Ah. I was hoping your lack of recent posts was a function of your acclimation to the situation.

Is this the Worst part of your job?

I'd say the worst part is where a third of the staff was fired, or in one case, quit, and after that having my job title be amongst those advertised, with a team meeting of reassurance but not too much communication after that, that would probably be the worst part.

Well! I guess that floor plan isn't so bad after all!

Ugh. Sorry dude. I was truly stoked for you when you got this job. You seemed very happy.

There has obviously been a change of heart... And that had to have been as a result of things or people I have either missed on here, or you have not cared to share.

Are you the only one that holds the job title they've advertised? Are you legit concerned about being made available to the industry?

90% of me says: if they weren't all happy with what I'm doing for them, I should have been out as well; I think they're happy with what I do, and it makes sense to have two of what I am in this office, and they're not going to find another me anyway.

10% of me says: don't feel comfortable? ~##~*fiztz* panic ~# abort^~#


...because i feel like a beat dog; because i'm facing daily anxiety again after being off the meds for 4 years; and to go from the narcissist to public workstation #1 is still a very jarring feeling.

the job market for people like me is very cyclical and right now it is in the up cycle. in theory, i have nothing to worry about. although i have thought that before and been wrong. hence the worry

Well, you're not alone. I worry at times, and I've been here 12 years. Insecurity is a good motivator.
It's good that you have a marketable skill. There's job security and there's industry security. If I ever got launched, I figure I could have a job lined up in hours. Every day you work there adds to your resume. Don't panic. Maybe you'll be the boss of the new guy and get a raise.

I believe in you!

If you're doing the best you can, and they're not happy, there's nothing you can do about it because you did the best you could. If you're not sure you're doing what they want, you can asked your boss, even if it's in a round about way, if he's happy with the direction you're going.

Jesus Jim, 12 years, really? Damn, seems like yesteryear.

Well, august 9th will be 12. I think I'm 5th in seniority in the front end. I figured I'd be here 2 or 3 years. It's a rare gig, though, and it has been the only constant through some tumultuous times. I appreciate my fortune in having this job, but if it ever should end, I know I'll get by. I'd like to progress to higher levels, but I'd have to do that by leaving here. There are only 2 jobs above mine, and neither of the current positions are in any danger of being vacated. I would most likely also take a pay cut. I guess I'm stuck here happily for now. After June of 2018, things will change for me financially. I may be willing to take that pay cut at that point.

And you get super cheap bikes there. :D

Sorry Toad, Have you gone back to your doc or looked into CBT?

My first office mate is a fail. New hire coming soon. I really have trouble being balanced socially at work, I'd rather do my job and get out. Sharing an office is just weird for me. Oh well I guess I'll go heavy on the ear buds. No way could I do that open office thing... Maybe a big red flag for when you can't be pestered.

well i just stayed home after lunch with an anxiety attack.

dammit

I'm sorry UT.

How long has it been since you've had one?

Do you think it might have anything to do with the show you're performing or is it strictly work?

Well they have been creeping up for the last two months. Little things happen, like waking up with my heart racing... driving down the road and suddenly having just terrible ridiculous thoughts about whether they love me or hate me at work... wondering whether another ruin is just around the corner...

It's work, except for the percent that is my own panicky brain trying to undermine me. Like, when I told them I wasn't coming back in today, I felt way better in five minutes.

I'm putting all the blame on the open floor plan, because that is a huge part of it. It's not just the plan. It's that I sit with my back to my boss's office. Like, my monitors are the first thing he sees when he walks out his office door.

I'll never do that again.

:(

Ugh. :thepain:

I'd be grinding my teeth at night. Seriously. It would get to me.

We've got a diabetic on our staff. He takes multiple insulin shots each day. Needs to do them at different parts of his body to move the needle wound around, so sometimes he will pull his pants down and do it in his thigh.

Anyway, he has bad habits with his health. He smokes, and sometimes doesn't do the shots, or doesn't manage his food properly. We've had to call 911 a couple times over the years for him.

He's being put into a shared open office space in a couple of months when his floor is renovated. There's a sick/nursing room that he can use to do his shots, but it will be on a different floor.

This guy already has bad habits. Is it such a good idea to be placing additional burdens in the way of him being able to do the shots? What if a mom is nursing on her lunch break when he needs to get an insulin shot so he can have some lunch? The answer: he won't get the shot then. Maybe he'll do it later, or maybe he'll forget.

The big boss doesn't care. Sick room is provided.

It's amazing the culture that is taking over in the economy. The middle class is dying off.

Yet you know if it wasn't that, it would be something else triggering you.
As for work, if you do the best you can and it doesn't work out, you'll know it was out of your control.
In the mean time keep an eye out for another opportunity where you can work from home or they stick you in a remote equipment room.

If you want to get rich too, a handsome young lad like yourself, should start a religion. The Tax Deductible House of Toad.

Interesting observation.

No, no no no NO fucking way. I can't sit with my back to anything like that - anywhere. Totally freaks me out.

Any option on alternatives?

OMFG this is too funny.

I just got an email sent to a hidden distribution list from our top HR person


Of course I have to attend. They will be keeping track of who attends. I just need to work on some brown nosing statements I can throw in there. This is review time after all.

My cow orkers and I got a good belly laugh when this email popped up.

Just give then a...

Has it been almost a year on this thread?

I complained about where I sit in the office, and they did something about it. They changed the job listing for my position. They added "Must be comfortable in a small office environment."

~

Yeah and the other thing about the open plan... one cow orker came in blatantly sick three weeks ago, and by now all nine people in the office have been sick. I don't think my thing came from him, I think it came from another vector, but several people have gotten it from him no doubt.

Here ya go... :D

getting the sick person to wear it is the catch...

Snot Science, tells you how far a sneeze will get you.

Don't listen to the whiners, pack 'em in for the bottom line. :haha:

Still sharing an office... maybe Trump will deport her.

Just ran across this article, posted the same day as the quoted post.

And then...

Tough day today. I'm pretty sure those were stomach pains. I told them they were stomach pains.

How you feeling now?

Been okay since then

I'm fully capable of making myself sick, and that's what goes on.

Maybe it's time to get back to the doc... or the gun shop open floor plans are useful in a spree. Seriously though, don't let this drag on.

You know that myth about the frog that sits in a pot of water that is being brought to a boil?

This pot is getting kinda warm.

26 years at this place. I'm feeling like I need to reinvent myself. Maybe it's because my 26 year anniversary was Saturday. Maybe it's because I turn 50 next week. Maybe it's because my boss has a new boss and he's got a reputation as an executioner. She called me into her office and said she's about ready to retire because she can't deal with the shit in this place any more. I feel like I have about a 10% chance that I could get her job. I feel like there is about a 50% chance that her job will be eliminated if she retires. I don't even really want her job, although I want her salary.

How do you go about reinventing yourself when you are 50 and need to keep a steady income to pay bills and get 2 kids through college? Lots of opportunities out there for me to jump ship and earn half of what I make now.

Not looking for answers. I know I have to figure this out myself. I just have no idea where to start.

I could go back to school for 4-6 years and become a pharmacist. Tons of secure good paying jobs in that field. I could have a 10-15 year career doing that after going into serious debt to get through school.

Well, the cruel thing is to mention what J said once about my situation: Honey everybody hates their work! She takes a pill and gets on with it.

What if this is as good as it gets?

~

Pharmacy is cool. Although I think the old people in it are as tired as we are. I considered doing pharmacy when I was 17. It's like the accountancy of medicine. In accountancy you don't get any of that money, or make any decisions about it, but you do get to count it.

Facing the gauntlet 8 years ago y'all remember -- I taught myself web design! Boy that'll make me desirable to those cool startups downtown! No, it doesn't work that way. Turns out they have plenty of youngsters looking for those kinds of opportunities and so why would they EVER consider hiring anyone age 50 to do it? They DO NOT! EVER! Even if the fossil is willing to take a pay cut. Some jobs are merely Right Out for us because OLD.

Well, you could start by reshaping your eyebrows, shaving your pit hair and listening to old Liza Minnelli records...:jig:

I'm at the point where I don't have a lot of ego in my job. I like the work, I do some good on a daily basis, the pay is shit, and I'm probably going to stick around until the politicians break the social contract. At that point, I feel like could be happy driving a UPS truck, opening a diner, or some kind of bike park. Who knows? Make your own bed.

I love my work. The pay barely covers my expenses, the commute, while pretty, is long enough to be tedious and expensive. I really like the people I work with. When I first composed and then lost this post, I didn't have the benefit of Griff's post.

I echo his point that he feels like he's doing good each day, I do too, that's a big psychic benefit for me. Just as working with people who aren't incompatible with me. I've had some doozies, you all have. With my other minimums met (barely, $ and travel time), I decided to say yes. It's worth it every day.

You know the cliche about finding a way to get paid for doing something you love and then you'll never have to work another day in your life. Ha ha. But there's some truth to it. Quality of life *matters*. You get to fucking define it, and change it, and change it again, if you wish.

Sure. Sometimes changes fucking define *you*. Ouch. But is absolutely possible. And absolutely worth it. Find out what's important. Go. Get. That. Jesus, that sounds trite, written out like that. My apologies. It's true, it's just dumb sounding out loud like that.

You have to watch out for changes, cow orkers come and go, management changes, personal life changes. If you keep saying, that's ok I love my job, you can find outside the blinders your world has gone to hell.

Yep.

Pharmacy is not nearly as cool as it sounds. It's just a whole ton of finding shit alphabetized on a shelf, and counting pills. Don't get me wrong, my pharmacists are nice people, but they thought they were going to get to use their brains a lot more than they are.

And the required record keeping is a nightmare. :rollanim:

Looking out the window of the office across the hall, I see that it is pouring out and two people have inside out umbrellas

Reading a doctor's handwriting is not mentally challenging enough?

They don't even get to do that anymore. It's all electronic.

How to deal with the narcissist at work.

In a nutshell, stroke their ego all the time. Especially just before you ask for something.

I prefer the shattering of, as opposed to the stroking of egos.

'Smore fun for me.

I have learned that my immediate supervisor spent many years as a manager at Vector Marketing.

Be careful, he's probably got a knife or two. ;)

creepy shit

this guy is describing my counterpart at work. The bit about responding immediately to texts and emails jumped out at me.

Last year, while I was on vacation, I got a text from him with a question about how to do the tax on a lease for a Virginia customer. The text, and subsequent voice mail both started with, "put on your thinking cap..." It irked me that he bothered me with that kind of thing. And the way the text and voice mail were pretty much identical made it sound contrived. Like he was purposefully trying to intrude on my down time with something I had no way of actually helping him with.

Needless to say, I didn't reply at all to either. I don't WANT to put my fucking thinking cap on while I'm on vacation. That's the point of vacation.

He didn't talk to me for like 3 weeks when I got back, and I finally had to lock him in a room and make it clear that he doesn't have the right to question my dedication to my job. And that I saw clearly through his attempt to control me. It got heated.

The praise thing absolutely works, btw. I hate doing it though. I will have my new assistant read this. She's having a hard time understanding why he's such a dick to everyone.

thanks g

This Hacker News thread and the first comment and replies are exactly how I feel right now

Puttin' it here for posterity.

That's so true. I'm the most productive when sitting in a coffee or bar with just the right amount of noise and people. What I hate though is if people stare on my screen, hence I'm always looking out for a corner spot.

It's hard to concentrate on work when you have to scratch your nuts surreptitiously. :yesnod:

corrosive

An interesting corollary: I can't focus on anything significant if my kids are in the house at all. Even if they're silent and upstairs behind closed doors, there's the nagging awareness that at any moment one of them could interrupt me with anything from a flooded toilet to a broken bone to a stupid YouTube video they want me to see.

it came out yesterday that the big boss is hyper-sensitive to voices and can't even tolerate speech while driving.

Hence why he shuts the door "with purpose" whenever the office gets talky; hence why he BLASTS electronic dance music (techno, with no words) from time to time (without respect for the rest of us)

But also, imagine the lack of empathy in creating an office where he, himself, could not possibly be productive; where everyone else MUST NOT be like him, for his benefit.

It's good to be the King.