underwear.

Not that I have perspective.
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Big Brother Sleeps In, Farts On Little Sister

Let's all admit right now that we have no clue how the government works. You can state all you just copied from a Wiki entry, but on penalty of asshole-waxing you cannot tell me what the Checks & Balances are. (it's how Government sets the standard for all corporations to stifle anything before it gets out of control and actually gets work done) But somehow our government, where the average representative - that's the place where there are 435 of 'em pulling a $174K salary - works a 3-day week in between committee meetings. And getting Lobbyist luncheon BJs. And bathing in slime.

So our Government cannot find a budget that works so they'll just quit and not show up? Sorry, there's no money to keep the lights on for a day? Bullshit. Get in there and fix that shit. This is the GOVERNMENT, it's somewhat important to people who think community activity isn't worth the time. It's maddening, truly. Big Brother wants to sleep in. Wants to roll over, take a rip off the bong, and nap until the weekend. Aren't we throwing firepower down Libya's throat for some reason dressed up to make it not look like oil?

They need to just go in there and push some shit around, look busy. Until now it doesn't appear anything has been done anyway. Seriously. And we're all too upside down in our tent mortgages to have the bag to skip a day of work, and REALLY shut the show down. You want to enact change, you don't vote. You get 50% of a workforce to dis-a-fucking-ppear for a Tuesday with no explanation. Send a message about who is in control.

Same thing in Washington, DC. This article tells the tales of those who are really affected by the stoppage: People making the $30K-$50K a year who're just scraping by in the economy's wet-fart of a recovery. The people who make the coffee, sweep the floors, shine the shoes, cut the hair, fold the shirts, make the meetings, unlock the doors, mop the bathrooms... they disappear for ONE DAY... shit'll get changed. Kinda like a "Day Without A Mexican," but documented.

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Corporate Training & Obedience

Hi, good morning! Everyone?! Good morning, hi...
My name is Denise Szbarski and I am aaaa certified corporate training specialist here, and today I am going to lead our class on the Unified Requirements, Intentions and Negotiations Gathering, or URING, as we like to call it, heh heh heh... NOOOO, not the other word, come on now...

Does anybody have any questions at this point? No? Okay, then why don't we turn our cell phones off or to vibrate, probably better off so that your business emails and important phone calls don't take us away from the focus today while we're all... working through the process and knee deep in URING. Is everybody able to connect to the network? No? You're not? You? No, no, no... huh, 7 of 10 of you can't get on? Okay, well keep trying. Okay then.

Okay, then normally we go around the room to introduce ourselves and say which department we're in to kill time that I can't fill, but instead of doing that, okay let's dive right into our work today. By the time we get to the last person most of us forget who was first anyway and it doesn't really impact our job nor this class, okay then.

Okay, then now the URING process was created out of a need for Senior Leadership like Daniel and Marlia and Steven to impart some change to an otherwise barely-flawed process we were all comfortable and knowledgeable with. After being confused about the actual details that go into planning and design they found a need to get everybody on a new page instead of the same page. Instead of having no answers as to what all has transpired during the gathering and design phases of projects, they now have an acronym they can refer to and feel as if they are at-one with their organization. They don't know any of your names and don't particularly care to, okay then.

Okay, then when you get to the last 72 hours before a project you have worked on is supposed to launch, the URING process will be referred-to. Usually this will happen by one of the Senior Leaders who hasn't attended any of the calls or meetings, and they will ask questions at random times. The answers to those questions will likely, or may not be, in the URING document, so keep it on-hand at all times, okay then?

Okay, then OH is that a phone? Please... please let's turn off our phones again real quick, guys I hate to interrupt class like that, okay? I'm barely qualified to substitute-teach a quiet-drawing class, guys, okay, let's make sure our phones are off. I have control issues, okay then.

So we're going to go ahead and dive right in for the first 2 hours, is it cold in here? Can we turn the heat up? Are any of you guys cold? No? I am freezing, I'm going to get this heat going, I will be freezing up here, okay then.

So we're going to go ahead and dive in for about 2-and-a-half hours as an intro to the URING process, then a 10minute lunch and bathroom break, then we'll wrap up with 3 hours after lunch. Ah, there we go, I just heard the heat turn on. I set it for 78 so if anybody feels warm just imagine you're in Maui on the beach with a Corona, okay then.
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Corporate Training: When done well, it sounds nothing like this. Usually it sounds like this.


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Conference Calls - The Townsquare of Corporate Life

If you have ever had a corporate lifestyle, this video will resonate in a painfully funny way.
* late-joiners
* non-mutes
* roll-call
* miskeyed re-joiners
* screaming babies
* screaming parents (my favorite in the past includes a budget-planning meeting interrupted by an irate co-worker/dad reminding his kids that they were to "TAKE THAT SHIT INTO THE GARAGE, DAMMIT!")

Enjoy!



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TidBits, ManBoobs, and PodBeans

My "2-blogs-ago" about the proposed liquor reform initiatives in Washington State have drummed up sentiment, resentment, and conversation! THAT'S AWESOME. I'm ecstatic that people think, read-up, research, synthesize, and discuss these issues. I have great taste in friends and readers. DON'T STOP. While I will never be all-in on how any form of government is run, the wholesale stripping of liquor sales from the state's tax puddle is not the way to reform this area. This draws attention to it and hopefully that results in a more moderate reform, but a reform nonetheless.

MEDIA RELEASE!!! I recently recorded an interview with a great Seattle comedian, Mike Cummings on his podcast, "Table For One, with Mike Cummings." He's been hitting stages for about 5 years now, and has a candid perspective about stand-up. We talk about moving to/from Los Angeles, The Industry, and comedy as part of Married Life and Fatherhood. There's a lot of my subtle wittiness in there, too. I think. I missed some of it, it's THAT good.

Posed a Facebook status question the other day about what it means to be American. I'm not sure anybody knows, or can explain it in a way that doens't sound jingoistic, xenophobic, and/or racist. I think it's almost like asking what it means to be a Man; the definition could encompass so much that it really cannot, but NEEDS to be, simplified. I'm pretty sure both definitions include gun possession and split-rail fencing.

I accept the fact that I am built almost exactly like Fedor Emelianenko. Fedor is the most-dominant heavyweight mixed martial artist in the world (Brock Lesnar not withstanding), and has lost once, legitimately, in a decade. The picture below is from a weigh-in with his opponent Andrei "The Pit Bull" Arlovski, shown on the right. While I spend most mornings before 6:30 putting myself through a circuit workout that almost nearly makes me vomit each time, I have in my head a picture of the guy on the right, while my body resembles the guy on the left.

Fedor won this fight with a thundering overhand right at 3m14sec.

The next few weeks will be interesting, as I am transferring from one job to another, back into the mobile communications industry. I'm excited about the chance to go do something for an industry I don't despise, with a team of people who are interested in the possibilities of the future. Never have I been the type to lean back and say "Yeah, this'll be enough for me until the grave opens." All the same, there's a lack of work, a plethora of bandwidth right now while this contract wraps up, and frankly I am just playing out the streak. Back to work!

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NiceHoles: The Candyland Edition

A new NiceHole has been uncovered:

The SweetHole.

DO NOT GOOGLE THAT AT WORK, you will be put back on that list you had to work to get removed from.

The SweetHole is a NiceHole who provides some sort of confection as a way of saying "Aren't I wonderful?" Really, their intent is not to bring candy to co-workers and share some joy, it's just to get rid of stuff they aren't going to eat at home. Nice, but come on...
The road to this blog is paved with the good intentions of people who are retarded in a way you can't test for.

I've noted this before in THIS BLOG about good intentions. Candy in the workplace should be familiar, individually wrapped, and portable. You wanna sandbag 40 packages of Coconut M&Ms near the printer, GREAT, you should be canonized.

But you want to leave a box of "Orchard Fruits" (the smelly 3rd-cousin version of Fartlets&Craplets) along with those wax bottles filled with colored syrup out by the garbage cans?

What kind of skidwagon raised you?

Work candy should be, if NOT chocolate, close to it.

Everything else falls short and you should just stop trying to be nice to people. If you're not willing to fess-up that you shop for groceries at a drug store, then you aren't good with work candy. Stick with collecting Faerie Tale Cat Figurines.

NICEHOLES. They're everywhere.


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No Comment is Good Comment

I was reminded this morning of a favorite Corporate Panic moment. One of those where, in the vein of "Paralysis by Analysis," we'd hit the wall on getting a project approved. After 5 rounds of documenting the process, refining it, mocking it up, running tests on it, the final package was sent around for comments... heh-heh, "package comments"... and NOBODY SAID ANYTHING BAD ABOUT IT. We had addressed everything that raised red flags, fixed bugs, and were ready to roll on this hot new version of your own "at-home Frozen Yogurt tap," or the "Icy FroGo!" (kind of kidding)

Long story short, we took it to the VP with proof that we'd met all requirements to get this thing launched, from cost to execution to benefit. And when she looked at it with full approval from everyone, her comment was a classic Corporate response:

"I'd like some folks to vet the comments you have received to see if they are valid."

In other words, she wanted comments on comments. Opinions of opinions.

Two weeks later we had not only received all the Comments on the Comments, and reviewed them in another 7 hours of meetings, but we MISSED OUR LAUNCH DATE for the Quarter!

So, before you open your mouth about your work, your dinner, the perfume of a co-worker, or why the shopping mall doesn't have a knife store, remember that your opinion has been considered, and was deemed a soft, round, pointless turd by your exclusion in the planning phase.

You're welcome.

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Jeepers, Am I Busy Or WHAT? Huh?

I'm like REEEEALLY busy lately, between homelife, comedy, and full-timing it.
That's why this blog isn't really meeting all your needs. But that should change soon. Next week I fully promise you more content, the kind you've come to expect and be disappointed in.

In the meantime, a TimeJacker at work called a meeting that I cannot go to for 2pm, and he's still at his desk at 2:10pm. TimeJackers are those who take conversations from Point A to Point B to Point ME ME ME ME ME! and then suck time off your life/work/Bocce! ball tournament with irrelevant stories. Not even a meeting I need to be at, seeing as how somebody else will take better notes than I will...

Okay, more later.

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Two New Niceholes

NICEHOLE; n. A person who, in their own mind, is being jovial, funny, well-meaning, or polite, by being themselves, while annoying whomever they are around, speaking-to, or working with.

ElderHole
This old-ass hole is usually off the mark with comments ranging from race relations to politics to gang rivalries. Recently while on a walk with my son, we were Bjorn To Rock!, as I had him strapped to the front of my bodular personage on a sunny, cool day. I was wearing a cap with a large purple "W" on it as I am proud of the university from which I graduated, Go Dawgs.

Walking across a parking lot, a lady in her mid-60's (by the looks of things) was getting into her Buick LeSabre, and says to us:
"Oh what a cute baby. Did you know your daddy is a Husky? I'm sorry about that."
So apparently whichever school was allowing women to attend it when she was of child-bearing age and looks was/is a rival of the University of Washington. I'm assuming in Athletics. Nobody talks trash about the UW Medical Center.
So I respond with, "Yep, it's a great school for medicine, manners, and courtesy. Have a nice day."
ElderHole: Old people can be a pain in the ass.

SarcastHole
This is a very common 'Hole. This person is one who knows you were plagued by a recent "issue." While they could offer anything from Help to Silence in talking to you about it, even if it's none of their business, they go for Sarcasm.
Case in Pleats: The team I am working on had to come in over the past weekend to test a new system. I did not have to come in because I'm a Contractor and still green to the team, and wouldn't lend more than an upbeat attitude (outwardly) and a looooooooooong siiiiigh from time to time.
SarcastHole on the team sees me on Monday morning, and rarely ever speaks to me. Again, new guy-contractor-moderately ignorant... why WOULD he talk to me? I'm nothing to him. BUT... Monday morning he stops me, with a sly/dumb smile on his face so that he can ask...
'Hole: "Heh-heh... how was your weekend?"
Me!: (confused at the ask) "Uh, good, just enjoyed the weather. What about you?" (so now I've asked him how HIS boring weekend was like I give a fartwhiff.
'Hole: "Oh, you... uh... did you not have to come in?"
Me!: "What? Oh, no, I didn't have to test this weekend."

He just kind of nodded and walked off.
BAM, right there... PROOF that he was hoping to drive-further the knife of disappointment into my rippling man-body. Why not find somebody going through a divorce and ask them if they like having a big bed to stretch out in? Like living the weekend of work wouldn't have been enough to push the edge, this bag of farts on feet tried to make light of it by bringing it back up in a way that was neither witty nor gregarious. Just dumb. Hardy-har.

ElderHole
SarcastHole

Be on the lookout for these holes, people.

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Mock Nerdle Tech

Somewhere in my DNA are a number of genes that are coded to produce moments of comedy. These moments aren’t always in the presence of others. I can’t really choose when it happens, usually. I feel it happen somewhere in my lymphatic system and then the connection completes and zap… comedy. Hoo-ray. It’s like trying to keep magnets apart. You can do it, but nature is making it happen in ways you are in no way emotionally ready to comprehend. And when these moments happen, I am at my most blissful, while somebody around me is usually suffering for it. In other words, if somebody gots theyself a goat, hoo-dawggy, I’m-a wanna git that goat! I did not choose Comedy. I chose football. But Comedy chose Me, and I have fewer shoulder aches from comedy, and almost never have to do windsprints for it.

And this kind of humor doesn’t always go well with the sensitivities, not to mention tight-ass’edness, of what I’ve come to see as “other people.” For example…

1) The FreeRange Tofurky Incident (involving a woman who was covered in cat hair-covered fleece)

2) The “Ice, No, but We Sell The Ingredients” Sale (retort to a woman who resembled a potato)

3) The “Is My Wife In Here?” Bartending Moment (wittiest comeback of my life followed that question)

4) Suggesting “Bring Your Child To Work” Day at Planned Parenthood (FIRED!)

But today was really a fantastic moment in my history of jerky humor.

At the vending machine at my new job, a guy’s purchase had hung-up on the way out of the rack. 6.5oz of $1 TrailMix held-back by the foil corner of the neighboring Oats & Honey granola bar. I suggested he either rock the machine, forearm-shiver the machine, or buy a cheaper item above or next to it, so as to “encourage” the release.

Me: Rock it a little. Like a baby.
Him: You can’t, it’s strapped to the wall.
Me: Bummer. Buy the granola bar, it’ll be cheaper than…
Him: … there we go… aw CRAP.

He bought ANOTHER $1 TrailMix, the one behind the first purchase. So the first one fell, while the one behind it HUNG UP ON THE GRANOLA BAR CORNER… Something about the definition of insanity.

So now he’s $2 in, and I say “Can you nudge it a little?”

Me: Can you nudge it a little?
Him: Why? It’s not gonna fall, it's stuck there Jeez. Well, somebody will get a free one I guess. (sulks away)

He turns the corner to leave and I shake my head, count to 5-IrishWhiskey, then blurt out “Oh awesome! FREE TRAIL MIX!”

He comes back around the corner with eyes wide, just as I start laughing and I say “Just kidding.” He wasn’t amused. I almost peed the inside of my pants with enough pee that it would show to the outside of my pants that very likely I had peed them through from the inside to the outside.

I don’t work or meet with this guy. But if I ever do, not matter what he tells other people about me, he’s the guy who paid $2 for crappy TrailMix, and didn’t have the balls to shoulder a 600-lb machine for what’s rightfully his.

All your TrailMix are ours.

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Read This If You're Unemployed!

I start my new job next Monday, and after a 19-month sabbatical/hunt, I am REALLY excited to get out of the house for a few hours a day. And provide more for my family, also. It's been a weird ride, but not one that I'd trade for the world. Maybe a couple grand, but overall the past year and half was really great.

• I was in a movie, a commercial, and a radio commercial.
• I drove to and from Los Angeles with my wife and a cat, seeing the gut of Oregon (GROSS) and the Coast of California.
• I played 10 shows in Las Vegas.
• I became a father!

All you need to know about Los Angeles in under 3 minutes. Not Safe For Lame-o's.

But in all this time I was searching for a job, also. A day-job, a real job that would allow my talents in writing, direction, and hand-farting come to the front of the fore.


And I learned a lot in the past 5 years of being both a Consultant and a Full-Time employee of companies. I can't really designate the difference based on the designation by name, as it seems that most everyone is there "full time." But looking deeper, it comes down to the fact that the benefits one receives vary greatly. I have written a book about this that I'll be publishing shortly and it will make a bajillion dollars and I won't have to work anymore, which is the point.


ANYDOO...
Here's a MAJOR news break I saw this morning and MUST share with you, especially if you are receiving unemployment checks from any state, and are also looking for work.


Your payment is based on your most-recent pay-rate at a full-time position. So if you were making $35/hour, WHY ON EARTH DID YOU COME TO WORK DRUNK AND GET FIRED, YOU DIPSHIT? Another time, sorry...


...then your check would likely hit the max rate for the weekly pay, around $500 from what I remember in the state of Washington.


BUT, if you are unemployed and take a part-time job ("part-time" will vary based on your location, check that out) it can GREATLY REDUCE YOUR UNEMPLOYMENT PAY-OUT if you leave that job. Your $35/hour designation will be wiped out in place of your $12/hour, just to help make ends meet until you sell your book, "Cooking With Whine."


The full story is below:
DON'T CUT YOURSELF TOO THIN.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100329/ts_csm/291284d

So you may think twice before taking that part-time job. Some companies allow part-time work and dish out benefits.

As always, save at least 10% of every paycheck, pay down your highest-interest rate debts first, and don't ever, ever move to Los Angeles.

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How To Not Do Good At Stuff

I found a position I would fit well in, with a company for which I would like to work.

I've applied there before via the web, per usual sources of application these days.

When I tried just now to apply, I entered the wrong password, and it said "USERNAME NOT REGISTERED, PLEASE REGISTER" as an error message.

But there's no place for a username, just an email address AS the user name.

STRIKE 1 - Username vs. Email Address

So I tried to find the password in my archives. No dice.

I tried to register said username, and got the error message...

"Account cannot be created. Username already exists!"

Wait, what? It DOES? You just...

STRIKE 2 - Internal Database vs. Error Message Accuracy

So I go to get the password reset for an account that apparently IS in the system, and got THIS error message...

"The Username you provided is not registered ! Please register." Yes, it's not. Because it is. Not.

STRIKE 3 - I am outta here.

If anybody knows the owner of the Clearwire.apply2jobs.com pages and database, please tell their boss that "Attention to detail" was probably fudged-about in their interview.

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My Book About Corporate Life, DONE

For those who don't know, haven't read this very often, or just need to be caught-up...
1) I'm going to be a dad in about 2 weeks.
1a) Yes, I'm a little freaked. I choked from rapidly drinking WATER 2 nights ago.
2) I spent a decade of my adult life in cubicles for a few of the Giants Of Industry, and laughed to tell about it. Some on-stage, much of it over drinks I shouldn't have pounded in the parking lot.

3) I decided to write a book about the experiences of #2. Poop joke? Not exactly. And "yes." But not exactly.

The book is about my experiences as both a Full Time employee - sardonically labeled "permanent employee" if you're dumb enough to believe that - AND as a contracted/temp/consulting employee.

There is a class war, a caste system in place among those cubicles and hallways, all based on the color of a person's access badge.

COULD IT BE? Can a person be JUDGED based on the color of their badge, designating their worth, place, input, salary, and attractiveness to a company?

HELLZ YEAH

And THAT is what this book is all about.

The daily work situations of every employee of every major corporation, and how it affects them based on something so small, yet so big... the color of their access badge.

Send me a note, I'll send you a sample chapter, you tell me what you think. Please?

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