career suicide

I work in the wonderful world of IT. I’m not a coder or developer or anything glamorous like that. No, my chosen profession is to toil away in the exciting and challenging field of requirements management. That includes gathering them, documenting them and testing them. Oh, the times we have. My eyes are misting over in a wave of nostalgia as I recall the countless hours spent in dead end meetings and conference calls. If I could have one more day here on earth, I’m quite certain that’s exactly where I’d want to be.

I know what you’re all thinking right now. That me, innocent little borgo is one lucky son of a bitch. After all, how could a guy like him with nothing beyond a twelfth grade education come to have the world by the balls? That in the high flying world of information technology he’s sitting on the cusp of new and wonderful advances that will change the world for the better. I know the envy you all must feel.

As for me, it’s a miracle I don’t fuckin’ shoot myself.

But, since I have a family to support and some folks that I think care about me, I try and do my best to make it through each and every mind numbing day. The rewards for my efforts are simple. They include a roof over my head, a decent meal every now and then, a few beers to ease my pain and on rare occasions, a real life date with a member of the opposite sex.

For those of you who, like me, work in IT and might have less important things to worry about here’s some tips about how to end it all without actually having to end it all. These little hints are besides doing the obvious things like not showing up for work, showing up drunk or stoned, calling in sick every Monday and Friday or banging the boss’s spouse. These are more subtle in nature. Consider it a primer on the path to career suicide.

Ti-i-i-ime is on my side, yes it is!

Uh, unfortunately The Rolling Stones were wrong. Ignoring deadlines on a consistent basis is one of the fastest ways to get yourself buried in the career graveyard. You have to start the process slowly. You can begin by asking for extensions and then turning in the work late anyway. At first, a few days late will do but believe me; it won’t be long before you graduate to blowing off assignments completely. On the other hand, your boss might think you can be rehabilitated. To avoid this, you have to condition him or her to come to the realization that no amount of coaching will help. This is done by making lame sounding or even insane types of excuses. Remember, let your imagination be your guide!

Neatness counts!

It’s true. Nobody likes a document littered with typo’s or grammatical and punctuation errors. Never mind the content itself, always always always make sure that work you are submitting (late, of course) is riddled with an over sized portion of these kinds of mistakes. If you find this too difficult, you can even omit entire sections of a document!

You can then claim to your boss that this is a bold new strategy you’re trying to implement. That many of the sections you left out were redundant and that the information that was supposed to be in there should be “taken for granted”.

You're WRONG and you're a GROTESQUELY UGLY FREAK

C’mon. Don’t be ashamed to admit it. You know you’re the smartest person in the room. It’s a just a God damned shame nobody else does. When somebody disagrees with you, never cede a point. It might be interpreted as a sign of weakness. Instead, stick to your guns like you were defending the Alamo. If it takes bullying another member of your team, well then, so be it. If it takes using ten-dollar words that don’t belong but sound good in a sentence, fire away! This way everybody else will realize your commitment and nod their heads in agreement every time you open your mouth. It’ll seem like God himself has descended from the heavens and spoke to the ignorant masses.

There is no 'I' in 'team

Wanna bet? One of the easiest ways to alienate and frustrate your co-workers is to take credit for everything that they’ve done. While your contribution might have been minimal, you can always claim that you played the role of “leader” and guided them down the path to success. This strategy ensures that you’ll never have to do any actual work yourself but instead, you’ll be looked upon as a father figure who is revered and adored by all.

On the flip side, should an effort fail, you can always claim that you “knew this was going to happen”. That you were the lone soldier sounding the alarm as the huns were descending and about to rape and pillage the village. Doing this will certainly undermine any credibility you have left with your co-workers and soon you’ll be an “Army of One”.

I could probably come up with some more creative ways to commit career suicide but since I’m noding this from work, well, you can figure it out.

Just another day at the office...

Good luck and Happy Slacking!

In Baghdad, after bullets fired,
after fighters tired
and heads were at rest
off shoulders, off chests
the night there sounds the same
as it did in the Midwest
And I, I wondered what it would feel like
to walk through crowded streets
looking down at my dirty feet,
my unpolished leather boots
...A civilian again.
A man among men.

9 years ago last month
I marched myself down
and I signed up
I unplugged my playstation games
Learned weapons by their real names
Cut my hair off and gave myself up
and I thought I was doing the right thing.

I took orders, I marched in packs
I learned to give men heart attacks
with a rat-ta-tat-tat of automatic fire
and the plink of pin pulled from an m67
I watched men pray to a god not much different than mine
that they'd make it to their heaven,
while their own sons carried around guns
that our fathers had manufactured.
And it fractured my heart in many places.

And I wrote letters home to friends that had changed
Got letters back from a woman who had taken my name
Saying things like the weather is beautiful
wish you were here
and I wished I was there.
Letters saying algebra is hard
Letters saying got a speeding ticket, life sucks
Letters saying, graduated college, my life is over
And I tried not to write back
Oh man, how awful, quadratic equations,
Yesterday my buddy met the fella responsible for his creation
And the day before that Jerry was speeding down the interstate
hit a blast in the road and now he's missing his legs
And man, I wish I was there,
And man, I hope I get out
I hope I get out before
before my life is over

Three years ago last month
I came home to those friends that had changed
I came home to that woman who wanted to give me back my last name
and I stayed in bed for seven months,
I hung my head in shame
because I thought I had done the right thing.
And Jerry is a regular old Lieutenant Dan
wheeling himself around and living out of a van
And I speak to him every time he gives me the call
of Matthews, and Smith, and Barber- who never made it home at all.
Or of Adams who came home and hung himself in his parents basement
Adams, who, when he took that test for army placement
proved to be the smartest damn man to ever jump out of planes
And now all that is left is a piece of stone with his name
It is hard to not want to place the blame
When we thought we were doing the right thing.

In a hospital room, after fighting the war, after the war
my father laid in bed and told me he was planning a career suicide,
three days before he died
A military statistic,
blink and you'll miss it
on the evening news.
But hey, I hear our president
isn't planning on sending any new residents over there.
Maybe someday, someone is going to figure out
just what it means to do the right thing.