Cubicle Cultures
3 Walls, Plenty of Stories
Journal for the week of 5/1/17
5/1/17
0740 — In.
0853 — Been an interesting morning already. I arrived to only find 50 or so emails waiting for review since I was out last week. Would have thought there had been more but thankful there wasn’t. Lots of talk about the NFL draft. One of my colleagues is a Dallas fan and was happy. As a Jacksonville fan I was very happy with who we drafted. When another colleague comes in tomorrow, a Kansas City fan, there’ll be more talk. Some meetings have already been cancelled and I’ll never complain about that. Going to play catch up all day. There’s no way in hell that I’m important enough to get all those emails but I happen to be on a few different distribution lists and will get them whether I like it or not.
From the cubicle: More personal business to take care of. I really hate doing this at work but we’re all chained to our desks and have little choice. Finally got hold of the contractor that will do the flooring in my basement and we’re hoping to have it all done in a month or so. I still have to pick a color for the walls and paint them before the install…not an easy task. I’m going with light colored floors (laminate) and have zero clue how to pick a paint color to compliment it. My wife has left the basement for me to take care of at my insistence. I’m starting to regret it. She’s done a great job with the rest of the house, picking colors that flow from one to the next and have a great, relaxing tone. Please kill me.
0957 — Meetings for, potentially, the next 90 minutes. These are Post Incident Review Meetings (PIRM) where folks talk about outages in services and explain what happened and how it will be mitigated. Most of these are fairly short and aren’t supposed to be a “finger pointing” thing but it happens and it can get heated. It’s easy to see and hear frustration and I can understand. My manager asked me a while ago to attend in case any of the systems my team are mentioned. She usually attends as well but was happy to have me proxy. She has my best interests in mind. I’ve been exploring management positions, even applied to one a couple of weeks ago (no word from the hiring manager yet) and these meetings help to get my name out there and gain knowledge of what managers have to deal with. I appreciate her effort and thinking that highly of me. These meetings can cover anything from full system outages for major applications to the phone system being down. The latter has no bearing on my team but it’s something we need to be aware of.
1149 — Meetings were painless and short. All I had to do was introduce myself as a rep for my team.
From the cubicle: I’m sore AF from the weekend and having a hard time moving, even stretching. I was off on Friday, then the regular weekend which was filled with a gig at a local winery on Saturday and yard work on Sunday. Each involved physical labor, A LOT of physical labor. Loading equipment in/out of a venue is always grueling especially when it’s 90+ degrees but it’s worth it if folks enjoyed the music. Sunday, ugh. The usual mowing, trimming, heavy lifting, and digging holes for my wife’s attempt at landscaping in the front yard. She has some pretty good plans that will work out well. But my entire body feels like my limbs are going to fall off. I enjoy helping her. We get some quality time together and save a ton of money going the DIY route. In the long run she’ll be happy, making my life much easier. She gave me a kitchen pass on Sunday afternoon so I took full advantage of it by buying more cigars. I’ve been dangerously low so needed to spend way too much money getting more. This batch should last me through the Summer unless I get stressed out then they’ll last me till Friday.
1558 — A very slow afternoon. I’ve taken a lynda.com course and now looking at others. Helps pad my development plan but it’s a poor excuse to spend an afternoon. I could/should be doing more focused work but my motivation is dead. Still sore but tired as hell right now.
From the cubicle: I’m not the only one here that has a side gig. A pretty broad array, somone has a photo booth business for weddings, others have second jobs, there’s writers, baristas, musicians, folks that do development on their own, landlords, and many more. I’m looking at starting a podcast to accompany all this fucking writing I’m doing. I’ve already secured an email address for this, cubiclecultures@gmail.com (shameless plug) and an outline for a few episodes, just need to get started. My biggest problem is getting motivated after coming home from work. So…today I decided to designate evenings for certain activities. One night for writing, one for music, one for the podcast, one for reading. I doubt I’ll be militant in the beginning about keeping this schedule but getting in the routine will be good for me. I avoid TV, especially the news, as much as possible and I have no kids at home so my time is mine. I can be a fairly disciplined person, my wife loves that and it’s something she can count on when I say I’m going to do something and follow through. I’ve never met anyone that truly ‘loves their job’ and rarely believe them when they say so. Some folks I know have been content with their career choices and I applaud all of them for sticking with any job for 30+ years. I’m just not one of those people. Been at my current company for 10 and I’m ready to do something else. We all hate aspects of our jobs and use side gigs to either make some extra cash or for finding a way out of our current jobs/careers. The allure is incredible but the reality is harsh. I’ve had a small business in the past composing music for independent media. I shut it down after 4 years, broke even, and was happy with it all. Now this podcast thing is in my head and seems to be gaining traction. The way I see it, I’ve written 2 books, composed music for indie movies (mainly short films), done voiceover work, written code for friends’ projects, among other stuff. Maybe this podcast mess is the one thing that will get me out of here…maybe not. It doesn’t have health insurance and a steady paycheck. With that in mind…fuck it.
1625 — Out.
5/2/17
0735 — In.
From the cubicle: Stale perfume and cologne are reeking through the office. My eyes are actually hurting because of it. I’d attribute it to pollen but pollen doesn’t smell, if it did, it wouldn’t smell this bad. I wear cologne almost everyday so it makes me part of the problem, but…DAMN it stinks in here! We work in fairly close quarters and the air on our floor circulates a little too well. I’m tempted to go burn a bag of microwave popcorn to neutralize the stench.
1034 — I was just reminded that I’m running our Sunday window implementation schedule. GOODY (obviously said with a sarcastic sneer on my weathered face). We have to be in by 0400 and hoping to be done by 0600. I agreed to run this one a while back; our PM will be out on leave. So this means rearranging my life for 2 hours I counted on for sleep. I only have one task that needs to be done on Wednesday morning but need to coordinate the rest of the tasks and follow up to see if people did them on time.
From the cubicle: A colleague of mine just let me know that one of his cousins signed as an undrafted free agent with the Packers….VERY EXCITING! He’s a kid out of UNC-Charlotte and was getting close to flying to Oakland for a tryout. Apparently Green Bay called and asked if he signed with anyone yet, he said no, and the guy that called said don’t go anywhere we’re sending you a plane ticket. That is some of the best news I’ve heard in a long time here. I hope he makes the team, it would be cool to get a football card of him…maybe even autographed :)
From the cubicle: We have food trucks that come to my building a few days a week. Today’s touts a menu of cheese steak sandwiches and hamburgers. The temptation is killing me!!! I’m holding back because I, as usual, brought my lunch and have already eaten it. DAMN!!
1516 — Just woke up from my food coma…I went and got a cheese steak sandwich and it was worth every bite. I feel no guilt…don’t judge me. A couple of spirited conference calls finished at 1430. One was regarding a system that I consider mine and mine only. It’s our holiday calendar system. It’s not really a system but rather a shit ton of programming changes that practically every application running on the enterprise touches. Simply put, there’s a series of tables and programs that are executed to see if the current day is a holiday. If it is, do these transactions, if it’s not, don’t do them. I’m am overly protective of this little system and don’t want ANYONE fucking with it. It’s taken 6 years of my life to get it straightened out enough to where it’s manageable, seriously. Now there’s a project that involves holiday calendar program updates and I’ve gotten involved. The folks on the project team are cool and know how complicated all of it can be. The fact that they reached out says enough to me that they care about it. There’s an initiative to try and automate some of what my team does and I wished them good luck. There’s so much manual intervention that has to happen that it’s damn near impossible to do it. I will say that they’ve come up with some good ideas. A couple of which intrigued me enough to stay on the project as a consultant. One is using a flat file that can be pinged with the information and then disseminated to several programs, the other is to put the holidays into a DB2 table that will only need to be pinged a few times a year. Both are viable but will affect overall system performance. Still awake? Good. The other is to create a user interface (UI) so a human can type in the dates and they get stored in limbo somewhere. HELL NO. The last thing any IT person wants is to hear someone from the business side say they typed something in wrong, claim they either don’t remember what they did or simply don’t know what they were doing, and then not take accountability for it. My suggestion was to keep all of this away from the business and keep the accountability on our end. We’re the ones who maintain it and they will NEVER admit wrongdoing. The whole UI thing will die in committee, that I can promise you. The best solution in my opinion is to rewrite it all. An archaic, yet still robust, language called Assembler is the main driver for some of the systems. There “might” be 3–4 Assembler programmers in the company, including me. I suggested that the system be rewritten in COBOL (yes, it’s alive and well) so maintaining it will be easier in the future. It got a good chuckle but I brought up that us 3–4 Assembler programmers won’t be here forever and all of the sudden the chuckling stopped. Either way it goes, my team will end up being the ones that maintain it if anything goes wrong. Duh. So why not let us rewrite it? Because someone didn’t do enough research for their current project to see how bad it might fuck up my system, that’s why. It’s all about planning and analysis folks, very little was done with this one. But, again, at least the PM and some other folks reached out and let me know. Those folks…they’ll do a great job, no doubt. As long as I’m kept abreast of what’s going on, I’ll be fine.
1626 — Out.
5/3/17
0741 — In.
0940 — Just spent 45 minutes of my life gathering screenshots for another team. We have a decent checks and balances for certain systems. The team asking for the info handles change management. They are the gatekeepers to the PROD environment so everything will need to be approved by them else modifications won’t be promoted to PROD. I don’t really mind getting the info but it takes way too much of my time and it’s basically intern work. Since we can’t seem to get/keep interns on our team, it falls to the Leads which is complete bullshit. Delegating it out isn’t my style so I have to suck it up. I want my guys to be writing code instead of little things like this.
From the cubicle: Just got a call letting me know I wasn’t selected for an interview for a manager slot I applied for. What softened the blow was that the hiring manager called me directly to let me know…which is the best thing that could have happened in this situation. He’s a retired Marine and well respected and he showed why by making the call. Yes, I’m fucking pissed but the call lessened the anger. There’s a culture here that he’s trying to change where candidates don’t get notified whether or not they’re even being considered. I can’t put in enough words what it meant to me for him to reach out like that; a very classy thing to do. I’ve been trying to get off my current team into management for a couple of years and have been vetted out of just about all my applications. Only one came through but that was for a developers job and I completely blew the interview. No doubt politics plays a part and I do have a reputation for going outside procedures, which really pisses people in upper management off, to get things done faster for our customers. I also stand up to the same folks when I feel me or my team has been wronged. Sometimes it bodes well for me to do that but management doesn’t like to be challenged. However, I have a great reputation for getting things done and fostering good working relationships with the business units, even got an award for it a couple of years ago. I could call bullshit on all this but, for a manager to call me directly and give me the reasoning, I just can’t. DAMN!!
1600 — Just got a bit of a chewing out from a colleague. He used passive-aggressive wording in his email and it threw me. I don’t mind getting seriously chewed out when it’s deserved but to throw shade like that irritates the fuck out of me. It’s like, I can be mad but can’t because it wasn’t harsh enough. That’s not cool! I hate that. There are plenty of times where I need to be knocked down a few notches, I get it. But to knock me down a notch in a way where I don’t really feel insulted or pissed isn’t playing fair. Passive-aggressive people are the worst. They’re way too cunning and pseudo polite when telling you to fuck off. This NOT Canada where politeness rules people, this is America! If you’re pissed we let folks know, stay mad for a few days then get on with our lives till we get the slightest chance to get people back. Isn’t that the way businesses work? God I can’t wait to do the same to him but I’m not congenial at all so it may not be something I can do. SHIT!!!
From the cubicle: The band I joined recently is going through a bit of turmoil…imagine that. Bands of all kinds are worse than dealing with kindergartners. Aside from the usual ego issues, we had a bit of falling out in the 2 gigs we had last weekend. Verbal attacks, way too much chatter, and other bullshit…on stage. So the emails started flying and our band leader wants everyone’s input so I really let them have it without being passive-aggressive. I’m the new guy, been with them for about a month. They’ve been a band for 14–15 years and are pretty good, not great, but they get plenty of gigs mainly at wineries. Everyone is a solid player and I’m still trying to find my way and get used to how things are handled personally and professionally. The band members are good folks, usually mellow but the gigs weren’t good and I’m not having much (if any) fun yet and let them know. I’m the first to admit that I’m a total asshole when part of a band and it kept me from joining a band for years. I prefer being a studio rat but wanted to get in front of people again. We’ll see how it works out and I’m waiting for the fallout from my email. Stay tuned.
1624 — Out.
5/4/17
0755 — In.
0849 — Nice outside yet I’m inside. I’d claim that I “wasn’t feeling well” but the transparency of that would get me fired. The past 2 nights have been a bit unusual…I got a good night’s sleep. Believe it or not, I’m actually wanting to be here today. Sleep isn’t overrated, it’s the recharge we all need to give a shit again. Although rested and fairly awake, it won’t stop me from getting more coffee later. Four meetings on the docket today, I’m required to attend 3 of them. Sometimes meetings are the perfect time to get other things done. Since all of these are conference calls, I’ll definitely be multitasking.
From the cubicle: My youngest is rallying the troops on social media to contact their congress people to stop the AHCA vote. I applaud her for her advocacy and it inspired me to contact my representative via phone, text, and email. This vote scares me a bit because I have employee assisted healthcare (they pay 1/2 and I pay 1/2). None of us want our costs to rise, including employers. I just can’t believe the GOP is rushing this through without looking at the costs from the CBO prior to a vote. I’m a moderate at best but not very political these days. I didn’t vote in the last election because I didn’t want to be held responsible for the bullshit each candidate brought with them. However, I’m still a constituent and will be holding votes responsible for their actions. Folks just don’t understand that the public is responsible for this shit. They were the only choices we had and we created that situation. My daughter works for a company that is a third-party administrator of health policies, she knows her stuff and has an insider’s view of what’s happening. I’m so proud of her activism and marched with her for the Women’s March back in January.
1048 — One of the calls I’m on (yes, I’m on 2 at the moment) is dragging on with a bit of finger pointing and demands made by a manager. By “demands” I mean mandates. He’s recently promoted and flexing his authority, it’s all good. The calls are keeping me from going to the bathroom and I have another one right after these.
1156 — Successfully made it to the bathroom and all went well. Just uploaded a monthly report we’re required to do for our respective teams and projects. The PMs normally do the entire thing for the business and us, not sure why I’m even involved but the bosses said to do it. Mine involves just our repeatable projects (daily/weekly/monthly, etc) which rarely change. We also include any project change tickets and incident tickets whether they’re closed or not for the last 30 days. It’s all pretty with colors and graphics in the same way USA Today was back in the 80s. For those of us old enough to remember when that started, it was revolutionary. Now it’s everyday stuff except people rarely read the newspaper anymore.
From the cubicle: I just got reminded that I’ll be on a radio show. A friend of mine has a side gig as a DJ on Bolly 102.9 which is music and entertainment based programming, 24x7 South Asian Radio. Mainly Desi music from India. He does a great job and has the perfect personality and voice. Very lively and friendly. I’ll be pushing my books, Manku and Manku Too, to try and boost sales and probably talk about my next one and podcast that will be based on these journals. Free advertising is priceless and I’ve no problem with that.
From the cubicle: Our cleaning crew is awesome. They’re also becoming good friends of mine. Many, if not all, of them are from Mexico or other Central American countries. Don’t judge them, they’re ALL here for an honest paycheck and I respect that. They do the jobs like vacuuming and cleaning the restrooms that Americans, especially white folks, won’t do. Some of them barely speak English, others speak it better than I do. Their job is normally thankless and taken for granted. A colleague told me a story about his experience at another company where a friend of his kept a styrofoam cup on her desk to reuse. She started noticing the cup kept disappearing and then saw a cleaning person throw it away. The problem is that the cleaning crew had a specific, long-standing order to not touch anything on people’s’ desks. Apparently the cleaning person got fired. I’m betting he/she was going the extra mile to help a fellow human being out but it was a fireable offense. I had a coffee mug disappear once, looked all around the building and breakrooms for it, looked at home, and never found it. At first…I thought someone on the cleaning crew took it or broke it because they’re here after hours. I was mistaken. Turns out a now retired colleague took it as a joke and hasn’t returned it. I only found that out from another colleague who hangs out with him occasionally. What did it teach me? Don’t assume anything. I’ve been kicking myself ever since. As a silent show of faith, I leave my desk drawers unlocked, one of which has my mid-day medications (PTSD). Nothing is ever taken and I got piece of mind but still feel guilty that I was already blaming folks of a crime they didn’t commit. Over time I’ve gotten to know a couple of ladies and they’ve become friends that are always cordial, saying hi and good morning every day. I’m putting all this out here to try and bring relief for myself but it hasn’t really helped. Cry racism all you want, but my first and only thought was they’re here after hours when I’m gone and have access to things on my desk. It has been a tough lesson to learn and I’m still learning it. Keeping it real here folks, sometimes it’s not pretty but it’s all true.
From the cubicle: It is incomprehensible to me that paying off a loan is next to impossible. I had to take a loan against my 401k to put a downpayment on a house we bought a few years ago. Problem is that I can’t make extra payments, I can only make regular monthly payments on it or pay it off with a single payment. No one I know has money just laying around to pay off loans in a single payment where it won’t hurt the household. NO ONE!!! Shit this pisses me off. Now let me contradict myself. I opened a separate 457(B) account, an account for folks that make a certain annual salary, in other words it’s a high interest account where the interest rate is set by the Board of Directors. I’m the only one that can make deposits to it out of my paycheck, no company match. I saw that I have enough money in the 457 to pay off the loan (which should tell you that the loan isn’t very much)…but…I found out that I can’t withdraw money from it without showing a hardship to do so. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??? IT’S MY MONEY!! I’m basically being penalized for being financially responsible. My company is the keeper of the account and this is all their doing. Y’know, I appreciate my job and am thankful that my company is stable but why TF am I getting screwed in this deal?
1620 — Anyone else says, “May the 4th Be With You” to me today will get knocked in the teeth. I hate science fiction. Fuck this whole day.
1622 — Out.
5/5/17
0756 — In.
0853 — Day already sucks. Trying to activate a new ATM and some things fell through in transition. And…I got an email from a bandmate shitting on me about an earlier email that I sent. I understand that he’s under a tremendous amount of stress at the moment, his wife is about to go through hip replacement surgery today. I’d be surprised if I make it through the day. Walking out of here today is on my mind. My wife is home today because of my snoring, she got no sleep. Yep…can’t do anything right already.
0949 — Got some ATM program changes done. Nothing difficult, just changing some funding numbers. Currently waiting for the trainer to verify the changes are good. I’m still fuming over that email and other bullshit today and there’s no way I can go home early. Still have to work on Sunday at 0600 instead of 0200 so I and others catch a break. Since the PM is out on leave, I’m running our part of the implementation. Only 1 more scheduled meeting at 1000. I’m so mad, my hands are shaking. Got into an argument about money with my wife this morning. Long story short, we both blamed each other about our spending and I started the fight. I’m such a fucking hypocrite sometimes but shit happens. Need more time off to regenerate and give a damn but time/money isn’t there.
From the cubicle: My youngest found a house to rent that’s $350 less a month that her current apartment. She and her boyfriend are gonna share a place with one of her friends. She wants to be a city girl for a while, she used the word “yuppie” which is fitting. She’s 23 and kicking major ass at her job. Once she got a taste of full independence, I had a feeling this would happen :)
1216 — Got hit with a meeting invite for a project I didn’t know myself and one of my guys got resourced to. I reached out to the PM who said the resourcing was very recently so we may not have gotten the email telling us. I’m also trying to find out which one of our managers put us up for sale. Sometimes there neither rhyme or reason to what management does. I’m a team lead and have little to no control over what we do which is bullshit. Now, my manager gives me some leeway but so little that I’m basically just a figurehead. This is NOT a good feeling.
From the cubicle: Just heard that my friend’s hip surgery is done and all is well. The pain is starting to set in but she’ll be fine. He also apologized for busting my balls in his email. No doubt he’s under a ton of stress and I respect how he’s handling it. Long road ahead for both of them. Her doc said it’ll take about 10 weeks for recovery and more time after that to be fully healed. At least there’s some good news to celebrate today. It’s 1430 at the moment and I still want to GTFOH.
1529 — Almost the end of the day. Been quiet this afternoon and my mood has lightened. Tonight is definitely a cigar and beer night. Won’t get to see my wife much this weekend. I’m going to a small festival at my neighbor’s church while my wife is hosting a Meetup for her coaching, both on Saturday. Sunday I have to work and she’s got another Meetup, maybe 2 but I can’t remember at the moment. At some point over the weekend I’ll need to mow the lawn. We don’t get much time together but when we do it’s quality but not enough. I’m really lucky to have her and the kids in my life. No idea where I’d be without them. I’m still trying to convince the kids to move back home, Big Daddy misses them but I’m not sure I could handle the estrogen overload with my wife and 3 daughters. Even the cat is female…I CAN’T WIN! But it’s exactly the way it should be and I’m perfectly happy with it. Life is good.
1625 — Out.
If you’ve read this far…thanks! Please feel free to click the heart below and comment. I’d love to hear your experiences no matter what it may be.
