Heading back to 2015…
I just reread what I wrote back then, and it was really focused on two particular bosses I had in 2013 – 2016. I think when I pulled this, I was kind of in a magnanimous mood; maybe I should forgive, reach out and find out how they’re doing.
but, nah, the negative opinion was justified then, and is still justified today. Should I delete your numbers from my contacts? Yeah, probably. I thought I did that, but they do ten to creep back.
*looks for those guys*
Yeah, okay, I actually had successfully excised them both.
I’m not sure if I’d recognize one of them if i saw him in public. The other probably I’d notice; he wears a Lumbergh-style white collar on his shirts. (It’s visible in the Wiki link at time of writing….)
There’s grudges I’ll probably hold on until I die.
Peeking back into what I wrote then, and, geez it’s not really comprehensible, but I had seven points.
- Lack of sympathy
You know, this is very much related to what I was experiencing with my condition. No, no I wasn’t making things up. I would not wish this on anyone. Not even you all who put me through some really awful times. (Now that’s not to say I wouldn’t want to do things to you, otherwise, but not fucking MS symptoms. Never.)
- Unwillingness to take a holistic approach
I did mention Captain Queeg’s strawberries a couple of days ago. Whatever the issue, it’s time to recreate your one moment of adequacy. One of the former bosses I wasn’t thinking about when I wrote in 2015 had us manually-punching Ethernet cables, and soldering other things because he thought it was important that we be able to do everything from scratch. How about no? I heard something recently about what humans spent considerable time doing in antiquity — it was making thread and material. The term “spinster” was talking about young women who never progressed beyond spinning yarn for making fabric. I’m not going to mill flour. I’m going to buy a bag.
I’ve had similar discussions with my wife, and another backer friend. Many of them use boxed mixes. You know what, that’s fine. No, it’s actually better than fine; it’s smart.
I think, maybe, it was something on Numlock about how home brewing is kind of a dying industry. Yes, Uncle Bob’s super-strong IPA might be a little better than whatever cans I can have delivered, but is the trouble worth it?
- Abusing your subordinates in front of others to make yourself seem competent. Yelling at someone just makes you an asshole, unless there’s something life-or-death at stake.
This one is still true. When you, or your team, screw up, admit it, and figure out what it’ll take to fix it.
This is something that’s really antithetical to government work. You did everything exactly according to regulation, but the customer didn’t get anything he/she/it actually needed.
(And CPARs really exacerbates this problem in many, many instances)
- Unwillingness to attribute anything (to your own mistakes)
- Unwillingness to own up to your own mistakes
Yeah, I’m seeing that i was really unclear on these. In my defense, I was probably plunking away at things either on a laptop while away from home, or surreptitiously via a terminal at work, dealing with a situation where a boss had promised something that it wasn’t possible to deliver. I’m thinking of something where I was being forced to deploy some tape-based backup solution that was both incompatible with the modern systems in use, and way too small to fully back up the systems. But that solution was one of the bad boss’s successes, so it was something we had to do again. No, it was slightly more modern than QIC-80, but not much.
- Being dishonest about compensation
Yeah, this is exactly-related to the two jobs. The first one was reflective of the approximately 20% pay cut I took in 2013. The second one was where I I hired in as a junior sysadmin, then promoted in=place with no salary adjustment into the senior position after they failed to do an in-place capture of the former person. The company’s benefits weren’t accepted where I was working. Because of that, I ended up buying one of the then-new healthcare.gov plans. I earned just enough that i didn’t qualify for any assistance. Part of the pitch was “Blue Cross Blue Shield” insurance. But not a BCBS insurer that worked outside MD/DC/NoVA. So, to the most-expensive Exchange plan…..that none of my providers accepted because they all thought it was Medicaid.
No, it’s not Medicaid. Certainly not for what I’m paying with after-tax money.
I had to change neurologists, and went on Tysabri. In order to get Tysabri infusions on the company’s insurance, I would have had to ride the train up to a place that accepted their insurance. That would have required a full day off of work, and would have basically consumed all of the paid time off that was included in the compensation package.
- Putting your own need for a quick buck ahead of the customer’s needs, and demands
This is kind of related to the QIC solution, but also to some of what happened with a previous job where the government customer was on-the-take from several vendors. I’m not going to link to the story, but this former GS-14 is now out of prison…and is often a Facebook friend suggestion.
How about no?
Again, though, this speaks to part of my political positions. Tax money is money taken from other people at the point of a gun. If you are okay in wasting stolen money, I really have no time for you.
Yesterday’s entry feels so incomplete, still. I probably should work on it, but the inspiration to do it is missing. Should I have more coffee this late in the day? Probably not.