So, they
moved me today.
Let me straighten this out. I am employed by a financial institution. I have been moved my location, two stories out of the basement. I don’t mind the light coming through the windows, of which I can see a sliver of light from. It’s just that the rest of my department, IT, is in the basement, and I am no-where near my former comrades-in-arms.
I’m up in the loan department. I can hear the loan collectors’ cough at irregular but consistent intervals like a diseased heart that just won’t give up. The country music is tinny but distinct through the walls of the cubicles. It’s not a consistent noise, voices Doppler in and out of a distant corridor, interspersed by music and commercials and drones of a half-dozen PCs.
I feel like even less a part of the department up here. I don’t have a phone, which could be a blessing, I suppose, but is more likely not, because I don’t really look that busy compared to someone on the phone to the PHBs. And I’m not all that busy, at least as much as I should be.
I get regular comments on the 15” LCD monitor that sits on my right. The 17” that is too big for my desk on my left goes unnoticed. The Compaq PII 233 it’s attached to is my clandestine Linux machine.
I define the co-workers whose machines I work on as clients. I have about 70 clients at four locations. Further out, there are about 30 more about 25 miles away, and 5 about 50 out there, and 3 about 100 miles south. So, all told, I have over 100 people to support. My three other IT department people (one manager, one other tech, one Administrative Assistant who moonlights as first level support) are over-worked right now. Next week: who knows? This is a small business, but every person that works here has a computer but two (mail room people). Even the maintenance man has one.
This is a temporary job. I think I forgot to mention that. I’m only here for another month or 6 weeks or something like that. The thing is that I’ve been doing this for years. At this same company. Working three months at a time for about three years.
I don’t really feel like a real employee. I know my status is temporary full-time worker.
There’s a guy here that sounds like Lundberg from Office Space. I feel like Melvin or whatever his name is.
I’ve been here three years.
It’s really hard to care about what’s going to happen in the future to the company. There really is no incentive for a temp to give a damn about the quality of his or her work. I think that consultants may have the same problem.
I’ve been here for three years and I didn’t get a Christmas bonus.
The money is important, negligible. I’ve earned more than what it was when I read news on slashdot or cnn or whatever for an hour in the morning. You know? Maybe it is the money and I’m subconsciously shallow. But I feel like even less of an employee. I’m totally disposable, and both me and my employer knows it. Why even bother?
I kind of hope that they’ll create a Design position, a part-time position, something that theoretically has been in the works for a while now. I think that my boss would like to keep me on part-time, as an IT person, and between the two, I’ll be able to really have a full-time job, benefits and everything and I’d be able to do two things I like to do.
But I don’t think they will. I’m not really employed here. I’m fodder.
I’m just feeling not very connected. Not very useful. Not very anything.
On a personal note, my mom crys every time I see her now. I moved out, and I don't really have a full-time job. Moving out is the second stupidest thing I've ever done.