On The Outside, Looking In.

Remember back when I posted about how things always seem to change when I complain about my situation and they didn't usually change for the better? Well... it happened again. The complaining and things changing part, anyway. Surprisingly enough, things are actually a lot better now.

Halfway through September, I was transferred again and, no, it wasn't back to my original desk. I've been moved to a completely new desk in yet another division altogether. And, yes, this came as a result of me complaining. Not to myself or into the vast open spaces of the internet but to what appears to be a more effective audience: HR.

Yeah. Now, I'm normally the kind of guy who tries to make the best of things. You know the type: the guy who quietly sits and mutters to himself instead of proactively initiating change until one day he finally reaches his breaking point and thoughts of property damage start playing around inside his head.

S-stapler...

Yeah, that guy. Or, at least, I thought I was. When things actually got to the point with my supervisor where I couldn't take it anymore I ended up going to HR and lodging a complaint. I even surprised myself. One thing led to another and here I am, working on the executive offices. Please note: my job title and salary remain the same level (the bottom). I'm just doing the job I was hired to do in a different setting.

I guess this is the point where I go into the ups and downs I had with the supervisor in question and talk about how things at my new station are working out. But... no. That's enough of that. Instead, let's talk about the time I locked myself outside my office... and, by extension, the entire building... on the top floor. That's way more interesting, right?

AHEM! The government office that employs me takes up the top three floors of a seven-story building. The executive floors are, of course, on the top floor of those three floors. On each floor there are two emergency exits and each of those exits also grants staff access to the balconies where staff is free to go to think, focus on a difficult task/assignment, view a passing parade in the streets below, have a private conversation or weep mournfully as they contemplate the meaninglessness to their existence (it's cathartic). As such there are no alarms to go off when these doors are opened.

Most of the time, though, people just go outside whenever the air-conditioning starts acting up. On rare occasions a unit will break down but, more often than not, they work too well and it gets super-cold in the office. Not many of us are built to take it but I don't mind. I just throw on my jacket and I'm good so, with only a few exceptions, I pretty much ignore those balcony entrances, even though I'm now seated right in front of one of them (naturally, this means, if shit goes down, I'm the guaranteed to be one of the first ones out).

That was until yesterday...

It had been raining all week. The air was colder than usual and even I was feeling the chill in the air. Then, from the window behind me, I happened to notice the sun had finally decided to check in on us. The sky was so bright I just knew it would be nice and warm outside already. I imagined the feeling of the warm sunlight on my skin and I could feel myself being pulled to the outside. That's when I decided to just go out and thaw off for a bit.

Now, as I said earlier, I hardly availed myself of the privilege before but the few times I did, I got in and out with no problems. However, what I didn't know was that, unlike the other balcony entrances, the door behind my desk does not open from the outside. So when a gust of wind eagerly finished closing the door for me I barely paid it any mind. I soaked in some sun, looked around a little at the nearby streets and buildings and headed back for the inside. Only... When I got the the door... Yeah...

"Of course..." was my first thought because, obviously if anyone's going to get themselves locked out it's me.

This was when I looked around and realized the balconies aren't connected around the corners and there was a seven-floor-deep gap between me and the only other entrance on the floor. Outstanding! My next thought was to discretely call one of my coworkers on their cells so they could come over and let me back in. This was unfortunately hampered by the fact that I had earlier put my phone to charge and it was at that moment sitting on my desk, evilly smirking at me (IT SMIRKED! I SAW IT!) through the locked window.

"Naturally!" I sighed.

At this point I was left with three options:

1. Climb up the roof-access ladder and get to either the other balcony entrance or the door to the main stairwell.
2. Go across to the emergency stairwell, make my way down to the floor just below and get in from an entrance there.
3. Knock until someone heard me and came to my rescue.

Each option, however, comes with it's own set of problems. Like I said, it was windy. Climbing up to the roof and walking across seemed risky, especially since the entire center of the building is hollow all the way to the ground floor and all that covered that section was a huge glass dome so yeah... No! I considered the emergency stairwell option for a quite a bit but I wasn't sure if opening those doors triggered any alarms or if any other doors opened from the inside besides the one on the ground floor. Common sense told me I should be fine. The fear of sending the building into a panic if I trip off an emergency alarm told me back off that idea a bit.

See? Some of them do trigger alarms. I wasn't letting the lack of a label lull me into a false sense security.
source

While I was considering trying to get to the floor below, it also occurred to me that there was an Option 4: Since the building had a sort of Mayan pyramid thing going on, I could just ignore the stairs and jump down to the balcony below.

source

But I decided against it.

This left me with knocking and calling at the offending door until someone came to my rescue. While this may seem like the most viable solution to sum, to me it was the least desirable option. My new supervisor, who happens to be the one who sits closest to me was on lunch at the time so this meant I had to really make myself heard. Not only did I leave myself open to ridicule from whoever came to let me back in but I ran the risk of attracting the attention of the executive staff since their offices were all around my area. Being on the floor only a few months, I felt that somehow this wouldn't help me make a good impression.

Still, of all the available options this was the only one that could count as "sane" so I figured I'd play it safe. So I knocked... and waited... and knocked again... and waited some more. Then I realized there was no one within earshot. I looked at the emergency stairwell door again. I began to wonder if they'd fired me if I set off the fire alarm and sent hundreds of people scampering.

I knocked again, slightly louder. Nothing.

I decided to enjoy the view for a bit more until someone noticed I was missing. I figured, worst-case scenario, I had at least half an hour until my supervisor got back from her lunch break. Roughly ten seconds later I was back at the door, knocking and trying (and failing) to not look overly pathetic. I realized if someone did pass by, I'd only look like I was getting some fresh air rather than trapped outside. This time, though, my efforts paid off and a few minutes later I heard a 'click' as the knob turned and the door opened.

"What's the password?" It was the personal assistant to the third-highest ranking guy there. She was just returning to her desk and heard me knocking.

"Thanks," I smiled and started to pull the door open.

She held firm on her end, "Noooooo. That's not the password." She smiled back with a sing-songy reply.

I joked it off and made a few guesses (all of the wrong) but she insisted on making me squirm for a minute before letting me pass. FYI: It was "open sesame", apparently. Go figure.

"You now this door doesn't open from the outside, right?" she said as I walked in, "We normally block it open when we go outside."

"No... No I did not."

All-in-all I endured only minimal embarrassment and, as a bonus, the rain held up the entire time. That counts as a good a day, in my book.

Social Interaction - Leave It To Me.

One of the my biggest issues when it comes to trusting people is I have this irrational fear that people are going to let me down. This fear is further compounded by the fact that people so often do let me down. Maybe it's not so irrational after all. Often, I am placed in situations where I have to get information or instructions or even training from someone else or, at other times, I have to wait on others to do something and do it properly before that something is passed to me so I can do my part. I take it for granted that the other person/people has at least some idea of what they're doing. I know I don't. I've said that more than enough times. So I depend on them to help me get/stay on the right track.

Unfortunately, more often than not, it's soon made painfully clear to me that they don't have it all together either. Often I wonder, if I don't know what I'm doing and they don't know what they're doing, then who does?

Who is hording all the information about how things get done and leaving the rest of us to grope around in the dark... looking for someone to whom we can comfortably delegate the responsibility and expect results?

But I digress. I can remember about six years ago when I was in banking and a newly appointed loans officer. The natural process was for me to sit-in with a senior officer and observe how he did things. Unfortunately, my senpai - as we anime nerds like to say - was so accustomed to "bending" the banks rules on lending policy that he forgot most of the actual rules and taught me all the stuff I shouldn't be doing. Luckily, I figured out what was what before too much damage was done.

This sort of thing happened in jobs I had before the bank and continued throughout every job that followed, including my current job with the government. After it became clear that my temporary transfer to another division turned out to be less temporary than they would have had me believe, I had to go sit with the person I was replacing so she could explain what I would be expected to do. She did a good enough job and seemed to know what she was doing (Finally!) but I soon learned that even she, who became accustomed to doing her own thing, wasn't getting it all right either. This resulted in me making a lot of mistakes and a lot of frustration on the part of the other sections with which I had to interact. In order to do things the way it suited them, I'd have to go to all these different sections, find out what they wanted and essentially relearn a lot of what she taught me.

I want to trust people. I do. Honest! If for no other reason than the fact that I want us all to be able to work together to get the job (whatever "job" it may be) done. Okay, that's a lie. I guess I don't really need to trust them. What I really want, above all else, is to not get blamed when things get screwed up. Shit has a nasty way of hitting the fan while it's being it passed to me (How's that for a mental image?). It doesn't matter who or how many other people screwed it up before, I always end up being the one left holding the bag... of shit.

I don't know why...

So, in an effort to minimize the damage to myself, I often feel obligated to try and handle everything myself. I do this because, obviously, no one but me can get things right. You see, when I was just a lower-case C (or "Mini-Vinny", if you will), I heard one or two villains in some of those Saturday morning cartoons exclaim, "If you want something done right, do it yourself!" and then proceed to take control of the situation and come within an inch of winning before failing only slightly less miserably than their pathetic minions who forced them to take things over in the first place.

Those words seemed to have had a profound impact. Right up until the point where the "hero" made his obligatory Hail Mary move that saved the day, it looked like things were going to go in the bad guy's favor. Didn't it? So, somewhere along the way I figured, without some meddler (in tights) around to throw a monkey-wrench in the works, I could totally get things handled... as long as I didn't give the idiots around me a chance to screw it up.

So, just so we're all clear, in my reality, I'm the evil mastermind and everyone else I have to work with, my inept minions. Got it? Good!

Now if only I could get the rest of them to realize that and get out of my way.

I Have No Idea What I'm Doing - Can't Complain.

You know how sometimes there's a thing and you complain about the thing and then the thing changes to the opposite type of thing but you like that new thing even less so you think to yourself, "Holy crap, I shoulda stayed quiet about the thing because the opposite thing is way worse than the first thing!" and then you start to believe you have some kind of  freaky superpower (or karma really hates you) because you realize every time you complain about things, the opposite things happen but the new things are not the way you pictured them in your head and things seemed better the way they were before but it's too late now and you're stuck with the new things and even if you used your new-found abilities to make things go back to what they were before, the old things aren't the same old things but new-old things... or old-new things (it's hard to tell sometimes) that suck in a totally different way?

(Okay, now breathe! Trust me, the rest of the post is nowhere near as annoying as the opening.)

That is so me! When I first started to work for the government (doesn't it sound really covert and cool when I say it like that?), I posted about the time I complained (without really complaining) to Mrs C about being left for days with nothing to do while they sorted out things like where I'd sit and which department in the division to assign me.

Then things changed and, soon after that, the details were sorted out and work came my way, which was to be expected, I guess. However, I soon realized I was being loaded up with a bunch of complicated responsibilities which technically weren't in my initial job description and I pseudo-complained again in a post about feeling like I was almost in over my head. Eventually, though, I realized I was getting the hang of it all and was kind of enjoying it.

It was too late though. I had already put the complaint out into the universe and karma diligently rushed in to address the situation. As a result, things changed again and that was when I was pulled from all of those projects and reassigned to help write a white paper. By extension, I was also pulled from my desk and the very building in which I worked and exiled to the Central Office to work in near-isolation along with the other three members of the team assigned to that task. I... um... shared my thoughts on that in another post and, in less than four months we were recalled and the project went dormant.

Now I was almost left idle (again), only in a different division... for three months. By this time I was really starting to miss my old desk and my old work and made mention (I know, right? You'd think I'd learn my lesson by now right?) that I missed my old desk and my old work and I wanted to go back. Naturally, things changed again but not in the way I wanted. They didn't move me back but finally decided to give me something to do. A lot of something! I had something (work) coming out of my ears!

I eventually started to notice the trend (took me eight whole months because I'm so quick on the uptake) and decided not to complain, especially since I was basically just riding out the last month-or-so of my contract. Plus, by then I already knew it was being renewed so I at least knew I wasn't out of a job and, as an added bonus, I'd be handing over all my work to someone else. At the very least, I was hoping the people in charge would realize they were beating a dead horse with this whole white paper thing since no one seemed interested anymore and I'd finally get to go back to where I belonged.

Nope! I returned only to learn that no one had even considered what I'd be doing when I got back so I was dropped on my old-new desk with, once again, nothing to do. But, guess what... I complained again. This time to my wife. Yeah. I think It was that month-long vacation that made me forget.

That and I iz dumb.

Sure enough, things changed again. The coworker I handed over all my work to was recently poached by another division, leaving me to not only take back all the things they shoveled onto me before my first contract ended but to take over her work as well. As I mentioned in one of my earlier complaints, I was moved to a division that deals with things that weren't in my knowledge-base or skill-set... or portfolio or any other corporately douchy buzzword way of saying I didn't know jack squat about the work they do here. And now it looks like this is going to be my permanent abode.

The funny thing is not one of these times did I complain to my bosses or even a single coworker. I mentioned a few of my grievances here on the blogosphere, or on some social networking site or the other and even to Mrs C, but never in work. Which is why I think karma has way too much time on her hands.

Either that or my bosses have been keeping up with my blog. Is that a scary thought or what?

But I'm NOT complaining, though. Mostly because I don't want to imagine any scenario where I look back on now and it feels like this is the good old days. 

Snowball 2 - And So We Meet.

You are entering another dimension, a dimension not only of projects and flowcharts but of deliverables. A journey into a land of micromanagement. Next stop, the Corporate Zone!

(Dramatic music)

Submitted for your approval: Vinny C - A typical government office employee who does his best to survive the tedious day-to-day grind. Vinny is about to learn that no good gesture goes unpunished as he take a wrong turn into the cubicle of...

The Corporate Zone!

(Dramatic music repeats)

******

Vinny (*walking into Coworker 1's cubicle*): Hey, Coworker 2 (who happened to be just hanging out with Coworker 1), I just came from the admin's desk so I picked you up some cold pills since you said you weren't feeling too hot.

Coworker 2: Thanks V! You're a lifesaver.

Coworker 1: Oh, Vinny, while you're here, did you get a chance to review the the meeting notes The Executive (*lightning flashes, thunder rumbles, building shakes slightly*) emailed?

Vinny: No, not yet.

Coworker 1: Okay. How about we sit and go over them now?

Vinny: Actually, I was just about to go... Sure. No problem

That is the start of meeting# 1.

Half an hour later...

Vinny: Hmm... There isn't really anything here that's different here than the notes we took.

Coworker 1: True... Anyway, let's go over to the Director's office so he can update the new data.

...

Director: Hmm... Good! The Executive (*lightning flashes, thunder rumbles, building shakes slightly*) is in a hurry for our part of the financial plan. I'll update this. While you're both here, let's take a minute to discuss how the new financial workup affects the division.

Thus begins meeting# 2...

Coworker 1: Boring financial plan talk.
Director: Boring financial plan talk.
Vinny: *Pretends to understand what's being said and take notes. Actually doodling*

About thirty-five minutes into it, the Head of Accounts (HoA) walks in...

HoA: Hi, Director, are you ready for our meeting?
Director: Oh, I almost completely forgot about it.We were just going over the division's financial plan for the next fiscal.
HoA: That's no problem. Our meeting's related. In fact, why don't you both (*turns to Vinny & Coworker 1) stick around. I'm sure this information could be useful to you too (meeting# 3 is set).
Coworker 1: Sure thing.
Vinny: Wait, what?

One hour and twenty minutes later.

Director: Well, Vinny, looks like you got your work cut out for you. Lucky thing you were here. Remember, the Executive (*lightning flashes, thunder rumbles, building shakes slightly*) wants this done "pronto" so let's set a deadline of noon the day after. K?
HoA: Remember to shoot me an email in the morning too, Vin so I can grant you site access.
Coworker 1: Vinny, I know it's well past quitting time for you for today but let's just go back to my cube for a quick (meeting# 4) review of what we need to do.
.
.
.
Vinny: ...huh..?

******

Vinny C. A man who has found himself stuck in an endless black hole of back-to-back meetings where responsibilities and assignments he could never dream to comprehend are forever stacked one on top of the other on his plate. This meal Vinny will have to consume in...

The Corporate Zone! (Dramatic music swells and ends)

Oh! So *You're* Vinny C!

Have you ever felt like you were being watched? Like there are people... talking about you? I think we all feel that way. We wonder if people acknowledge our existence outside of direct interaction or having some specific need of us. In the workplace, I’m always wondering if my name comes up when my office superiors sit in their dimly-lit boardrooms, discussing top-level executive-type things (while someone is stroking a white cat). They probably mention me somewhere between discussing their plans for world domination and divisional budget strategies.

I guess it’s not uncommon for people to think their bosses talk about them. Of course, common sense will dictate that management has more important things to worry about (world domination can be a logistical nightmare after all) than one lowly office drone. It’s just as easy to convince oneself that those in the upper echelons don’t even know your name, much less set aside the time to actually talk about you. Just who do you think you are, anyway?!

Either way, unless you did something – good or bad – to get on their radar, odds are you probably won’t know whether they talk about you or not.

Until you know...

The other day, I was passing a coworker on the stairs. I’ve seen her around but she works in a different division and we’ve almost never spoken to each other before then. As we neared each other, she did the whole “glance at me casually, smile, nod and look away” routine, as is standard office etiquette when encountering a coworker with whom you didn’t have any particular dealings. I greeted her in kind and was prepared to continue on my way when she suddenly stopped.

Coworker: You’re Vinny, right?

Me: Uh... Yeah. Why?

Coworker: Oh, nothing. I just remember hearing some of the managers mentioning you.

Me: Huh?

If you’re anything like me, I'm sorry you probably would have thought the same thing I thought at that moment: “Oh crap! This is bad. Attention from the people on the top floor is never good. They’re on to me. They've figured out I have no idea what I’m doing and they’re discussing what should be done about me.”

It’s at this point I casually try to get some more info out of her...

Me: Not all bad, I hope? *nervous chuckle*

I know! Smooth, right?

Coworker: No-no. Nothing bad at all. (She pauses) I hear you’re very efficient.

Me: Oh... Thanks.

She nodded and the conversation basically tapered off there and we continued about our respective businesses.

You’d think hearing that I found favor with the people in charge would make me comfortable but, oddly enough, I wasn't. Not completely, anyway. I mean, it’s good in that I have a good chance of getting my contract renewed at the end of the year. So there’s that...

Maybe for those types who have ambition and want to climb the corporate ladder, getting positive attention from your employers is a good thing. But I’m not so much the ambitious type. Not anymore, that is. I know what climbing the ladder is like back when I was in banking. It’s work! A lot of work. And what you are you working for? More work! Higher paid positions come with a lot of responsibility... and pressure. Let’s not forget the pressure. It’s not like I don’t want to climb a step or two. But when words like “efficient” start getting thrown around people start getting high expectations and start thinking up other dangerous words like “potential” and “capable” Next thing  you know they’re “expanding your portfolio”.

I don’t know if I can handle that.

It’s okay to suspect you’re on the higher-ups’ radar. At least, then, you can dispel the thought and tell yourself you are being full of yourself. When you know they’re watching you, that’s something else. I did say this was one of my paranoid suspicions. Didn't I? What if they’re watching me? What if they really do have my phone bugged? At any point I could have left my cell unguarded and they could have gotten into it. I've seen Person of Interest! I know how easy it is to clone someone’s phone! Every text, tweet, status update and call I've ever made since I got here could be stored on one of the office servers (right next to the plans for the weather manipulation device). Hell! My last boss, the Big Man, had spyware on my office computer. And he’s a cheapskate! I work for the government now!!!

Aside from that, what if this is all a trick? What if they don’t actually think I’m efficient after all?

- Secret Paranoid Suspicion # 8: People don’t actually approve of me, they just pretend to and say nice things to make me believe there’s something about me they like.

I’m not quite sure what the reason behind this is yet but whatever it is, it can’t be good.

I need to find a way to become anonymous. I have to blend in! I’m normally pretty good at that. What am I doing wrong? Maybe I should start sleeping at my desk like so many of my coworkers. I bet I could blend in if I did like the group in the cube right next to mine and spent more than half the day carrying on loud conversations about every TV show/movie I watched (or book I read... or what I had for dinner... or where I went clubbing) the night before. Did I mention they were loud?

I need to nip this “efficiency” talk in the bud before something bad happens.

Corporate BS (I Mean) Lingo.

Welcome team.

How's everyone doing? Good? Good! Glad you all could come. I know all our plates are full and I appreciate everyone taking the time out of their busy schedules to join me here.

But that's what I like about this team. The way we've all got that passion, that fire in our bellies that makes us want to go the extra mile. We're team players who know how to knuckle up, grit our teeth and come out swinging. That's why we can go toe-to-toe with the best of them. Good stuff, team! Good stuff.

Anyway, enough of that. It's time to get to the real meat of the matter. The reason why we're all here today. It's time to discuss facts and figures. And the fact is, we need to do more. We need to get the numbers up, pure and simple.

Now don't get me wrong, folks. We've been doing great so far. The numbers have been good and I know everyone's giving 110% right now, but we need to take things to the next level. We've got to keep maximizing on our current strengths but we've also got to grow. We need to exceed our potential. We need to explore new avenues and find some innovative new strategies. Only when we can cross that threshold, it's then, people. THAT'S when we're going to be the ones to raise the bar.

That's our game plan moving forward. It's time to take that bull by the horns and wrestle that bad boy to the ground. What I'd like is to do is set up some strategic focus groups that will consist of sub-groups containing individual members who can come up with a plan of action for how each unit can contribute best to making this initiative really take off.

Good? Outstanding!

I'll have my assistant shoot everyone an email with the date for our follow up meeting where we can really drill down into the heart of the matter. Very productive session, gang! I think we all have a clearer idea now of what we expect from each other. Good stuff!

It's Quiet... Too... Quiet.

I know! I. know! This blog has remained post free for eleven days now. In my defense, there hasn't really been much going on that I would really consider "post-worthy". It's just been an endless cycle of work, to class, to home, to work...

You get the idea.

Since I've renewed my vow to not to fill my blog with endless complaints about work, that leaves me with little else to talk about and, as I mentioned before, since I'm encased in a small office, mostly by myself, that leaves little in the "coworker hijinks" (can you believe "hijinks" isn't in Blogger's dictionary?!) department worth talking about either.

In short, I'm bored, friends. So. very. very. bored. Truth is, had it not been for all your posts (and video games) to pass my free time I would have been bored out of my skull these last few days.

I mean, unless you count how I helped a supervisor (a total internet noob), who had to spend this week working out of the office, set up a Facebook account and how he then spent the following two days asking me to find every girl he'd ever dated or wanted to date EVER, so he could drool over their photos and send  them friend requests and personal messages about "how they look like movie stars" and "how he loved their smiles" as something worth writing about then, no, not a thing has been happening here.

I'm pretty sure his wife, who has been described as a "psycho bitch", would not be my new best pal right about now.

Anyway, multiple acts of digression aside, I'm here to inform you that I have an actual post written and waiting for your longing eyes at Sprocket Ink. Believe me, it's a whole lot less scattered and confused than what you just read here.

Mostly.

So, as usual, click this LINK (there was a link, but the site is gone now).

Just pick your poison, as they say. I'll be waiting for you on the other side.

NOPE... THAT DIDN'T COME ACROSS AS CREEPY AT... ALL...