Tuesday, August 10, 2004
work sucks, but for how much longer?
I walked into work 10 minutes early today, armed with a quadruple shot jimi beans coffee. I figured that going to bed at 3:45 AM warranted spending my poker earnings to splurge on it. I walk in to see my boss talking to Matt, as usual. Whatever, I sit down at my desk and unlock my computer, start doing my morning thing. I get one of those looks from my boss. You know, one of those looks. Whatever, it's cool, I continue, and he turns his chair so he can talk to me. I turn, and we look at each other. He says "so when are you out of here, Stillman" or something to that effect. I reply "probably Thursday", because we had already talked about it on a few occasions before. He was all "probably?! Lets get this settled! Is it Thursday or not?!" getting a bit upset almost at my joke. I told him, yes, indeed Thursday was my last day. He said "David, I've got work to do, don't f*ck with me". He was dead serious.
Yeah, that changed the tone of the conversation a bit. We moved on to what I should be doing to wrap up my last few days, documenting my work, etc... I told him all was good and I would do everything he needed me to to make my work easily accessible when I leave, etc... Then he said "You know, David, I had higher hopes for you this summer". I kinda knew what he meant when he said it, but it still cut deep. He did his best to recover by saying "This is not on you at all, this is all on my shoulders" and how it was a "lack of management" on his part, etc... I know why he said it. He didn't know how to use me. He gave me hourlong projects and expected it in a week, and if I got done early, he would wonder how on earth he would find something for me to do. I was way underutilized at the company, and everyone knows it, but nobody wanted to do anything about it. And if they did, they were too lazy to. So I don't really care that he put me down like that, he wasn't dissing my skills, my motivation, or anything, but just that he hinted that I was at fault for his mismanagement. I don't think that's cool.
He proceeded to talk about how they might hire me out for projects as I went to school, but that I should "focus on my schoolwork first". I took that as kinda me getting the shaft. I am not going to go out of my way to call them next school year, and I have a feeling I won't be getting called either. Whatever. I told him that I fully intended on putting my schoolwork before everything else. My way of acknowledging what he said.
So my last day is Thursday. I can leave this place and not look back if I want. Don't get me wrong, I love working here, but ... I just don't think I am fully cut out to do corporate work just yet.
8 days and counting.
