Peter: "Let me ask you something. When you come in on Monday and you're not feeling real well, does anyone ever say to you, 'Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays?'"
Lawrence: "No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man."
I am Peter Gibbons. About 5 weeks ago I just decided "F$%k it!" Nothing dramatic mind you; I just decided that being constantly stressed, not taking care of myself, and sleeping poorly wasn't worth it. Certainly not for a job that I had no problem getting fried from. But of course, life imitates art...
In my professional life, I have worked for poor management; I have worked for great management; this is the first time that I've ever worked for utterly dickless management. It started with trying to navigate the over-bureaucracy. How many engineering managers do you need? Apparently a few more, because the 5 - FIVE - a tried to reach out to all refused to make an actual decision. So I decided that if they were too scared to make a call, I'd make it for them. To be fair, as soon as I vented this frustration to their boss, I had 3 emails within 2 hours. And basically they said "Um, we guess you're way is OK." Thanks deusche.
Next it progressed to openly circumventing the "rules." Mostly this was out of true necessity. It's one thing to be too chickenshit to make a decision; it's another thing to be too clueless to realize when you're submarining your own people. These clowns were doing nothing to help me do what I knew needed to be done, so I took over. I tracked down my guy directly, had a fantastic conversation, built a key relationship, and now I'm running his introduction to my own company, which apparently has a relationship with this guy that their too dumb to understand.
By this time, I'm just running rickshaw over this company. I'm coming and going as I please (Sleep until 10am - no problem; Golf at 1pm on a Friday - done). Yeah, I'm getting things done but C'mon Man, but I should have at least been reprimanded or something.
Instead - and I can't make this up - I have a Bob. You know the Bobs - the consultants from the movie. Well, I have one. Not only am I throwing people under the bus; not only am I openly circumventing the "rules" to suit my own needs; NOT ONLY am I doing pretty much whatever the EFF I want - I have a guy who I'm venting all of this to and his response is an emphatic, "Well hell yeah Keith. You're doing everything you need to do to get things done." (WTF?) As if that wasn't enough, he's also going over to all the VP and telling them, "That Keith is a real straight-shooter with upper-management potential written all over him!" (Holy WTF?)
All I'm missing is a TGIFridays waitress and a neighbor who tells me when to flip to access-cable nudity. This has just gotten ridiculous, and unfortunately the sad part is that I'm just incredibly unhappy. Maybe I'm still just hurting from the loss of my friends and mentor, maybe it's got to do with this company wanting me to be everything I swore I'd never be if I got my MBA (maybe the source of my rebellion?...nah...), maybe I'm just tired of the folks from Wisconsin saying BS like "Oh man, your culture is just like ours!" (Uhhh, newsflash, NO ONE in San Diego thinks that).
At any rate, their are only 3 options, in two phases.
Phase 1: Passive-aggressive job search.
I'm unhappy, not stupid. I've got complete control of my own situation and I have a responsibility to at least try to stabilize my team. So I figure use the situation to my advantage and pursue two options:
1a - Venato. Our L2M project lives! We've done more research, gotten more validation, and now it's just a matter of seeing if we can deliver.
1b - Go international. Specifically South America or Europe. Why not? I've got networks and connections in both and at this point it would be an incredible experience. I know I can get a job in San Diego whenever I feel like it
Phase 2: Hit the eject button
Assuming I can't make Phase 1 happen, then at the turn of the year I'm going to just go full-bore to find something new in San Diego.
At the end of the day, the best part of this deal is that they bought us for cash. I've got the money in the bank and no one can take it back. I live in one of the absolute best places to live in the world and I have the perfect combination of education and experience to be incredibly successful anywhere I want. there are worse ways to be, so why not be everything I want or more?
Peter: "That's a really good idea."
Lawrence: "Fuckin' A, man!"
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