Jericho: The Things He Didn't Say

Nearly two and a half years ago, I wrote what's below. I wrote it in my email program, it has sat, staring at me from my "Draft" folder since then. At the time, my email program was the only text editor I had with a spell checker that wasn't Word. Now, I have about six text editors that can spell check, how the world has changed! However, the world is also very much the same - at probably no point in my time as a blogist has the below been more true. Read at your own risk, try not to take any of it personally ...


Do you know what I spend a lot of time doing on this site? I spend a lot of time out here editing myself. I spend a lot of time NOT saying things I would like to say. I spend a lot of time cutting myself off, correcting myself and rewriting things I said in the moment of passion.

I mean, gods forbid, what if I said something wrong and my employers read it? Or if my family read it? Or, what if my wife read it? What if I pissed them off or broke my NDA and lost my job or hurt someone or ended up divorced? If I misstep here, if I write the wrong series of words at just the right time in just the right way, I could really wipe myself out.

So, why do I do this crap? It's just a big waste of time. I'm not getting paid for this. It's not like I'm risking my life and getting an adrenaline rush here. This isn't REAL writing. I'm just bull-shitting. The fact that we use rough language out here will prevent me from ever getting paid for the work I do here. But, it's real, it's what I want to say. I want to expose myself to the world. I want to stand naked in front of the cyber storm and let it blow through me. I want people to know how I feel and what I think and how the weather is and what color my shirt is and that things are happening. But I don't talk about all of that, no, I edit it. I edit everything. I don't write for this site - I'm just the editor.

I've thought about going out to Blogger and writing a little secret journal just for the odd soul who tripped over it. There, I could say whatever I wanted, anonymously. But, that wouldn't be me, and I couldn't use real names. It would just be me blowing off steam. It would just be that little demon that lives under my brain. He would finally get to come out and say that I really want to ... and I really feel that ... and I really hate ... and I just want to kill ... and I just ....

But, that's not the real me. I'm the Editor. I've been editing all my life. Instead of risking it, I edited those thoughts and took a safer road. I edit what I say, what I do and how I feel.

Sometimes I wish I had nothing to lose. I could say and do as I please. But, who would care? The guy who has nothing to lose is without risk. I had nothing to lose moving out to Seattle, it was easy, I just left. I knew my family, the ones that mattered, would always be there. I knew Max would always be there. If I had been writing this at the time, you wouldn't be reading. I would have been boring. But, you read now hoping that I will lose something. We all watch the car race to see the winners and to watch the losers go up in flames. We may not be willing to admit it, but we all love a good, gorey, twisted metal and smoking bodies screw up, don't we? It sickens us and makes us feel good that we are alive. Maybe it just makes us feel.

Max: Harry Potter Revealed

I must warn you, this post contains spoilers. No, not about the current Harry Potter books, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. No, I have managed over the past few days to uncover the ultimate spoiler, the ending of the as yet unnamed final Harry Potter book. Please do not ask me how I came by this information. Too many lives are at stake. So. Here it comes. Do not read further if you wis to wait for the final book to know what happens. I mean it.

Okay...

It turns out that Neville is actually the autistic son of working class New England widower Arthur Weasly. The whole of the Harry Potter story arc is in fact a fantasty he has while spending his day staring into a snow globe while being watched by his grandfather Albus while Arthur is at work.

Jericho: Now it can be told.

My life has gone through a series of shake ups the last couple of weeks. I haven't been able to write about them, and even this entry will be HEAVILY guarded as to what I will say and very light on detail - nothing is settled yet. All I can say in my defence is that it's not paranoia if indeed they are out to get you.

A bit of history. I seem to find ways to work in the minority group no matter where I work. At Sprynet, I worked on the Mac team, I was fired for doing the same things other people on other teams were never noticed for - and the people who fired me were fired within two weeks after I left. I worked in the Telecom group at Boeing, they were out sourced to IBM Global Services, I then joined the 3rd, then the 2nd shift generalists. As a contractor on these shifts, the feeling was that I was easily replaced. Now, I work again for a Telecom group. We are a small team. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

We have had some management changes in the last three months. Several people have been fired or have quit. Since this set of changes began, I have been fearing for my job. A week ago Thursday, my fears came to fruition - we were told we're being out sourced.

And the panic set in ...

This is the longest I have ever had a job. I've been here for nearly five years. I hate looking for work. I really hate the fact that if I go off to some other job, I'll probably be in the same situation I'm in now in another five years. So, I decided to find a way to change and maybe even improve my situation.

I walked out of the worst meeting I've had in my five years at this job, took the elevator to the lobby, called my wife and told her to meet me outside. I told her what was up. Then, I floated the idea. Wanna go to Maine?

Steph is from Maine, her folks are still there, so are some of her friends. She's close to her folks, and I have always felt bad that I brought her out here and seperated them. In the past year, I have been thinking about Maine. Steph and I have a real problem - we're both going to be the kids our parents will rely on as they age. Neither set of parents are going to be able to fully support themselves. Maine might be the only place we can set up to make sure our folks are taken care of. It's still a few years off, but being prepared now is better than it sneaking up on us later. (My mom just lost her job and it's not looking good. She was at her last job for thirty years.) I have been thinking about opening up a hotel or B&B - some place we can call our own and put the retirees to work! :)

Either way, if we are going to move to Maine, I felt we should do it immediately, we wouldn't get the chance again. Steph saw my point and agreed we didn't have much to lose. We'd wait to see what the final word was on the job, if there was going to be a severance package or what not. We had no idea if this was happening in months or days. Steph's folks had no problem with us staying with them until we could get our own place. (Eight cats in one house! Oy!) We worked on my rez and began applying for jobs.

It was a long weekend. On top of everything else, I had (have!) some type of stomach bug. I was on the crapper every hour. So, I cancelled my gaming with my friends, and told them about the job sitch. I got a lot of negative reactions out of that. Just what I needed. I told Max and Laura. More nagative reactions. I know no one meant anything by this, I just needed more support than I got. (I love you guys. Really!) I also announced that I was going to stop working on Planet Zonk. I need the time for other pursuits, like packing and trying to get certified.

Going to work on Monday was a real trip. The idea of getting up to go to a job that didn't exist anymore. The fact I was unemployed but not yet fired. It was all pretty mind blowing. Steph and I agreed that having an end date would have been better than my cheese hanging in the wind. It just sucked. That afternoon I had a phone interview with a placement company in Portland, Maine. A nice job with a bit of a raise for a big North East bank. If that job were to work out, I could go to Maine, stay with my inlaws, work the job, find an apartment and be ready for Steph while she stayed here and sold the house and moved us out. Things looked to be working out.

On Wednesday, I got to train the Help Desk people to start taking Telecom calls and emails. Nothing like training your replacement. Later in the afternoon, I went to a meeting to discuss the outsourcing. I didn't realise I was walking into an episode of "Three's Company" - it was all a big misunderstanding.

Our telecom equipment is pretty out of date and it varies from office to office. We have been talking about going to Voice over IP (VoIP) for a while - the whole industry is talking about VoIP, so no shock there. One of the options, an option that has a lot of advantages, including price and speed of deployment, is to have the VoIP system hosted by someone like Quest, Sprint, etc. You will notice, I said "hosted." Management above my group calls this "Outsourcing." Their vison is that the current Telecom team will be the Subject Matter Experts on the VoIP system. The Help Desk will act as our Tier 1 and the actual hardware will be given to an "outsourcer" - a hosted solution. While our jobs can't be guaranteed, there is no need to fire anyone or change our group in any significant fashion.

Well, that was a fun week!

We're all still pretty unnerved. I don't feel that I can depend on having a job tomorrow. So, I'm going to redouble my efforts to get some certifications (I'm working on Network+) and my resume is ready to go if the excrement impacts the atmospheric screw and becomes an aerosol particulate.

I really need to start my own business. I can't take this crap anymore!

Max: So Much More Secure

Via CNN

"Four explosions in London's transport system have killed at least 33 people and wounded dozens more in what UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said was an apparent terrorist attack."

It would seem our little adventure in Iraq hasn't made us a whole hell of a lot safer. Here's a thought; let's stop worrying so much about tin-pot dictators for a while and actually go after the fuckers who keep attacking us.

Max: Shrub Collides With Cop During Bike Ride

CNN.com - Bush collides with police officer during bike ride - Jul 6, 2005

"AUCHTERARDER, Scotland (CNN) -- President Bush collided with a British police officer during a bike ride Wednesday evening, suffering scrapes on his hands and arms that required bandaging, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said."

Apparently they have those invisible cops over in Scotland.

Max: Ketchup With What The Catsup 2

Last monday I started telephony training. So far, it has been a complete waste of time. What time we didn't spend reviewing billing databases we are all already familiar with or just sitting there waiting for the trainers to figure out how to work the training software was spent learning how to put orders together, something we will never actually do on the job. The week was not a total waste. Thursday night I went to see Victor Wooten. It was an amazing show. In what was perhaps the highlight of an evening if highlights, Vic and his band (which included his brother Regi on guitar) played "Higher Law" from Vic's latest CD then segued into Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" in the middle of which Regi launched into Van Halen's "Eruption" at the start of a guitar solo that would have left EVH in the dust. To cap this off they launched back into "Kashmir". I feel deep pity for the billions of people who were not there to see it.

Another bonus is that for the duration of training, my weekend actually falls on the weekend, rather than in the middle of the bloody week like it has for the past few years. Yesterday we had a going away party for Laura's friend Beth who has been living with us for the past year. She is moving to her sister's place in St. Joseph, MO (where Abbott met Costello). Inebriation, a propane grill and fireworks made for an interesting evening. Today, I am hoping to just chill a bit. Laura was talking about heading downtown to the fair, but I am hoping she will change her mind. I am feeling a strong need to chill today. We'll see what happens.

Oh, BTW. I want to thank each and every person out there who voted for the Shrubster last November. The right wing, Bill of Rights hating nutball he will soon be appointing to the SCOTUS is your fault. And all of us will have to live with the fucker for at least a couple of decades.