Suckage Potential: High

So, the potential for this week to suck at work is pretty high.

Why, you may ask? Well, we're starting and finishing an assessment this week to decide whether or not we're ready to open up a new waste retrieval facility, and the people coming to do the assessment are, shall we say, nit-picky.

That's their right and their due; that's why they get paid, and it all helps us do our jobs in a more professional manner.

Still doesn't mean it ain't gonna suck this week.

But ya see, Johnny, here's da ting: We'll get through it. We'll have some bumps and lumps but we'll fix everything and get it right and then move on to opening the facility before the end of the year. What we'll face will be minor hiccups on the road to success, rather than big roadblocks that will stop us completely from getting on with life.

And then they'll lay me off in January. Or June. As a thank-you, you know.

Yes, I'm cynical. It pays to be.

But here's my plan of attack: Whatever happens, we attack it as a team. There'll be none of this "that's your document, this is my document" kind of thing. It's all or nothing. That'll build better team spirit through this tougher time, and maybe that'll help us all pull together. Failing that, I'll just hide in the restrooms next door at AMWTP all week long and hope they never find me.

Nah. Won't do that. I'd reach my Maximum Allowable Hoop Stress in notime flat.

A Steady Paycheck . . .

I’m beginning to feel like Winstone Zeddimore from “Ghostbusters” when he said “As long as there’s a steady paycheck, I’ll believe anything you say,” when Janine rattles of the long list of oddball things he might or might not believe (astral projection, the Loch Ness Monster and the theory of Atlantis, et al).

Layoff day at RWMC. Our document control specialist bought the farm, leaving us now without document control support or word processing support at RWMC. And maybe that’s partially our fault – they saw how we handled being without a word processor for so long they figure we can now post our own documents and rely on other doc control folks for the tasks we can’t perform. Laying off tech writers is only just around the corner. I have GOT to find a new job before September.

I put feelers out. Not lots of feelers – I suppose I’ve still got my head buried in the sand to some point on this matter – but some. High hopes that the Space Dynamics Laboratory down in Logan will call me for an interview and then offer me a job and then keep the headcount and money on their books but transfer the work to another unit so I still get paid but I’m not allowed to do work.

And while I’m at it, I may as well get my novel published and then flap my arms and fly to the moon.

And, thankfully, there are comics I can use to illustrate this situation.

Other things causing stress at the moment, if you care to listen:

• Must find new health insurance by June 28. Current provider wants more money per month than what we’re paying for the home mortgage
• Behind in grading for FDENG 101. Have done some today. Need to do much, much more
• Dog is still an ankle-biting little weasel. Terrorized the daughter while playing backyard baseball yesterday
• Still fat
• But not grossly so, in case potential health insurers are reading this
• Cows got out during the last Super Bowl
• Lots of little, tiny dog poops in the back yard
• Need to replace deck, concrete under deck, house siding, kitchen, brake pads, brake lining, and a little wiring. Good thing the house only cost $4,800
• Also shocks
• Out of Twinkies, even the big ones
• Reliant too much on movie quotes from the 1980s
• Far too old to squish pinecones and pineapples together any more

Dredging Up the Past

It’s now been nearly six years since my exit from the world of journalism. For the most part, I haven’t looked back. A few times, with a few events, perhaps, I might look back over the past five years and wonder how I might have covered that event had I still been working for a newspaper. But those moments were fleeting.

Now – and I fully expect my potential employers to read this if, indeed, I am not weeded out immediately – I’m looking at a move back towards that world.

Not entirely. It would be a move into public relations which, by most accounts, is journalism, but with a corporate entity as the sole client to please.

Am I ready to make such a move?

Yes.

As I look back at the ten years I spent as a journalist, I have to say that the stories, the people, the events I remember with the most fondness are those for which I basically acted as a press agent – the Idaho International Folk Dance Festival, local school districts, and the like. Reporting generally good news, upbeat news, news that people wanted to read and, hopefully, made them want to participate in the events being featured. If that isn’t public relations, I don’t know what is.

So I prepare myself now for the question: You left journalism for technical writing. Now you want back into a similar industry. Are you okay with that?

Yes again.

I left journalism for some pretty specific reasons. First and foremost – and I’ve never been shy about this – I was burned out. I was tired of being a one-man band, keeping all the plates in the air while the promised help never fully arrived. The team dynamic in which I work well wasn’t there. It’s not that I can’t work independently – I most certainly do. But it’s nice to have a team to chat with, to work with, to rely on. For one reason or another, I didn’t feel like I had that in journalism. I’ve spent time over the last several days looking over my news clippings and thinking, for the most part, that I could do it again, but in a different environment.

So I guess what I’m saying is I’m practicing for that interview, and that specific question, if I’m not weeded out. Hope the practicing isn’t in vain.

I have that now where I work, and I love it. If it weren’t for layoffs, I’d keep on working here as long as they’d have me. But I have to be prepared for the event that I get canned in 2011, so filling out applications and doing a little schmoozing and navel-gazing is a must.

UPDATE: ARRRRRGH! The position has been filled. Now I know how all those nannies felt when they got blown away (literally) just before Mary Poppins got the job.

About that USU Logo . . .

I have survived.

A whirlwind 24 hours, to use a cliché. I’m glad it’s over, to use another. I’m hoping that something might come out of it in the next two weeks, but I have enveloped myself in a sense of calm pessimism in case nothing happens at all.

I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m job-hunting. Not that my current job is terrible, see. I love it. It’s just the benefits thing. And the retirement thing. We’re working on both, but the benefits I can afford right now don’t do what we need them to do. And while the roiling economy isn’t helping our retirement much at all, I could certainly do better with an outfit that had such benefits. I know – people are starving worldwide and here I am moaning about benefits. Put in the cosmic perspective, I’m a moron. So nothing has changed.

I would like more of a challenge, though. I say that now; maybe when one comes I’ll regret it. Anyway: On to the meat of the matter.

I had an interview today with the Energy Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, for a proposal/technical writer position. It went better than I could have expected, though the aforementioned pessimism is still held in ample reserve considering the competition I’ve got to deal with. I figure perhaps I’ve got a ten to 15% chance of getting this job, maybe a 20-30% chance of at least getting past the “first round” of interviews.

This was the most intimidating interview I’ve ever had to go through, but still it came out better than I thought it would. I had to put together a ten-minute presentation, selling myself to them as the solution to their proposal/technical writing problems. I didn’t have much to sell on the proposal end; if I get cut, it’s because the other applicants have more proposal experience – and I’m thinking now that’s what’s going to happen. But that’s okay. I will survive. And if I make it past the first round, well, I’ve got something worth fighting for. Nonetheless, I have also applied for a writer/editor job with BEA. They’re looking for someone with journalism background, which I have. But so do a lot of currently unemployed – and thus hungrier – applicants. So we’ll see what happens.

I did tell the interview committee, by the way, about the logo mixup. They thought it was funny and actually said, "That wouldn't have been the first time that happened." Someone who made the same mistake currently works there. So I would not have been doomed. That's good to know, and tells me a lot about the kind of people who work there. People
I could work with.

Yes, the USU logo below does have something to do with my presentation. Last night, as Michelle and I were rolling along in the Pilot, we were talking, we were listening to the radio, and, in the quieter moments, I was ticking over the presentation. Something’s not right, I kept telling myself. Then Michelle noticed a USU sign or motto somewhere: “Be an Aggie. Bleed Blue.” Then it struck me. The “U” I used as a university logo in my presentation was for the University of Utah down in Salt Lake, not USU. I just about drove off the road. So at midnight, in the hotel, after dropping in on Alan, Sarge and John to see if they had a mouse we could borrow, I got it fixed and turned in. What an adventure.

Thanks, by the way, to Alan and Sarge, for their encouragement, and to John, for his encouragement and prodigious memory on recalling all of the people he knows at EDL so I could drop his name. I did what I could during the interview, but will also wave my John Milligan flag in their face via e-mail and hand-written thank-you note as well. Hope it helps.

Working at EDL would be a challenge – lots more work than I’m used to now. But lots more original work, not the more rote stuff I’m doing now. Not, again, that my current job is bad; I’m grateful for it. I’ll stick with it as long as they’ll have me. But I can still look for a something better. I’m hoping EDL is it.

Uncertainty

Today reminds me of an old Dilbert comic. I wish I had a copy, but I can reproduce the dialogue here:

E-mail to all company employees (read by Dilbert): Please disregard the rumor of our merger with a healthy company.

He peeks over the top of his cubicle, then says: "Now spooked, the herd stampedes," as his co-workers run screaming through the office, shouting "Resume!" and "Where's my interview suit!"

It's all been sparked here by the fact our text processor is leaving us for another job. Any job outside of the RWMC is considred permanent, because we're all basically working ourselves out of jobs.

So, again, I'm panicking a little. Applied for a few jobs this morning. Not holding my breath, because there are a lot of people out there looking for the same kinds of jobs. But must face reality, and get those feelers out there before the other shoe drops. I hate this. The uncertainty is the only thing I don't like about this job. Everything else is golden. I'm even OK with the long hours and such. The situation here, with layoffs around every corner, sucks. We're predicting a pretty good brain drain here within the next year or so, as we get closer to closing this contract out in 2012. But part of me really worries that I'm not brain enough to get out of here before it's Target all over again. Oh, please, don't let that be me . . .

Spring Fever . . . or is it Bean Fever?

I know. It's been a week since I posted. But since there are only two regular readers of this blog -- and I can't even count myself among them -- I'm not overy concerned.

I worry, though, that I'm not worried enough about this conversion to digital television. I stopped watching most broadcast and cable TV shows about 11 years ago. I'm in the dark most of the time on politics, because I don't get the constant feed television offers. Oh, I get news i want on the Internet, but since I can pick and choose what I want to consume, I skip most of the "politic slop," as Ralphie Parker's Dad would say. So I can't say I'm all that bothered with the thought that broadcasters are going from analog to digital. I'm not lining up for one of those converter boxes the government is pushing on everyone. Heck, I don't even watch the taped TV shows we get from my father-in-law anymore. I amy soon revert to squatting in a corner of the basement and drawing pictograms on the walls with red clay.

Next week, layoffs begin. People are looking for signs in the stars everywhere to know if they'll be axed or spared. Including me. I began fretting last night that because I hadn't heard from my employers on a new bus pass -- mine expires Tuesday -- that they knew I was on the list to get the flush and figured it would be a waste of time communicating with me. But this morning I get news on the bus pass, and they ask me to fill out a company contact form. Maybe so they know where to train the security cameras when they lay off my sorry ass next week . . . Ah, the paranoia continues.

I'm coming, slowly, to a realization: The book I'm working on isn't going to write itself. Maybe it should try, because it might turn out better if I'm not connected with it.

Spring is finally starting to show up around here. We had rain yesterday. Honest rain, helping to usher the snow away. We still have a ton of snow in the front yard, but where the snow didn't fall as thick next to the house, we have tulips starting to poke out of the ground. They look really excited to be here. Really excited. We've also cleard the driveway of snow and ice, which is nice, because the vehicles now don't have to park at an angle. Uncovering the driveway was like chiseling through a glacier, except that I'm sure glaciers don't have the Pomeranian poop content that our driveay ice has. Max is a good little dog, but he really can pound out the biscuits over the winter.

I'm crabby. I'm ready for the snow to go away. Liam was watching over my shoulder last night as I was playing Sim City 4, and it got so irritating I had to stop before I really got cranky and shooed him away. This layoff situation just has me really tense. I'm ready for next week to be over, no matter the outcome.

I need some kind of tension-breaker that doesn't involve Starbursts. Maybe I'll move on to cigars, pipes, chewing tobacco and then I'll go onto that nicotine gum. A good five-year plan.

Disappointment: Saw a copy of Airplane! in the discount bin at Wal-Mart earlier this week. Went to get it last night, figuring I could sneak it into the house over Michelle's objections. All the copies had been cherry-picked out of the bin, leaving only stupid movies behind. Sigh. I shouldn't complain. She got me a copy of The Dilbert Principle and Spies Like Us, so I'm not totally bereft of token consumerist swag this week.

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock. . .

Went home feeling pretty down last night. Tuesday, in of itself, wasn't all that bad -- busy, yes, but not bad. At least up until the last half hour when Eavesdropping kicked in and I heard our boss saying it's likely the company will be laying off someone in our writing group. Now, there's lots of scuttlebutt on the upcoming layoff -- due in April, at least 100 people to be affected. But I do know who the low man on the totem pole is at RWMC, so I'm not holding my breath. Continuing with my life theory of optimistic pessimism, I will:

• Continue doing the best job I can for my current employer
• Count on getting laid off in April, thus the job search begins now
• If the anticipated layoff does not occur, then, frabjous day, I still have a job, and maybe a prospect for something better.

As it is now, I prefer the third option, in that I get to keep the job. I don't want to have to look for another one. I like this one quite well. But then again, you have to look at the wisdom of Homer Simpson:

"Why do things that happen to stupid people happen to me?"