Throwing a fit in management
I always wanted to be in management. I had the intellect and the wardrobe and most of all, the taste for a better salary and willingness to give, not take, orders. I found an employer that shared my philosophies, though he eventually retired. The new boss was a pleasant fellow but no management genius.

The company:
Management: dress professionally, work hard, get meager salary increases on a semi-regular basis.

Staff Do-Fuckalls: dress like tarts or hoboes, work as little as possible, get meager salary increases on a semi-regular basis.

Me: management. Relentlessly engaged in the mind-numbing fighting of the SDF and trying to get the other managers to maintain some work standard.

So I decided I wanted out and found it would better take a degree, like the one I hadn’t bothered to finish back when this type of job didn’t take a degree. So I went back to uni.

I took classes during my off hours, then took a few that qualified as “training” during work hours. Which they paid for. My 60-hour workweeks fell to 40 hours but management still worshipped me as their own shining example.

Then I found I could do much of my schoolwork at my desk during lunch and breaks. As the course load increased, I found I could do that during work, while on hold with the head office and whatnot. Then I found I could do the homework that related to my job. Then I found, what the hell, I could do my homework while waiting for IT or the other SDFs to complete their sections.

I soon finished my degree. The workload was good and the money got even better. I decided to go for an advanced degree, since the vast majority of employees have at least one. Though some of them are quite “special,” well, thought I, “if they can, I certainly can!”

Again I took classes and did homework during the workday. I dressed like a grad student, in whatever was semi-clean when I stumbled out of bed that morning, and finished my graduate degree requirements.

The workload got better and better and the money more fantastic. Now I do a fraction of the work I used to do, and I get paid a hefty salary to think and consider and issue opinions and recommendations. I still dress like a grad student.

So it seems that in order to fit in, I have become a Do-Fuckall.

Apologies for length. I post here, to numb my pain.
( kila is reading clocks upside-down as usual, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 9:19, Reply)