Category: work

Days

I recently accepted a special assignment at work. It goes into effect late March. It has to do with our upcoming software upgrade. I’m very happy to do it. The only real down side is I’ll have to switch over to a day shift, 9-4. I’m already Mon-Fri so no changes there. I’m most definitely not a morning person so this will present a challenge. lol Gone (temporarily) will be the days of me waking up on my own. I’ll have to drag my sleeping bulk out of bed bright and early and show up during breakfast hours.

The assignment could last 4-5 months and will be a lot of tedious work. As mentioned, I’m excited because the changes are huge and will effect all of us for the next 20 years. City-govs don’t upgrade software often and this upgrade, while from the same vendor, is a huge deal. I’ve fought tooth and nail to get included in the process so it would be colossally stupid of me not to take this assignment. I’ll suck up my angst about being an early bird and do it. My computer and software knowledge will benefit, not only me, but all of my fellow co-workers. I also bring the user perspective to the table which is often overlooked by the engineers, developers, and sellers. We’ve already discovered several issues that would have been deal-breakers. So yeah, I’m gonna do it. Not even a question to me.

On the flip side, I’ll get a view of how the rest of the world lives! I’ll get to actually go out in the evenings and do stuff with friends during the week. I’ll be able to drive home in daylight hours. If I wanted, I could watch many of my shows live vs tivo’d. Obviously, I won’t but I could. hehehe. I can also go out on weeknight dates and dinners.

Cooper shouldn’t be too hard as the change only works out to 4 hours on his schedule. He’ll go out a little early in the morning and a little later in the afternoon. I don’t expect much problem there. *crossed fingers*

Don’t be surprised if my updates for the first week are a bit on the cranky side!

Upgrades

I was on day shift all last week for meetings with our primary software vendor. We are in the beginning stages of upgrading our software. While with the same vendor, the new system is built new from the ground up [1]new as in newer than we have now but still mature as a product and in many ways fundamentally different from what we have now. These type of upgrades occur only a few times in the life of a call-center. With emergent technologies, it is a necessary upgrade. We must do this or jump to a whole new vendor which would be a whole a lot more money than just an upgrade. And a new system is always rough on the end users. lol

The process itself wasn’t bad albeit a bit tedious at times. I had to flex my hours for the week to accommodate the vendor schedules. While a hassle, not the end of the world and well worth it considering the impact this will have on myself (and others) as the end users. Only 2 big surprises so far. The first surprise was a functionality problem. The new system while more robust created a more tedious format for one of our daily (and constantly repeated) functions. The architecture of the new system would not allow a fix no matter how much money we might have thrown at them. We were upset because this was not properly demonstrated during the initial investigative phase. Needless to say this caused some tense conversations. My big boss happened to be in the meeting at the time and was also not amused. But, while unfortunate and most definitely annoying, it was not a deal breaker. It does mean some training issues are involved and some headaches for the end users for the first few months.

The second surprise came from a sub-vendor regarding hardware upgrades and would be a total deal breaker. The software to control the hardware had to be modified and the modifications were just not going to work for us. The sub vendor was a bit miffed and seemed completely at a loss that what they had designed wouldn’t work for us. It’s always funny watching folks who don’t routinely use the software they create get frustrated when the users don’t like it. There are certainly two sides to that coin but at the end of the day the user-base should be happy, or at the very least still be able to do everything they need to do. In this scenario, it just so happens some of SF’s daily operations are unique and created a conflict. Naturally, the fix requires more than just some drop-in code. The interface will have to be almost completely rewritten. From my perspective, I see it as poor programming as the issue deals with API calls and they wrote an interface with no flexibility. It was all or nothing and as-is, it was nothing for us. lol The good news is the vendor wants the contract bad and will bend over backwards to make it work within the budget constraints. Granted some money issues will be discussed but that is way above my pay-grade. I think we’ll end up with a decent fix.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bitching or even unhappy. I’m actually glad I got to be part of the process. Being a bit technology-inclined I had a higher-knowledge base to work from. And while I may not have understood some of the hardware terminology, I was never once lost in the process. Both my coworker and myself pointed out some real issues along the way and the main vendor was very responsive to our needs.

In the end, the project will probably remain on budget but just barely and there will be some serious code re-writes to accommodate what we need. The rewrites are going into the base code which means less headaches anytime a system patch or small upgrade is put out. As for us, there will be some definite training issues and adjustments but overall the upgrade will make life easier for us. The project won’t go live until early 2014 so still plenty of time to hammer out the details.

I was very happy my boss included us because often times a lot of very important decisions get made about software w/o the end-user being consulted. Our input helped avoid some major problems that would have been over-looked otherwise. This of course, saves us a lot of grief being stuck with a product that only partially meets our needs.

References

References
↑1 new as in newer than we have now but still mature as a product

Werk

I might have mentioned awhile back that my Union contract is up for renegotiation at work. It was actually up 2 years ago, but because of budget problems in the recent economic crisis it was rolled over 2 consecutive years.

As a preface, I make a decent wage and am grateful to be employed in such touch economic times.

In the last 3 years, I’ve given up significant chunks of raises and salary. Its going on year 4 since I’ve had a raise of any kind. This year I wasn’t overly optimistic about raises, I just didn’t want lose anything. My finances are stretched to the limit and just can’t take anymore cuts.

One of the biggest worries was our health plan contributions. My out of pocket expense would have gone from $200 to $420 a month had the proposal on the table passed. That dent alone would have caused some serious damage. I found out that proposal is off the table.

The 2nd issue was a flat out pay cut. Considering I’m already underpaid for my job classification, this was also of significant worry. Had the health plan changes and a pay-cut passed, I would have had to move out of San Francisco. I honestly don’t know how people who don’t make as much as I do make it.

Anyway, the two big issues are off the table. There is a dispute over my dept’s lunch hour and a raise that we’ve deferred twice now. Either way, I’m just happy to not have to move out of SF. If I ended up having to move, I wasn’t even sure I would have stayed in California. Thankfully, that is a decision I do not have to make now. I love living here but I have no intention of living in an area where I can’t live decent.

On a side rant, I can’t remember if I mentioned it but I’m still up for a promotion. The first two slots were filled by coworkers on the list above me. There is still a position coming up that will have to be filled. I have no idea when it will come to fruition.

Civil

I’m just home from taking the entrance exam for my promotion. The test was relatively straight-forward.  Sixty multiple choice questions asking basically silly answers. Most were easy to guess even with no knowledge whatsoever. There were only 3 that I wasn’t 100% of the best possible answer. Regardless, I am confident I did well. This was step 1. Step 2 is the oral interview. Step 1 & 2 determines where I rank on the list of candidates. Ranking high is good but not necessarily a guarantee.  The current position is ‘rule of the list’ which means the department can pick and choose from anyone on the list, regardless of where they rank, to fill vacant positions.

There is a dirty rumor circulating that the dept really wants me to promote.  Promotion would effectively eliminate one of their biggest opponents during disciplinary hearings. As the Chief Steward for our local union chapter, I am often called to rep/defend employees up for discipline/suspension. Not to sound arrogant, but I am very good at what I do. A dept with a history of inept management has had to step up their game considerably since I came along. lol If I were to promote, it would mean I’d have to resign my post as it would represent too much of a conflict of interest. I think I could handle the two jobs  objectively but even the appearance of partiality is not good.  It would be better for me to step aside. Frankly, I’m a bit tired of it anyway. I’ve been doing it for almost 7 years now and I’m more than a little burned out. 

While I’m flattered by the rumor, I don’t much stock in it. I think more astutely the department thru our interactions has come to respect and accept my abilities. I think this, more than anything, would be their reasoning for choosing me (if chosen). I am tenacious and thorough but I’m also fair-minded. I am a big believer that the punishment (if any) should fit the offense. Many civil service agencies follow the rule of progressive discipline. I am not a big fan of such a rule because some offenses can be worse than others and the idea that every offense has to be meted with continually severe punishment is retarded. You cannot manage people as a resource the same way you’d manage objects.

I’m still a bit ambivalent on the whole process. I’m committed to seeing it thru, regardless of the outcome though. Worst case, I can demote back to my position within 12 months w/no loss of seniority.

Stay

Well I’m back at work after being on a stay-cation last week. Money is tight and couldn’t really afford to do a whole lot. Regardless, I enjoyed the down time. I’ve been staggering my vacations evenly throughout the year and its really helping. Of course, it didn’t help that I strained my back on Tuesday. I was pretty much confined to the house for a couple days. I laid around and dozed courtesy of modern pharmacology. heehee

Speaking of work, I applied to be a supervisor a couple weeks ago. I figured it was time considering I’m often a go-to resource for others already. On the up side, it would be more money. On the down side, I’d probably lose my weekends off for awhile. All the supervisor shifts are 4-10’s as well. I’m not excited about that but it is what it is. However, there are enough slots turning over I’d probably have at least a partial weekend off within the year. If I get really lucky I could have a full weekend slot in less than 2 years.

I have up to a year to revert back to my current position without losing any seniority. The department starts testing and interviews soon. I’ll let ya know how it goes.

Learn-ed

I took an instructor development class a couple weeks ago as part of my CE [1]continuing education requirements for work. I bring it up because there was a hottie in the class that I totally kept staring out. Totally straight but oh mah gawd was he hawt!

He turned out to have a bit of an ego (naturally). Ever notice how you can pick up someone’s body language and they don’t realize they are doing it? That’s called body leakage. [2]Get your minds out of my gutter He kept giving little signals that he was annoyed during his critic sessions. I know the instructors picked up on it because they always seemed to go overboard with trying to reassure him. hehehe

Anyway, I actually learned some things. I’ve always considered myself a good instructor but I did learn a few things that I think will definitely help. Some of the techniques seem obvious now even though I’d never really thought of’em before. The hands-on was excellent and I thought the critics of me were dead-on. One being I have a habit of speaking really fast. I often reinforce my teaching but speaking fast can often leave someone behind when they are struggling. 

On the other side of the coin, I will say some of the instruction was a bit too PC. It seemed to put instruction ahead of behavior issues. Not sure I agree with that. I can understand the fine balance  between the two and keeping an unruly student involved but at some point no amount of instruction will overcome a student’s negative behavior.

Anyway, it was a nice break from work even though I had to be up at butt-thirty early in the morning for class. By Thursday, my brain had pretty much shut down. Thankfully, it was all mostly hands-on at that.

References

References
↑1 continuing education
↑2 Get your minds out of my gutter

Recovery

The surgery to repair my left collarbone was an overall success. The surgery took an hour and half longer than originally expected though. Apparently, more of the bone was damaged and splintered than they originally believed. This took quite a bit more time. Today is the first day since the accident the pain was at levels I would consider manageable. I’m down to 1 pain pill every 3-4 hours and only 1 in the middle of the night. I fully expect to be off pain meds completely in a couple more days.  *knock on wood* I seem to heal quickly. I’ll post some before and after pics after my next check up with the doctor. I’m gonna try to get digital copies of the x-rays to share. This break was much more severe than the last one and would not have been able to heal w/o surgery. Ironically, I was going slower than the last accident and ended up with a more sever break…

*
In other news, I think I mentioned I was interviewed by the local paper regarding Prop B. [1]It would have doubled my health-care contributions and most likely forced me into the Kaiser network. I’m happy to say the initiative failed, by a wide margin. I was pretty worried as I would have been faced with some difficult choices had it passed.

I didn’t really want to do the article as I didn’t really see myself as the best choice. Even though my classification as a job is severely underpaid in SF, I make a decent living. I’m also lucky to have protections as my job is considered a vital service. But, the Union asked me to do it so I agreed. They wanted someone other than the poorest city employee to show how the initiative would impact all city employees, not just the poorest ones. Everyone I spoke to liked the piece even though I felt it only touched on a lot of what we discussed.

All that said, the online comments for the article were about 90% negative, with some being pretty awful. I’m not upset or even offended as I know people are hurting with many folks still out of work. It was the primary reason I didn’t want to do the article. On the other side of the coin, I was really shocked at some of the real hatred expressed. Many thought I was acting entitled because I thought I should be able to afford to live in the city I work in. Many (by many I’d say most) thought I was being greedy because my gross salary is just over $70k a year.  That sounds wonderful until you look at my take home pay. I actually bring home just under $46k a year. [2]To be fair, I donate about 6% of my total annual income to charity, pre-tax  In a City as expensive and highly taxed as SF, that doesn’t go far at all.  Apple guy and I have even discussed moving out of California once the t-shirt business becomes more successful.

Anyway, with all  the negative feedback, I was really surprised the proposition failed. Not to mention, the accident happened the day after the interview. [3]I interviewed on the 25th, the accident occurred on the 26th, the article published on the 28th You can imagine my apprehension while I was laid up at home wondering if I was going to be able to cover December’s rent.

Anyway, the pain-killer is kicking in and I’m having a hard time seeing the purdy letters on my screen.  More later…

References

References
↑1 It would have doubled my health-care contributions and most likely forced me into the Kaiser network.
↑2 To be fair, I donate about 6% of my total annual income to charity, pre-tax
↑3 I interviewed on the 25th, the accident occurred on the 26th, the article published on the 28th

Props

I rarely weigh in on political shenanigans here in SF but sometimes certain issues really need a proper beating.  The most frightening and potentially catastrophic is proposition B.

Prop B will force city employees to start paying their own retirement and insurance costs in full. Costs for themselves as well as all of their dependents. Forgetting for a moment local unions have already negotiated with the city to restructure retirement payments, it totally misleads people into believing the proposed changes will solve the cities financial problems. Even worse, it bars the city from raising base salaries in any way to compensate for the sudden and significant burden it dumps on the worker’s backs. Oh but it gets better, the person who wrote it works for the city as an attorney. Naturally, he exempted himself and his cronies from the cuts. So he expects us line workers to give up our hard earned benefits while he keeps his. Oh yeah, that sounds really fair.

As a civil service worker, I’m extremely afraid of this initiative passing. If it passes, I will lose roughly $450 a month out of my take home pay. I already give up between 30/40% of my gross salary for taxes/benefits. And I only have one dependent. Imagine what it does to someone who has 2 or 3 kids? Not to mention I’ve already given up almost 15% in cost-of- living increases for the last 3 years and any cost-of-living increases for the next 2 years.

If this initiative passes, I’ll be forced to choose between having insurance for myself and my partner or move out of the City into a cheaper smaller apartment just to make ends meet. I’m lucky in that I make a decent salary for what I do. I shutter at the thought of how all the folks who make much less than I do will be impacted by this initiative.

I’ll be the first to admit the city has fiscal problems. This initiative is being sold to the public as an attempt to fix those problems. The reality is its nothing but a political ploy for power and clout. Besides part of it being possibly illegal, it also would cost the City $100 million in federal funding if it passes. This tiny little detail alone negates any positive impact of the ordinance. Not to mention, the fuzzy math used to sell it is deceiving.

I support budget cuts and initiatives that make sense. But blanket cutting hard-working employees benefits to gain political clout is shameful and extremely damaging for SF. Even worse, this proposition pits the unemployed and non-unionized employees against unionized city employees. It does nothing to solve the real problems we all face. I can only hope that people realize the truth of what this proposition means before its too late.

Work, Work, Work

The irony of my job is most of my stress load comes from my non-work related Union duties. As the Chief Steward for our Chapter, I have become so integrated into the process that several Managers often come to me in advance of employee discipline to avoid mistakes and having to re-do their work. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bragging at all. I’m just tenacious and very methodical when it comes to such things. While I may be technically on one side of the fence, so to speak, I am also very fair-minded and am never deliberately contentious. My work ethic has spilled over onto their side and they trust me. They know I have the employee’s best interest at heart but I’m also not about getting them a free ride. My golden rule is the punishment should fit the incident and the incident should warrant discipline.

Sadly, most of the stress has come from dealing with politics within my own ranks as of late. We recently held Chapter elections and some of the ousted individuals have been deliberately attempting to cause harm. [1]On a side note, I ran uncontested primarily because no one wanted to take on the workload. lol  I hate dealing with such things as I am not a deceitful person by nature. It is not my style to confuse and obfuscate the issues thru double talk and back and forth sides. But, I do believe in standing up for those who are being slighted or libeled regardless of who I alienate.

I absolutely hate dealing with such petty crap. A time when we are fighting to keep our jobs and income, we should be focused on common goals. We should not be fighting amongst ourselves with he said/she said crap.

References

References
↑1 On a side note, I ran uncontested primarily because no one wanted to take on the workload. lol

Hard

I had a very rough call this past week at work and I find I’m having trouble shaking it. I rarely take work personal but there are times when certain calls find their way past my shields and really get under my skin. Most days, work is forgotten the moment I leave the building. Hell, its forgotten before I get my bike started. lol 

Sadly in my line of work, even when everything is done 100% right, people still suffer and I realize that. Without getting overly detailed, a person died while they were talking to me on the phone. I did everything I could possibly do (and then some) to no avail. I don’t have any angst or guilt over my performance. Its just been a long time since I had such a raw nerve-racking call.

Most people assume working in my agency, we handle emergencies non-stop, call after call, day after day. That simply isn’t true. Many calls can be urgent and even stressful, but the ratio of truly emergent calls is very low. And while many of our calls are emergencies in one sense or another, there are emergencies and then there are emergencies. That’s the best way I can explain it. I can handle bloody vehicle accidents, shootings, stabbing, fights, assaults, etc w/o blinking an eye. And while I am not belittling the realness of these calls, after years of repeating’em over and over, it just becomes sort of routine. Granted they are still stressful but you don’t really get excited. You handle it as best you can and move on to the next call.

This last call was just so raw and out of the norm, it got to me. Hearing someone slowly [1]in the scope of a call it seems slow but the reality here is within a few minutes pass away while pleading for help and comfort is hard, to say the least. To know you are helpless to prevent the inevitable is just gut-wrenching. I was obviously upset afterwards and took some time to compose myself and refocus my mind. I was texting Apple guy and he managed to make me laugh, which is exactly what I needed. He knocked me out of my funk enough for me to move on. I finished my shift and went on about my life. For whatever reason, this particular call wasn’t so easy to forget. 

The upside to this is I recognized the hard edge within me hasn’t taken over yet. [2]For you newer readers, I’ve discussed on occasion a very dark cold part of my id that scares the holy shit out of me.  I’ll be honest, if I ever lose myself to the dark parts of my id, I would consider my life (and my struggles) an utter failure. It has been and continues to be on of the single most important guiding principles in my life. Thankfully, I don’t see myself going down that path. So while this particular call really got to me, it has also helped to remind me that I am still the man I strive to be. I can’t save everyone but I can take strength and comfort in knowing I do the best I can every time I can, no matter the scenario.

References

References
↑1 in the scope of a call it seems slow but the reality here is within a few minutes
↑2 For you newer readers, I’ve discussed on occasion a very dark cold part of my id that scares the holy shit out of me.