Well, I get back from lunch just now and almost instinctively have to compulsively check my server stats. This has really become way too big of an obsession. If it weren’t for the horrid coffee addiction that pales everything else in comparison, I’d really be worried…

So anyway, I notice that several new hits have come in on my blog since I checked yesterday evening, and I dive into referrer hunt mode. I quickly find that the new source of hits comes from a blog entry posted by my neighbor, whom we’ll call “Bill”, over at his House O Insomnia. I start reading, and the first line kinda catches me off guard:

By now, virtually every blog reader has heard about someone who’s gotten fired for blogging. Well, one of my Feedmap neighbors just just posted this. I don’t think anyone will ever accuse him of not having b4lls .

This caught me off guard for two reasons. First, even though I mentioned getting fired, it never actually occurred to me that I might really. I’ve been careful to keep a very specific division of “church and state”, if you will. There’s always been work, and then everything else in my life. Sometimes work spilled over into the rest (as it is apt to do from time to time), but I was always very careful to guarantee that the rest never spilled over into work (aside from taking time off to do something here and there, of course). Bill’s comment made me realize that yeah, it is very possible that I could get fired for so harshly criticizing our Marketing Department, should someone from work (god forbid someone actually in the Marketing Department) stumble upon my blog post.

Secondly, his comment hit very close to home, since I just today started re-examining my career path. There have been some things going on at this company since I started working here 5 years ago that I haven’t liked, and which have yet to change. Their priorities are definitely not in the right order. They spend money on useless things, generally because the Marketing Department thinks the existing solution isn’t “pretty” or “fluffy” enough (and Marketing supposedly makes money, so they get whatever they want), and in the process they ignore the growing needs of the Systems department to effectively do their jobs and develop the infrastructure that is going to maintain the company in the coming years (how many corporations do you know that run intranet servers off IT workstations?). In addition, while I like the majority of the people I work with overall on a personal level, having to deal with them in a work environment is sometimes much more trouble than it should be. It’s common for them to refuse otherwise simple changes simply because they’re in a bad mood, and code-hoarding is a definite problem. Oftentimes, you will ask a very simple question, but rather than having the simple answer spit back at you, you’re told a round-about method to find it, doubling if not tripling your work load.

Additionally, there is absolutely zero communication. The entire Systems department reports directly to the President of the company, and since he’s rarely around, and never tells us anything when he is, we never have a clue what’s going on. Anyone and everyone is free to come over and disturb us with anything and everything they want whenever they want, because we don’t actually need to get any development done, and nothing is done when a user is browsing “those sites” and gets loaded up with spyware and virii (like today for example). We won’t even get in to how I make 1/3 less a year than what even the average *starting* salary is for an entry-level computer technician (a lack of degree only counts for so much. I know my stuff.).

Now, I won’t deny that there are some incredible benefits to working for this company. Not only am I free to come and go virtually whenever I please (with the understanding that everything gets done in a timely manner, of course), but I also get 40 days of PTO (Paid Time Off) every year (you know where you can stick your typical 2 weeks buddy?). Let’s be honest though, if you’re miserable the rest of the year, is it really worth it?

Why did I suddenly start thinking today that I might not be where I belong? Well, on top of everything I’ve listed, I dealt with an old woman who got THE biggest spyware infestation I’ve ever seen. I spent 3 hours cleaning her computer, and I’m still not 100% sure it’s all gone. During all this, we’re hiring a new DBA (big mistake, we don’t need one, despite what our current DBA says). Well, I hear 3rd hand that I’m being moved down the aisle to be shoved into the cube on the end, because she needs to be closer to our current DBA, and while we’re at it, we might as well move our web guy down closer to him too (I’m going in his cube).

Nevermind that I still haven’t heard it from our boss, and that I don’t want to move down there, they’re always talking about minimizing the amount of work. Just look at all the shit stacked up in my desk and tell me it’s logical for me to move… Until now, I had no intention (and really don’t have any intention yet) of moving my stuff until it was time for me to clean out my desk and move on.

I guess the part I really don’t like about this is that no one seems to want to tell me directly. I’ve heard it 3rd hand, and it feels like I’m quietly being slid out of the picture. Not to mention I’d be sitting down on the end, across from our printer cube, alone.

Ah well, I guess if I’m out of the picture, it won’t be a problem when I just stop showing up every day… Perhaps it’s time to take another week off so everyone appreciates me again. Who am I kidding? No one appreciates me around there…

So remind me… why do I work here, again?