Ditching The Beard
December arrived and I knew everybody was looking forward to taking time off over the holidays to spend time with their families. Unfortunately at that time we were really busy. The Beard wanted some people to come in over the holiday shutdown to keep things moving. During our 12:30pm Thursday meeting one week my suspicions were confirmed, but instead of The Beard going around and asking if anyone could come in he wanted me to go around the area making a list of everyone's planned time off. I didn't feel like this was my job, but I didn’t feel like fighting so I did it anyway and brought the list back to The Beard.
The Beard picks up the list I compiled and again gives me that stupid laugh of his and says, "This ain't gonna happen. You are going to have to go back and tell these people they can't all take the same days off."
Sigh. He wanted me to be the bad guy. So I say, "Beard I don’t think that is my responsibility and besides if I tell them which days they can and can not take off I do not think they are going to be too happy about it."
I must have struck a nerve with The Beard because his face turned bright red and he snaps back, "YOU BETTER WORRY ABOUT MAKING ME HAPPY I’M YOUR BOSS!"
I replied, "I am still not going to do it."
The Beard stormed off.
That's the last straw, I thought. I have to get out of here. This knucklehead is on a power trip. He may be my immediate supervisor, but I do not work FOR him I work for Bill and Dave. I decided that when and if I get out of here I am going to have to exact some kind of revenge on this bearded bastard. Nothing direct like name calling or something juvenile like that, what I want to do is make him look foolish somehow. Preferably around a large group of people. That way everyone can see what a waste 'ole belly boy bearded fool really is.
After the holiday shutdown I planned my prison break so to speak. I had been working closely with another production group because they make some accessories for our instruments and I was told by one of their engineers that their lead tech was retiring soon. I asked "So are you looking to replace him from inside their production area or from the outside?" I was told from the outside. Apparently their engineering group was not too thrilled with the other techs in the area. So I just casually let it be known that I was looking for a new job, I was then rushed away to the hiring manager's cube and the engineer informed them that I should be hired into this lead role with them. Wow. I didn't expect that. I must have impressed someone, but this would be a difficult task because it would be a lateral move and The Beard is not going to to go for that.
"No problem" said the manager. "We will re-scope the job to one level higher." That meant a promotion, not a lateral move. Now I had some ammo over The Beard, bwahahahahaha! Instead of just taking the job I told them to let me think about it. So instead of going to The Beard I went to see a friend of mine who used to be a tech with me, but is now a supervisor in the NPI (New Product Introduction) group and tell him about the offer. He tells me "Sit tight. Don't act on that just yet. I'll get back to you in a couple of days." I wondered what he was up to, I hope I didn't blow this opportunity. A couple of days go by and my friend the NPI supervisor gets back to me and says "You now work for me up in the lab on new product development." WOW! I am stunned. Now not only do I get away from The Beard, but I get to take a nice step forward in my career. One other thing good about this situation is that the NPI products I will be working on will get introduced into the The Beard's product area, so I can now stay close enough to him to exact some revenge and he cannot touch me.
The Beard picks up the list I compiled and again gives me that stupid laugh of his and says, "This ain't gonna happen. You are going to have to go back and tell these people they can't all take the same days off."
Sigh. He wanted me to be the bad guy. So I say, "Beard I don’t think that is my responsibility and besides if I tell them which days they can and can not take off I do not think they are going to be too happy about it."
I must have struck a nerve with The Beard because his face turned bright red and he snaps back, "YOU BETTER WORRY ABOUT MAKING ME HAPPY I’M YOUR BOSS!"
I replied, "I am still not going to do it."
The Beard stormed off.
That's the last straw, I thought. I have to get out of here. This knucklehead is on a power trip. He may be my immediate supervisor, but I do not work FOR him I work for Bill and Dave. I decided that when and if I get out of here I am going to have to exact some kind of revenge on this bearded bastard. Nothing direct like name calling or something juvenile like that, what I want to do is make him look foolish somehow. Preferably around a large group of people. That way everyone can see what a waste 'ole belly boy bearded fool really is.
After the holiday shutdown I planned my prison break so to speak. I had been working closely with another production group because they make some accessories for our instruments and I was told by one of their engineers that their lead tech was retiring soon. I asked "So are you looking to replace him from inside their production area or from the outside?" I was told from the outside. Apparently their engineering group was not too thrilled with the other techs in the area. So I just casually let it be known that I was looking for a new job, I was then rushed away to the hiring manager's cube and the engineer informed them that I should be hired into this lead role with them. Wow. I didn't expect that. I must have impressed someone, but this would be a difficult task because it would be a lateral move and The Beard is not going to to go for that.
"No problem" said the manager. "We will re-scope the job to one level higher." That meant a promotion, not a lateral move. Now I had some ammo over The Beard, bwahahahahaha! Instead of just taking the job I told them to let me think about it. So instead of going to The Beard I went to see a friend of mine who used to be a tech with me, but is now a supervisor in the NPI (New Product Introduction) group and tell him about the offer. He tells me "Sit tight. Don't act on that just yet. I'll get back to you in a couple of days." I wondered what he was up to, I hope I didn't blow this opportunity. A couple of days go by and my friend the NPI supervisor gets back to me and says "You now work for me up in the lab on new product development." WOW! I am stunned. Now not only do I get away from The Beard, but I get to take a nice step forward in my career. One other thing good about this situation is that the NPI products I will be working on will get introduced into the The Beard's product area, so I can now stay close enough to him to exact some revenge and he cannot touch me.
posted by factory_peasant at 8:49 AM
5 Comments:
I must admit, Working for The Bearded one was one of the most trying times of my carrer at Bill and Dave's company.
Shortly after he assumed his role on our product line, I made another attempt at breaking the ice with my off wall humor to gage his reaction. Afterall, his reputation prior to his arrival was dispicable and I thought a little goofiness might put aside any fears I had about my future while under his dictatorship.
My assumptions about any ice breaking were wrong. I should have learned after my first attempt to give up and and steer clear of him.
My first failed attempt happened a few days after he moved into his cubicle. Provoked by my wacky humor, I walked over to his desk while chewing gum. I made sure to smack my chops so he would take notice. With a John Wayne tone I said "Beard...how in the hell are you?" simultanously pretending to take the wad of gum out of my yap and striking the underside of his desk. The immediate silence was deafening after the thud sound of my fingers. He stared at me and suddenly an awkward silence commenced. Realizing that my little stunt went terribly wrong, I opened my mouth and pointed to the chewed up gum saying.."just kidding, still there!" He continued to stare at me and then looked away. That stunt proved to me that his suspected reputation was undeniably true.
The second attempt came a week later...I was working in the pretest area checking our products for peripheral functionality. One test in particular called for interaction with a printer which was set atop a tall test cabinent. I noted the printer was out of paper so I grabbed a chair, stood up and began to feed the printer with fresh sheets of paper. Soon as I stood up on the chair, I felt Beard's hot breath hit he back of my neck (in a condescending, fatherly tone) "Boy, I can understand using a chair as a ladder when your supervisor is not in the area but to use it in front of him..." Without hesitation and without looking back at him, In a blissfully ignorant tone I replied " Oh, Hi Beard...next time I'll make sure your not around". Again with the awkward silence. I immediately jumped off and continued my work.
From that day forward, The tone of our mutual professional existence had been set.
Shoelaces- i remember you telling me some of those stories. i think one of the worst was how The Beard delibrately sabotaged your ranking and employee reviews so you never got a merit increase in your pay. really shows the true colors of that shitbreather.
hey by the way if you have a moment step on over to Fiat Lux's blog, it's Ergo Party in my links section here. she just posted a flyer from her company's management. click on it. look familiar? since you're the king of rewriting and parodying retarded management buy-in fliers i thought maybe you could help her out. i was gonna try the other night but i stopped halfway through it because i can't do as good a job as you can...
No prob FP,
I'll give it a shot. Life must be good FP! I'll have to give you a buzz soon.
yeah please do. call up. i'll buy you and ed elesquire w. a few beers since i'm temporarily rich.
life is pretty good these days. every morning i wake up and take a 45 minute walk around a lake. i think about all you poor bastards slavin' away in front of your tech benches and i laff my ass off.
heh.
sorry.
Shoelaces and ESD sign in...
The beard was big on everyone checking there esd straps and signing in, everyone except himself. One day shoelaces a little annoyed about the beard constantly ragging on us about signing in as soon as we walk in the building decides to call the beard out(kind of). As usual the beard is strolling around the production area without straps and without signing in, so shoelaces tells "germie g the orignal short bus playa" to go tell beard he forgot to sign in. So germie does except the way he says it is "hey beard shoelaces says you forgot to sign in" well we can all hear this and all of our heads drop. Beard comes out from his pubicle to tell shoelaces "huh huh no brownie points for you they all go to germie cuz he had the guts to tell me". Now germie is a great guy cool cat but we never let him forget this one. "him and the beard are tight germie gettin all da brownie points."
Post a Comment
<< Home