Change of Command
My manager Skippy Whitebread left this morning for 7 weeks of military leave. He’s in the Air National Guard, and has to go to Fort B.F.E. Texas for 44 days of janitor training or some crap like that (his Air Guard job is cleaning up after pilots). While normally I’d be thrilled to have him gone and out of my hair for so long, it’s with kind of mixed feelings that I said goodbye this morning.
You see, my employer is in a bit of a turmoil. Again. Chaos was fairly constant here for a long time, but up until recently things had been pretty calm. There hadn’t been any major layoffs in a while, and everything seemed to be chugging along about as normally as it could.
Then last Wednesday night our CEO up and walked off the job. Quit. Bailed. Ran away. Nobody is really saying why, although as you can imagine there are zillions of rumors floating around. So we’ve got an interim leader who says he’s going to restore the “fun” around the company, but when people are freaking out about losing their jobs, what kind of fun is that? The stock is tanking as investors lose confidence, and everyone suspects we'll be sold to another company within the next 90 days.
When this last CEO came in, there were still 7,500 employees here. Today there are just over 1,800. He cut costs, fired a whole lot of honest working people, brought in a bunch more high-paid lazy-ass “directors”, and changed the company around, almost 180 degrees. True, some of the changes he made probably had to be done. We had 38,000 people working here worldwide in 2000; now that we’re 95 percent smaller, they’ve saved a ton on payroll, but the cost has been high. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone around here who didn’t have their resume typed and ready to go. And if you don’t have one, then you’re either really naïve or really foolish.
But back to Skippy. His leaving our little department means that someone has to cover his responsibilities while he’s gone. And that duty falls to Chuck, our former supervisor/team drunk. Chuck has a nasty habit of calling in majorly late for work at least 3 days a week (minimum 2 hours late), and then takes “sick days” probably at least once a week. We're all salaried, so there's nobody to really keep track of his attendance, and he conveniently "forgets" to add his time off to his own reports. Since the first of the year he’s missed 6 days so far, plus taken a lot of half-days off being “sick”.
Chuck is a classic alcoholic who is a good guy when he’s sober, but isn’t worth shit when he’s not. Currently, we all suspect he’s deep into one of those “not” phases. Chuck isn’t reliable in the least, and yet he’s in charge. But when he’s not here, someone has to make sure Skippy’s reports are submitted and his spreadsheets are filled out. Guess who gets that fun, on top of his own work? That's right, Sir Tommy - the guy who dares show up on time every day. What's the expression about no good deed going unpunished?
So Skippy is gone, and our team is now down to 5 people. Okay, maybe 4 ¼, if you count Chuck’s infrequent contributions to the team. And with the company going all topsy-turvy again, who knows where we’ll end up in the mix.
But for now I’m trying to keep my head down low, my mind on the writing, and my headphones cranked up real loud. It’s easier that way.
And Skippy will be back April 3, to hopefully pick up where he left off. Except without all that obsessive-compulsive shit, I hope…
You see, my employer is in a bit of a turmoil. Again. Chaos was fairly constant here for a long time, but up until recently things had been pretty calm. There hadn’t been any major layoffs in a while, and everything seemed to be chugging along about as normally as it could.
Then last Wednesday night our CEO up and walked off the job. Quit. Bailed. Ran away. Nobody is really saying why, although as you can imagine there are zillions of rumors floating around. So we’ve got an interim leader who says he’s going to restore the “fun” around the company, but when people are freaking out about losing their jobs, what kind of fun is that? The stock is tanking as investors lose confidence, and everyone suspects we'll be sold to another company within the next 90 days.
When this last CEO came in, there were still 7,500 employees here. Today there are just over 1,800. He cut costs, fired a whole lot of honest working people, brought in a bunch more high-paid lazy-ass “directors”, and changed the company around, almost 180 degrees. True, some of the changes he made probably had to be done. We had 38,000 people working here worldwide in 2000; now that we’re 95 percent smaller, they’ve saved a ton on payroll, but the cost has been high. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone around here who didn’t have their resume typed and ready to go. And if you don’t have one, then you’re either really naïve or really foolish.
But back to Skippy. His leaving our little department means that someone has to cover his responsibilities while he’s gone. And that duty falls to Chuck, our former supervisor/team drunk. Chuck has a nasty habit of calling in majorly late for work at least 3 days a week (minimum 2 hours late), and then takes “sick days” probably at least once a week. We're all salaried, so there's nobody to really keep track of his attendance, and he conveniently "forgets" to add his time off to his own reports. Since the first of the year he’s missed 6 days so far, plus taken a lot of half-days off being “sick”.
Chuck is a classic alcoholic who is a good guy when he’s sober, but isn’t worth shit when he’s not. Currently, we all suspect he’s deep into one of those “not” phases. Chuck isn’t reliable in the least, and yet he’s in charge. But when he’s not here, someone has to make sure Skippy’s reports are submitted and his spreadsheets are filled out. Guess who gets that fun, on top of his own work? That's right, Sir Tommy - the guy who dares show up on time every day. What's the expression about no good deed going unpunished?
So Skippy is gone, and our team is now down to 5 people. Okay, maybe 4 ¼, if you count Chuck’s infrequent contributions to the team. And with the company going all topsy-turvy again, who knows where we’ll end up in the mix.
But for now I’m trying to keep my head down low, my mind on the writing, and my headphones cranked up real loud. It’s easier that way.
And Skippy will be back April 3, to hopefully pick up where he left off. Except without all that obsessive-compulsive shit, I hope…
posted by Tommy G at
9:52 AM
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