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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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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Eating Out: 2nd Hand Canlis

I've eaten at Canlis ONE TIME. It was ethereal. It is the Highest of Classes. It is expensive. It is worth it. Every moment from the valet to the final check to walking out with most of your understuff not exposed, worth every bit of the $190 I spent on appetizers.

Kidding. They don't have "appetizers," dirtload. Frigging great food. They do a few things and they do each of them perfectly +2 (including "surprise" and "butter.").

We have a "dress code" where I am consulting.
It basically can be summed up in these words:
"Don't wear jeans before Friday."

Not $180 jeans. Not $20 jeans. Not well-washed, properly-fit-to-flatter jeans. Not baggy jeans wit' yo ayass hanging 'bove da sagg. Nuh-uh. No jeans.

Cargo pants? Sure.
Luau shirt? Aloha.
Smell like a batting helmet? No problem.
Khakis that upon closer-look are denim? Okay, nobody's gonna tattle.
Utili-kilt? Evenutally I will find out.
Utility camping pants that zip-off above the knee to become shorts? YES.

This last choice was made by a guy who works as a database blah-blah and wears his beard and hair "unkempt." Skullet to a ponytail. Long beard. Usually eating loudly somewhere. Grumpy. In pants that could zzzzzoooooooeeep! into a pair of pasty leg-baring shorts in a heartbeat.

Long story short, the eye-test doesn't show him to be somebody who would saddle up at a 4-star restaurant long-known as THE 4-Star in Seattle (up there with Rover's) and settle into a well-versed meal. Yet he DID that over the weekend. Then walked around complaining to people all day about how expensive it is. And the service was bad. And how he felt uncomfortable.

You dine. You do not EAT. There is no GORGING. You ask for a wine suggestion if you're not sure. You don't point to the cheapest and say "THAT."

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him understand that not all horses should be drinking at that particular trough. High prices keep the riff-raff out. I'm sure a pair of well-pleated khakis and a shirt with long sleeves was in order. Now damnit, bring me my cheese stix.
I've been there. I knew what to expect. And I was half this guy's age. Sounds like he wasted his time and money. Next time, zip those pantlegs off and get you some food on a stick. Leave the dining to those who'd rather not see your skullet.

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A Drug Test

Most places you work will require you to take a test to see if you have any drugs in your system. Not sure if that's because you look like you prob'ly do, they like seeing you hoop-jump, they be lookin' fo' somebody to smoke wit', or to see if you break the law or not.

BUT, if you work a job that taxes are taken out of the paycheck from, YOUR PAYCHECKUS...
AND, some of that money goes into the public coffers to be doled out to people on public assistance, welfare, or in line for the Gubment's teet...
THEN, it should be required of the second-hand recipient of your effort's wages to take a drug test in order to pick up a check.

Or am I high?

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Lessons In Being An A-Pipe

The Brett Favre saga continues, as he tells the Packers earlier this year that he's leaving them, then tells 'em, "Hey... daddy's thinking he may wanna hit that sweet Green & Gold ass a little more, whaddya say?"

In the meantime, the Packers decided to move on, like any healthy dumpee in a relationship, and go with a younger, thinner, QB who may need some development but is surely the way of the future.

So Brett needs attention. And he's had it for a month now. A lot of it. Overshadowing the entirety of the kickoff of the NFL season. It's not about the Packers, it's about Brett Favre. This is showing a side of Favre I don't like, which is too bad because he's a Hall of Fame lock for sure. But now he will also be remembered for waffling like this.


Another case in point, some Fart-in-Human-Form that I work with. Gawd, this guy...

Sure, he's under pressure from his boss to handle things. We all are. It's called WORK. I have some. I'm not doing it right NOW, but I have some.


See, when a guy decides that his work is of the utmost importance, he narrows his view of the world and sees only his target. And once he begins to swing wildly the arms of panic because somebody said "Uh... we need that sooner," then everyone not in his view gets hit. And until the hitting stops, the work done by everyone else suffers.


The past week has been a suffering at the end of the flail. Every email leads to a 45 minute call across 4 schedules. Every voicemail leads to a 90minute call across 15 schedules. And now... now this fella sends a round of emails to 10 people, and in the amount of time it would take one of above-normal intelligence (and twice-above-normal Handsomeness) to read the thread and make sense of something with a subject line of "Support For Group,"

The DiaperLoad calls me to reiterate what was in his email...
Because I guess I have nothing else to do...
And work only to serve him...
Which means, likely...
He's not married.


So yeah, if you wanna be an A-hole, that's a phenomenal way to do it. Demand, demand, demand, and then when your turn comes up, act like you deserve it.


Oh, and double-clicking your pen (tk-tk... tk-tk-tk-tk...) and bouncing your leg all day are not "activity," they are nervous habits for which you should have a crayon taped to your hand and your ankles duct-taped together. For crying out loud, WHY CAN'T I JUST COME OUT AND SAY THIS???


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Sick of It

So... again... at work...

This guy sitting near me, in an office... with a DOOR that closes on hinges and latches and locks... has his door open...
and a now-drying chest cough that spasms in quick, double-bursts every 90 seconds or so. You could set your whiskey shots by it. He works in HR. Imagine.

My problem with people coming to work ill, especially if they are contagious, and ESPECIALLY if they aren't that attractive, is the possibility of spreading their illness. I understand the move if you're the only orthopedic surgeon in the ER for the next 72 hours, or a drywaller who doesn't reek of beer before hanging Hardi-backer in the splash zones. But the HR contact? Dude.

Back in the bubble.

'kA-hhuu, 'kA-hhuu.

But HOW does this message get out? It's the same problem for somebody who is really loud at work, or dresses poorly (not the scooping neckline or short skirt, that's a whole different reason to stay home), or complains all the time. It's a personality flaw, it's in the code of the machine now.

See, in the past I've tried dropping hints, anonymous print-outs, farting in their cube, farting in a drawer in their cube, leaving the water of a tuna can in a cup under their desk, telling them outright, and general embarrassment. The last of those, by the way, is far too underutilized in our society. If somebody is bothering you with any sort of behavior that you haven't paid good money for, it's well within your rights to let 'em know.

I can't handle this. I'm 34. It could go on for Who Knows how long, and dammit, it's time to just do the right thing and tell HR.

Oh right. I gotta say something. Sorry Dude. I'm sick of your sickness.

Another time, earlier this year when I first started this job, I was very ill for a good 48 hours. Some sort of bug that just wracked me. So I decided to stay home for that Monday. When I returned, I was admonished, somewhat "gaily," by a co-worker that I better not be sick and get her sick, dang it!

From the day I started there was a wet, hacking chest cough emanating from across the cube walls, from the same person who was demanding that my presence not THAT FUCKING COUGH, DUDE, COME ON.... that my presence not impact her immune system. Now, my bug was legit. 4 months into the show here, that chest cough prevails, daily, wetly.

It's making me sick. DONE.

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We Can All Agree On Food That's Free

In the kitchen at work, which has two vending machines and - if you're quick - a "surprise buffet" known as a refrigerator, there are some randomly-donated food items.

Somebody left a plastic freezer-bag full of "snack mix" on the counter for general consumption. Made almost entirely from cereal, it features multicolored rings of cereal, chex-type cereals, and cranberries.

Those dark spots are the cranberries. It's fuzzy because I was stifling a Vomiggle, a cross between throwing up and vomiting.
This picture was taken at 2pm. This bag's been countertopped since the morning.

Free Food.
Workplace.
No way should this have gone so long.

I work in a very diverse work environment, with people from as far away as Iowa. But this attempt at sharing should be pointed out as a shameful excuse for emptying the cupboards. Either somebody's kid is wondering where all the breakfast went, or somebody's kid just got their car-seat cleaned out.

Chex -like cereal, which I tend to love.
Frooty Loops, which I understand the appeal of.
Cranberries, fantastic through the mid 1990s before faltering around 1999. Did we have to let them linger?

So let me explain this to you, in case you're thinking of "brightening up" the workplace with a donation of free nibbles.

DO THE RIGHT THING...
Candy. Chocolate. Cake, Pre-Cut. Pizza, always good. Donuts will rocket you to sainthood in Accounts Payable.

Just a primer. People are pigs, they'll eat what's there even if you dropped a donut, sprinkles-down in baby diapers. Just run it under the Purell and eat up. Don't drop the randomly assembled burnt popcorn, lime Tootsie Rolls, and a barrette in the breakroom and then pat yourself on the ass for a job barely noticed.

What a shameful attempt at impromptu workplace catering. That second handful tasted terrible.

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