Kids say the darndest things...

I have been spending a lot of time working for the Constable's office lately, and tonight I had something unexpected happen.
While serving a woman an order to appear before the court, her kids were hanging right behind her to see what was happening. They were pre-teens, a boy about 12 and a girl about 10, and they both looked like the kind of kids who are getting in trouble (inasmuch as you can tell that type of thing from a first glance...)

I explained the order to the woman, and really didn't do anything differently than usual. The unexpected came when I had finished, before the woman shut the door.

The girl suddenly called from behind her mother "You're the nicest cop I've ever met!"

After the week I've had, I'll take that.

Anybody need a .NET engineer?

So they finally got around to laying off myself and another engineer at Rastar.
They lost our biggest account, and had to make drastic cuts.

And I couldn't be happier.

That place was sucking the soul right out of me.
I stuck around long enough to get a severance package, which is a lot more than I would have gotten if I had just quit like I nearly did several times within the last month.
For the time being, I'll be working exclusively for the Constable's Office, and looking for another programming job.

So ends the drama...

Pins and Needles doesn't cut it anymore... How about Walking on Eggshells

Well, I'm into Day 3. They didn't lay anybody off yesterday, but they didn't tell anybody else that they were off the chopping block either. I'd think that as soon as they are done with the axe, they'd tell everybody.
My boss was too busy yesterday with finishing and demonstrating a project for a client too do much of anything, so we'll probably see some movement today.

Morale is shot, along with productivity. Even the guys who were told they were safe are preoccupied with this.

What a way to run a railroad.

Pins and Needles - Day 2

Well, I didn't get the axe yesterday. That just means that my agony is prolonged. They've called in some people and told them that they are safe, but most of us are still just wondering.
The people who've gotten the axe so far includes two people from my department, including my boss's boss, the CTO.

I took a Xanax last night, and it helped me feel much better. I was going to take one this morning before I came in, but I forgot when I was rushing out of the house, and now I'm sitting here all jumpy and nervous.

Good Times.

Pins and Needles

Yesterday, my bosses called a 'team meeting' to let us know about upcoming layoffs. We've had a couple of rounds of layoffs at my company in the last few months, but in those rounds the programming department was spared. Apparently that is not the case this time around. So the told us that there would be layoffs from our department, but not how many, nor how soon.

There are only 11 of us, so any layoff is significant. No one feels safe. And now the HR director is in the building, meeting with the division VP.

It is so stressful that I find myself wanting to just gather my things and leave. It wouldn't be all that bad to work full time for the Constable's Office for a while, certainly better than this...

UPDATE: It's now 10 minutes after 5pm, and it seems like they're done for the day. So far, I've heard of 8 people from our division being let go, including one from my department, but I've also heard that they're letting go 24 people in our division, which means that there are 16 more to go. I don't know if I can handle another day like this one.
All this secrecy is bullshit. The rumors and misconceptions that run amok during a time like this have decimated any remaining morale. There's work to be done, deadlines to meet, but no one can concentrate enough to get anything done.
I'm inching closer and closer to just packing my crap and leaving...

A Series of Unfortunate Events

This story is embarrassing enough that I have debated posting it for quite some time now.
However, after the "Fat Guy, Little Bike" post, I've decided that I'll take one for the team in the name of humor.

I've often had a few unfortunate events coincide with each other, creating a 'Bad Day'. A couple of years back, I had enough unfortunate events collide to make it a Very Bad Day. I was home from work with a sinus infection. I felt like someone had put my head in a vise and clamped it there.

Sinus infections seem to be common for my wife and I, and our doctor always prescribes the same thing: a nasal lavage, or as he calls it -'the nose hose'. This involves mixing a bit of baking soda, salt, and some warm water in a cup, and using it with a syringe (without the needle) to rinse out your sinuses. Our doctor recommends doing this while taking a warm shower because the steam & warm water loosens things up, and because it is so messy. We even have a specific plastic cup that is often used to prepare the mixture.

On this particular day, I had started to feel better in the late morning. I felt like if I took a good shower, & got my sinuses cleared, I could still go into work for a half day. When I went to prepare the solution,the usual cup was dirty. In fact, all of our plastic cups were dirty. Instead I grabbed a small porcelain mug, and prepared the solution as usual. I should have sensed danger at this point, but I was blissfully unaware of the peril I was in.

I proceeded to the bathroom, where I disrobed and began my shower. The first unfortunate event came as I was finishing 'the nose hose', the porcelain cup slipped and dropped to the bathtub floor, immediately pulverizing on contact. I bent over to pick up the pieces, and the very first piece I grabbed sliced a large part of my finger open. Being covered in baking soda and salt, it burned very badly. I gingerly got out of the shower, bandaged my finger, and cleaned all the shards of the cup from the bathtub.

At this point, I've been out of the shower for 5 minutes, and of course I didn't dry off, so I am standing there freezing, wet, and naked. I get right back into the shower and enjoy the warm water.

It now becomes necessary for you, dear reader, to understand how my bathroom is arranged so you can properly visualize the events as they took place. Here is a masterpiece of art, created entirely with MS Paint, showing the layout of my bathroom:



I continued about my business, when tragedy struck. I was facing the soap dish mounted on the wall, bent over washing my feet. I washed my left foot, and then while standing on that left foot, I washed my right foot. While in this awkward position, bent over holding my right foot in the air washing it, balancing on my left foot, some of the soap worked its way under my left foot. My left foot slipped forward, smashing against the side of the tub. I began falling backward, right through the shower curtain, striking the toilet before landing on the floor with a crash. As I was hitting the floor, my left foot shot upwards with the leverage of my legs hitting the other side of the tub, with the tub wall being the fulcrum launching my left foot into the soap dish mounted on the far wall.

It all happened so fast that before I knew it, my body was laying on top of the shower curtain, which had been ripped from the wall & was laying on the floor, with my legs still in the tub, and water cascading all over the place. The list of my injuries now included a sliced open finger, a bruise all across the left side of my back from smashing into the toilet, a bump on the back of my head from hitting the floor, and what feels like a broken toe from my foot hitting the soap dish, all in addition to the splitting headache which had returned from the sinus infection which had kept me home in the first place.

I decided that it was safer for all of humanity if I just stayed home the rest of the day...