I got mouths to feed. I can do that for about $60K + benefits.
Things I HATE about my job:
- I don't give a SHIT about managing people. We're all just pretending to be adults here.
- I don't give TWO SHITS about responding to your “emergencies” or ensuring some special event succeeds. Also, 9 AM meetings? Lemme get some commmon courtesy.
- Man, FUCK CUSTOMERS. For real. Retail, Corporate, or Higher-Ed… They're all the same needy assholes. If I wanted that I'd get a lap-dog.
- Commute is 30-120 minutes, depending on traffic. A feature film a day slaloming around pot holes, while dodging homeless vets in a typical American slum.
- I got into a technical field because I hated people and loved logic and hardware, but if you're promoted it's stakeholders & clients all of a sudden?
- I'm pigeon-holed into my current responsibilities as I'm a generalist who can perform equally mediocre in most tasks if I posses the drive and desire. If.
- I'm now 2 hours in to a 1 hour zoom call with no agenda and I can't even lean back in my boxers and scratch my balls.
Things I LOVE about my job:
- Making and testing documentation designed for the below average person, or laboriously recording a tedious process step-by-step as accurately as possible. Then I review and edit that documentation for an unusually long time. Then I attach it to an email. Then I review and edit that email for an unusually long time.
- Collecting information to aid in creating and maintaining unnecessarily complex multi-tab spreadsheets that cross-reference to link relevant data fields in order to find interesting relationships between total bullshit that nobody ever asked for and nobody will ever appreciate. Then I color code it.
- Bullshitting with co-workers about the minutia of different standards, postulating the implications of each choice, doing some quick research, and then crafting detailed lists of pros and cons, all designed to ensure a thorough and properly weighted comparison that'll never make it to anyone who matters.
- Spending an inordinate amount of time identifying a potential issue, determining the root cause, testing a shitty proof-of-concept, making recommendations going forward, being shot down or worse, having that task assigned to me. Much much more time than any reasonable person would ever spend.
- Identifying a problem and pro-actively spending an hour comparing different off-the-shelf products that should provide a reasonable solution that saves everyone time and money and so I never have to deal with it ever again. Submit the order with rationale. Crapshoot if it'll be authorized, but I did my part.
- Abandoning my work to solve another problem only slightly above average in difficulty but EXTREMELY above average in novelty.
Things I KNOW about myself:
- I fuckin' love hanging out with my kids. I can NOT do that all day every day.
- I fuckin' love my wife too. Every evening. She kinda needs to stick around town and has a respectable image to keep up.
- I don't want to be bossed around or boss others around. Fuck power-trips… Unless that's your thing?
- I work well in a team-oriented environment where there's a bit of jockular collaboration among peers working in good faith and who aren't judgy bitches.
- I mostly enjoy complaining about systemic problems that'll never change, and pointing out fucked-up shit mostly to amuse myself.
- America ain't worth fighting for. I know because I did it once. Don't mean I ain't above cashing in off of it somehow.
- Both my grandfathers and my father got bad tickers. There isn't a job in the world worth the stress or exhaustion.
- I'm just another walking & talking ape that thinks it has free will. There is nothing special about me, but I sure think there is.
- I sometimes turn the vulgarities off several hours a day.
I'm taking off today to post, x-post, watch porn, & read responses.