Decision Made Today

By one year from today, one of the following three things will have happened:



1. I will have a new job outside of the organization in which I currently work;

2. I will have a different job in a different department at the same organization;

or 3. I will have my own business and be working for myself.



Today was the last straw. There's just no way I'm going to continue working there. Though I love what I do, I absolutely cannot continue to work for those people.



What happened? This morning, I walked in the door and Beverly immediately started in on me about her fucking laptop. Now, I have personally researched the problem. I have called Apple twice. I have spoken to the head of Tech Support, and every time I have asked an expert I have gotten the same answer: An Airport card on a Mac with OS 9 will connect to a wireless network set up on an Airport Extreme base station. I have passed this along to Beverly. Every time, she takes the laptop home and tells me "It doesn't work." I personally cannot test it in the environment she's using; I don't have Comcast at the office, for one, and I can't set up my own wireless network on the network because if I do, I.T. will shut me down. So all I can do is work from Apple's docs and from what I've been instructed to do; and then at her end, there's some setup she has to do. (She refuses to invest any time in it, which is in my opinion the second-most-likely source of the problem, running second only to "the card is broken.") She has already made up her mind that it's not going to work, and any information I give her is automatically wrong. The latest "expert" is some dweeb from Best Buy who says it won't work. Now, leaving ME totally out of the picture, tell me this--given the following information sources, which would you believe? On one side, two Apple Computer service techs and the head of a major tech support help desk; on the other side, a guy in a blue shirt at Best Buy who's never seen the computer or heard the configuration from any but the least informed source??



This is not the first time this has happened. I understand that she's frustrated and wants her computer to work. Really I do. But when she starts implying that I don't know what I'm doing--or WORSE, the thing that makes me REALLY angry, that I haven't put any time or thought into the information that I give her--or even worse than THAT, that I'm LYING!!--that is not professional in the least. If I did anything even one-tenth as unprofessional as that, I would be hauled into the office and told about my behavior and my attitude and everything else that's apparently wrong with me. In fact, I have been called on the carpet for MUCH less. And what's more, she KNOWS this is unprofessional, because Amy has attempted to convey my anger to her on more than one occasion, and on more than one occasion she has APOLOGIZED for doing exactly this. Obviously this is one of those cases where "I'm sorry" means "...until the next time I do it."



So they can go fuck themselves. If they can't treat me with a modicum of professionalism and respect for my abilities and contributions, they can deal with finding someone to replace me--someone willing to accept that sort of treatment, willing to deal with Noreen's constant criticism and the ghastly low morale engendered by bad management and favoritism. (Their last three techs lasted an average of eight months each; I've hung on for nearly 4 years.) I am going to ask the head of Tech tomorrow if he'll keep me in mind if one of his guys quits; I'm going to polish my resume', and I'm going to start watching outside ads; I'm going to contact the ad agency where I used to work and see if THEY need anyone. 365 days from now, I will NOT be in this job anymore.