A name from the past!!!

Today I got a call from someone that I do work for / help out / rescue now and then asking me some technical questions.

Not really that difficult to answer and in theory put into effect, but with that came the news that it was for someone that I thought I had heard the last of, or at least never have to deal with again!

Now I’m a the middle of a dilemma, do I help out a friend that has been good to me, as I have to him, or do I tell him I won’t do it. I always try and be professional when it comes to my reputation and working with other people. Unfortunately the more I thought about it the worse it made me feel, all the thoughts and feeling came back along with a lot more hatred for the person and the situation they caused and put me through. I have enough stuff going on in my head to deal with at the moment without adding that to the mix!

I think the best way for me to go with this is to do the job if/when it comes up, with the conditions that I do not have to deal with the person in any direct way and keep my contact details well and truly private.

Shit, I hate being put in situations like this!

End of an Era

Today I finish my job as I.T. Manager for the company that I have worked at for the past 15 years.

I have had a great time while I have been working here.
I have worked with some great people including Proper Boss Man, Matraco, Dick Thick, Doughnuts, Barry, Tasty Stella, DMTH, Bustit, Mrs G, M25, Brown Owl, I Don`t Eat Cheese Ever, BV, Pid, Blakey, Tripes, Hammond, Freya, Polgara, Mi Lady, Aubergine Hair, Patsy, Henry VIII, The Muffin Lady, Derek Trotter, RFER, The Hacker, Smiler, Work Shy, Granny Banger, FatLad, The Hottest Female in the Office, St Wood, The Village Idiot, Cookie, El Tel, Pod, Junior, Brother Brown.

Unfortunately, I have also worked with some not so great people – I won`t name those idiots here as they deserve no recognition at all!

I was asked if I wanted to go out for lunch with 2 of the Directors, as a way of saying thank you for everything I have done in the past and also to say thank you for being adult and mature about the situation – unlike other people I am always mature about things.
I thought about that and took note from what one of my old bosses of several years ago used to say `Never turn down free food`. According to him lots of the business decisions and what software we would be purchasing was decided on how good the business lunch was.

So I headed off to have my lunch with them, it was nice and I got a lot of advice from one of them, while the other one spouted on about him and what he had done and money! Needless to say that part was not enjoyable.

When I got back, I was asked loads of times `What would I be sabotaging when I leave??` Sabotaging – do people really do that?

“Can you make the whole system fail when you leave”, one person said to me
Well the system has not had any money spent on it for over 2 years due to the idiots running it and given who is taking over from me it won`t be long before that happens anyway…..

“Are you going to delete all your documents” said another
No, they are stored in an encrypted drive volume (due to the nature of some of the work I was asked to do) as well as the file system on that volume being encrypted with EFS, as soon as they force change my password, which they should do as soon as I walk out the door, they will not be able to recover any of my files.

“Are you going to take any laptops when you leave?” I was also asked
No, there are no descent laptops, they have all been taken or have disappeared without anyone updating the asset database.

As the day came to an end I finished up my work, well when I say work I don`t really mean work as I`ve not really been doing anything since I got my electronic redundancy letter, I have however been typing a very frank and honest hand over document, well I say hand over document, its more things I can remember, and want to, tell them that they will need.
I also got sent an email by one of the above non mentioned who were taking over from me asking me all kinds of questions that really should have been asked by now. After typing and very loud `Fuck Off`, I deleted it and answered the questions as best I could, after all I am always adult and mature about things. I was honest though 😉

I then zapped my computer, after all it had been running an operating system that was not licensed and as I had been trying for over 2 years to get that and other licensing issues sorted with no joy I wasn’t going to expose the company to any risks that I could get blamed for, even though I have email evidence in my 3 cloud storage accounts to cover me 😉

As I was trying to leave, I noticed that pretty much all of the Directors had disappeared, with the exception of just one, who doubled for the HR Director. When I say HR Director I do mean that in the loosest terms possible! She wanted to speak to me and I just wanted to get out, but I decided to be pleasant. It was suggested to me that I should try and get a job with one of our software suppliers, the same software suppliers that had not been paid for over a year and who were with holding support until they did get paid. Hmmm I don`t think so.
That over, I done the off as quick as I could possible do.

I have no idea what I will be doing next, or when I will be getting another job, or what it will be, but what I do know is that it won`t be the last time that I will be hearing from the company I am leaving today 😉

Goodbye everyone, good luck!

Consultation Meeting

Well today I had my consultation meeting! Well when I say consultation meeting I mean more of a farce than a meeting.

I had the opportunity to take a representative in with me, so I chose to take my friend and college 😉 Patsy. I thought if it all starts to kick off she would be the best person to help me out and wade in.

I only really had 2 questions to ask the person taking the meeting – how much redundancy money would I be getting for my 15 years? and how quick do you want me to go?

Now, given that I had been with the company for that long, surely they would want to extract as much information from me as possible to make sure the company carried on working?
Hmmm no, I was told that I could go whenever I wanted, which suited me perfectly to be honest as i had well and truly had enough now.

As for how much, it was the bare minimum that they could get away with, and not only that they were going to spread it over 4 months as they could not afford to pay me it all in one lump – sounds about right!

The farce came in the form of the person taking the Consultation Meeting, the HR Director, who kept asking my representative about her Accounts job and talking to us about stuff going on that she is doing and other such topics that were nothing to do with the meeting in hand.
Now I am pretty sure that she should not be doing that, I know I am not a HR professional, but seriously….

So I left the meeting, another 54 minutes of my life wasted with the answers to my 2 questions.

I now need to go home and ponder on the following points from the meeting –
1) I can leave as soon as I want.
2) I will have enough money to last me 6 months.
3) There is no other job along the same job spec as I am currently doing as they do not need an I.T. Manager any more.
4) I want out of there as soon as I can.

Not sure there is much thinking to do there to be honest………