Y2kk Update: The new year is finally here, and I'm not so sure if I'm happy about that...

2005 was the year where I got my first ever true, professional job. And to be honest, it was really something that I was surprised I ever got in the fucking first place...

Yeah, I suppose I did crawl and claw my way up from the bottom, taking on minimum wage and a fucking worker bee whore fucking me up, before finally managing to secure a placement on the current roster. But for the most part, I don't know how I passed the interview in the first place (knowing the competition I was up against), I don't know how I managed to keep my position knowing what gossip the worker bee bitch was spreading, and I still don't know how or why or whether this will all simply be a temporary position for me or not...

Work has become a place of comfort for me, really. While I've always enjoyed school to some degree, simply because I loved the bragging rights of constantly tittering on the edge of failure, and simply because I could fucking sleep in like dogshit every single morning if I wanted to, I must admit that my self-confidence has certainly been helped by the fact I'm making decent money at a decently hard working job... I can't help but be thankful for my situation, knowing that one of my friends who makes much less money than me is working all the way to midnight most nights for the goddam development job he hates, yet I'm allowed to get every third Friday off of work just by staying in the office for more than half an hour extra each day... which I would've done anyhew to try to finish the goddam work I have...

And there are pretty neat things happening at work to pass the time. I mean, sure I was disappointed that we didn't get out of work a bit sooner for New Year's Eve yesterday, considering I wanted to see a fucking movie and shit like that, but it was still nice to get out of work early in the first place... And the comfort zone of being quite experienced at this job already isn't so bad either. It's basically just a .NET-SQL Database Programmer position and I know my role, I know what I can do, and I can do it all at a reasonably leisurely pace, knowing that I'm the one now who can set the deadlines and timelines for going gold with projects...

I'm not quite my own boss just quite yet though. For two of my projects, I can make all the intermediate deadlines and programming decisions I want, but hard deadlines and shit like that still fall under the domain of the business units. Which is fine by me of course, considering every programmer needs clients, and all clients of mine for those two projects have definitely proven to be kind without all the political bullshit you get elsewhere...

For my main project though, I'm playing second fiddle to a nice guy from another branch. We talk and have become decent friends I think for the most part, but sometimes I find myself a little impatient at the fact that I do have to divert all decisions for the work we do to him...

I don't really mind the fact that everything I do pretty much has to go through him first, considering I'm still new at this job, and considering he has far more experience with the main project than I do. Still, it just kinda irks me at times how in meetings with the business planners, he always uses the word "I" rather than "we"... I can't really blame him though, considering most of the stuff he does talk about is the shit that he programmed mostly or entirely by himself, so he definitely does deserve credit for it. Still, he never once notices that I try my hardest to use the term "we", even for stuff he delegated to me to do?...

Small quibbles, though. He's a good guy, definitely friendly, and he hasn't made me work my ass off just quite yet. He's smart with the programming, and pretty solid when it comes to deciding deadlines. So besides the fact that I'm sort of letting him take the credit for things, I don't really have a problem...

I'm a bit scared at the fact though, that I am a bit perturbed in the first place that he's taking the credit. I've never cared about this shit when it came to school projects and such, so why am I suddenly so nervous now? Do I really care so much for moving up the corporate ladder? I sincerely hope not, considering I've never ever wanted to be a person with a lust or even a remote, real desire for power...

And, well.... Besides all those small office politics, there have been some decent things to tide me over for the new year...

My unit had a Secret Santa sort of thing, and I obviously had no clue what to fucking buy the woman that I drew out of the hat. She was sort of the one who hired me in the first place (well, one of the two, at least), so I wanted to get her something special... I just had no clue what, that's all...

So I did the crafty, wussy, bail-out thing and simply asked one of her friends at work what she wanted. I was told exactly the gift to get, exactly where to get it and exactly how much to fucking pay for it... My only decision left when I finally got to the store was how to fucking wrap the gift, and what fucking colour to get the girl...

... I fucked up on both accounts, naturally...

God, I suck at gift giving...

I had bought a Christmas card (which was a complete rip-off, mind you... should've went to the dollar store) and a gift bag for the present, but I completely fucking forgot to wrap it in a ribbon or gift paper wrapping or something else that would've remotely looked decent. Everyone else there had a nice presentation for their Secret Santa thing, and I definitely felt "dangerous underwrapped"... though at least I got a chuckle from the group for using that exact term, I think...

So the present was basically a yoga shawl, or as I prefer to call it, just a frickin' sheet of fucking fabric... Either way, the woman I presented this gift to was extremely surprised and impressed that I somehow knew that she wanted the shawl so damn bad. Sure, I had gotten her pink colour as a safety net, while she actually wanted the blue (and there were only fucking two colours there on sale... fucking 50/50, true and false chances...), but at least there was still the gift receipt in there for her to exchange... Either way, I was more impressed with how her other friends and colleagues at work were so damn impressed as well, that I of all people somehow managed to know exactly what she was wanting and thinking...

The thing is, when the time came when somebody asked me how I knew what to get this girl, I admitted in a soft way that I had help, but I didn't point out and give the credit to who I had asked for pointers in the first place... I kinda felt bad later, you know? I didn't technically take the credit for the perfect find, but I didn't give the credit to where it should have been duly noted (although it was probably obvious who it was, considering she was the only one amongst amongst that groupee who was not surprised... and I did kinda look over to her, but still...)...

So was this the same thing as my developer colleague is sort of doing to me? He does note at meetings that I'm doing good work, he does tell the managers that I'm hard working and definitely an asset (which I thank him for), but he also does take pretty much all the credit that he can for the project rather than attempt to share the wealth... Isn't that what I did with this whole Secret Santa thing? I chose to bask in the glory of the moment rather than yield the spotlight to someone else, even though she was the one who had all the knowledge and did all the real research, while I simply just bought the thing?...

Well, I tried to make it up later, by giving my inside source some chocolate as a Christmas gift, and by telling a couple others later when they asked about who really was the Secret, Secret Santa...

Either way though, I have guilt. I always have, and always will for these kinds of things...

I just can't take credit for shit that I absolutely know I don't deserve to... I just don't feel right in doing so...

This is why I would just crumble and fall in a real corporate environment. What use is a worker who never takes the credit?...

I still make the same, age old mistake that I made in university countless times, and the same damn mistake I made with that worker bee bitch back during the summer...

I always try to make friends... when that's not really what work or projects are for...

Then again, work shouldn't be for backstabbing and politics either... not in my honest opinion, at least...

But it's nice to know that in my own unit at least? All my colleagues are friendly enough to make me feel something inbetween the two...

The new year is finally here, and I'm still not so sure if I'm happy about that...

Because it all just sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn't it?...

... well, if 2005 wasn't really that damn bad... maybe 2006 won't be either?...

So here's hoping...

... and here's to the sixth bloody hell anniversary of this goddam download website of mine...

Y2kk Update: Seriously, I can still feel the sugar burning holes on the inside of my goddam molars as we speak...

We of the government are sure a lazy ass bunch of motherfuckers. I mean honestly, how many Christmas dinners and parties have we had at work already? Five, six? Seven by now?...

... not that I'm complaining of course...

Last week, I remember having a couple of lunches out with the group. I kinda forget what they were for, although now I'm assuming they were just gatherings with the coworkers that I work closely with at work (who you know, are kinda friends... or still friendly to me at least, even after the whole worker bitch bee incident...)... We also had a whole in-house lunch thing with the branch, where it was fucking potluck and I was too fucking unlucky to ever learn how to fucking cook in the first place. I managed to be the errand boy who bought a bunch of extra shit for the party, and wasted so much money in the process (since I didn't bother to actually go to the grocery stores with decent prices on the day in question)...

This week, I had a few other lunches with my close coworkers at work, although one of them was for a road trip to the road capital of Ontario (the Ministry of Transportation, I mean). The managers also treated the entire unit to a pretty suave and fucking expensive lunch the other day... I was actually invited to two separate manager lunches, considering I now work for two damn units at once. But they both had their meals on the same day, so I chose to honour the group that gave me my bloody hell job in the first place...

The food was great, by the way. Surprisingly enough, considering I fucking normally hate Italian on a daily basis... I definitely did feel out of place though because I was pretty much the only one who didn't drink who also didn't have a goddam good reason why. One had to drive, another had religion... while I was just a wuss. Kinda felt out of place, but whatever...

I won't bother describing how damn awkward I felt during the manager's lunch, considering I was surrounded by older women who were just bitching about how men suck because of their divorces. To be honest though, I kinda welcomed the experience actually, considering that's a world that's so damn foreign to me now, but may just sadly become a reality 30 years down the road when I'm reading this goddam own update of mine again in nostalgic self-pity...

My unit coworkers are a bunch of good people. Well, more than that other unit at least, who tried to make my Chinese techie counterpart on their own side dance and sing like William Hung at their drunken lunch... Now, I admit that I do still feel out of place in my own branch, for reasons that perhaps I'll divulge on my MSN website if I ever shake off this goddam aura of laziness that I now wallow in self pity in...

But for the most part? I do honestly thank these people that I work with, for the opportunities they have given me and the patience that they have shown me. I'm still the fucking rookie and the fucking runt of the litter over there, afterall...

...

Yesterday was the actual Christmas party for the children of the workplace, and I was given the responsibility of entertaining the kids with video games and shit like that. Of course, video games are my geeky goddam obsession, so obviously I had no problem in that aspect of my job (considering I had to "test" my equipment for the past couple days or so...)... The only problem arose from the fact that the goddam organizers of the Christmas event wouldn't give me any fucking money to just rent what I fucking wanted. Sure, it would've been pointless to get an Xbox 360 for the day, considering it has absolutely zero children's games outside of the shitty single-player Kameo, but at least the big kids at the party (aka myself) would have something kickass to do...

Well, I spent a bit of money myself for the kids, mainly because I couldn't get the sound of my own Gamecube to work with the speakers I had provided at work. So I fucking bit the bullet of bad goddam pricing, and fucking wasted $15 of cash on fucking stereo-RCA converters at fucking, goddam Radio Shack (now called The Source by Circuit City here in fucking Canada...)... I swore in my life to never ever buy any goddam, ridiculously overpriced shit at Radio Shack a long time ago. Thankfully, at least my promise is still half-wittingly intact, considering I was able to return all their overinflated, extortion type shit after the party was all said and done...

... nice to know I screwed them over out of a tiny restocking fee, at least...

Now, I suck with kids. I really do... Sure, I'm not like one of those guys who completely doesn't know how to act around kids, of course. I'm not one of those extra manly, man's man type of guys who refuses to talk in a child's language or any sort of crap like that... Problem is, I am one of those types of guys who talks in a child's language and shit like that. And I do it so damn badly, that it's just damn embarrassing to the point where even the kids start wincing away at my offences of efforts...

Of course, when it came to video games, I was decently okay with things, me thinks. I just told them to press the damn green button on the Gamecube controllers I supplied, and just let them be fascinated by the fantastic notion that moving their entire body could somehow move their character on screen (Nintendo Revolution, here we come)... Sad thing is though, some of those kids learned real damn fast. I was getting my ass kicked by a few of them at the end, to the point where one of them even bet $5 on him winning against me, after he had already fucking beaten me at the game (he then proceeded to complain to his mother that I wasn't paying him his winnings... motherfucker...)...

... fucking deals always bite me in the ass...

One thing that I really enjoyed of course, was actually the whole Santa bit with one of my coworkers at work. He was really good at the role, although I didn't get to see much of the whole damn thing (considering how damn short I am compared to even the toddler crowd)... Now, the kids who were playing video games with me (most of them boys, though some of the competitive girls certainly enjoyed kicking my ass in Mario Kart DD) were certainly having fun with each other in front of the projection screen I had supplied. But I really did get nostalgic over my own former self, the moment that Santa Clause arrived on the scene... The eyes on those little five year old children just lit up like Christmas trees as soon as they heard his voice. And yeah, I kinda do wish that I could experience shit like that just once more...

... oh wait... I could if the fucking Maple Leafs would just fucking win the Stanley Cup already...

That was what one of the kids actually wished Santa at work, in a hilarious exchange might I add. I only overheard about it, and half jokingly later claimed that I had given the child the idea in the first place (though now I'm afraid that I'm gonna get my ass kicked, for trying to take the credit for such a brilliant wish...)... Truth be told, the Maple Leafs kid was one of the children who was beating my ass in Mario Kart and Mario Party 5 the whole day. We had talked about hockey when he both showed me his hockey card collection and bragged how it was better than my collective card sum of zero that day... but damn, was he ever clever with that Santa wish thing...

Kids say the darnest things... but damn, Bill Cosby really goddam sucks...

That's when I went over to Santa myself (after the kids were gone), and asked for a three-peat of NBA championships for the goddam Toronto Raptors...

Impossible? Perhaps... but not for my secret Santa...

Rob Babcock, make it fucking happen.

...

All in all, it was a good day. These are the finer things about my working environment that I do definitely enjoy... especially considering I'm such a fucking lazy ass myself, never wanting to do a damn shit worth of work...

Problem is, there have been problems at work for me as of late. Because almost as if by clockwork, as soon as I pretty much took over my supervisor's role, the secondary branch that he was working for (clients who I then took as my own after my promotion) really started to pile on the complaints...

I'm sorry, but I do miss working with my own branch. Over in my own world, everything is so damn comfortable, where we have sugar plums and fucking chocolate shit burning holes into my teeth almost every damn day of the holiday season... But over on the other floor, with my new clients? Sure, I've had a few breakfasts and "high tea" moments with those guys... But besides those few random moments of political correctness? It really is all politics there, not to mention the goddam blame game...

I won't get into details on this website or anything. But short story short, something major went wrong with their business process the other week, and they started a goddam Crucible and a goddam Crusade when it came to discovering who was to goddam blame for the big ass mistake... So obviously, even though I've had nothing to do with their branch when it came to the time when they made this mistake months ago? The software that I was now managing and developing for them still came under a reign of fucking heavy fire...

So yeah, I definitely have been in hot water for quite a while. My fellow techie coworker and I have worked hard to prove to our clients that the software can't be to blame for their current woes, half by proving that our software is working fine just like advertised, and half by pointing the finger at the fact that certain parts of their own business process seem a damn bit whorish... Now, I absolutely hate the fact that I'm essentially playing the blame game too. But it just wasn't fair that these sort of problems get pointed at me the first damn week or two that I start my new goddam job...

... this never happened with my own unit of the branch... even if I am still the runt of the litter, afterall...

It shows something too, that my new clients didn't even bother to wish me a Merry Christmas at the party or whatever. Perhaps they felt snubbed that I didn't choose their managerial lunch over my own unit's, I don't know... But it definitely is a different working environment where I now have to work. And it's all just kinda reminding me of just why I'm such a lazy son of a bitch afterall...

Because God, do I ever have a goddam sweet tooth...

... hell, I think I even enjoy the goddam sugar burning holes on the insides of my molars as we speak...

'Tis the Christmas season afterall. And to all, a good night...

Y2kk Update: I just spent $100 on gifts and lunches for other people in the past two days alone, and I ain't exactly happy about that...

Hell, even when I treated my father to his 60th birthday banquet the other month, my share of the pot wasn't worth that damn much...

Anyhew, I treated my supervisor at work to a lunch yesterday, as sort of a thank you for all that he's done for me. And yes, he's done a hell of a lot, as he'll go down as one of the few people in my life that I really do feel I owe a heck of a lot to...

This was sort of his swan song. He'll be gone in two weeks, off for his new job of being a senior project architect or manager or whatever for some huge ass database project. So where does that leave me?...

Well, there's a reason why I treated my parents and my grandparents out to a lavish lunch this morning... if you can count dirt cheap dim sum, in a dirty ol' Chinese restaurant as anything "lavish", that is...

... because, the thing is?...

I got promoted at work.

Didn't really think it would happen... I mean, I knew they would keep me around. But I didn't think they'd actually give me the position...

Now no, it's not like I've exactly taken over my supervisor's vacant position, it's not like I've been made a full time employee or anything, and it's not like I'll be making the 60 grand or whatever that he got to enjoy in his role...

The reason being, my branch has a cap on how many full time employees that they can have at work. And the thing is, there's this little .NET program out there on the intranet, that calculates on a private web service how many full time employees that each branch is allowed to hire each year... and of course, for my branch, the program reads zero...

Damn the programmer who made that program! Damn him to fucking hell...

... oh wait... that was me... shit...

Can't see shit, captain...

Can I at least fudge the number up or some shit like that?... fuck...

Well of course, before I came to work at my branch, they had custom Excel and Access programs that calculated the same stuff that my shit now does. I just made it into a web service accessible to the big wigs throughout the entire branch with a click of a button, that's all... so it's not like my numbers don't go unchecked before they go public to the bosses 24/7... dammit...

The thing is, because of this full time employee limit rule, my boss at work initially only offered me a one month contract extension. They couldn't get around this FTE issue, but needed to keep me onboard to try to make the next deadline for the huge ass project that my supervisor was leaving behind... Even though it would take months to make that deadline thanks to all the training I'd need, they only promised me one more month at my current crap wage. I mean, they didn't even offer me any incentives, like any goddam benefits or bonuses or whatever...

But what else could I do? I offered to take the extension at my current hourly wage, and was ready to sign the contract extension in blood the very next day...

The following morning though, my boss didn't come to me with the old contract... I got a smile and some fucking decent news for once instead...

Turns out, they came up with a plan. I will be given a new contract that extends all the way to the middle of March, and ends right before the fiscal year ends. Because I'm both on contract before the deadline, and unemployed by the time of the deadline, I won't show up as a full time employee or whatever sort of crap on that shitty ass program of mine... After March hits, my branch may get a new limit of full time employees they can hire. And they offered to me that either I get a better contract by that point, or I get to be a full time employee...

... so all I have to be is patient... I can live with that, I suppose...

And to keep me happy and quaint until March hits, though? They gave me a raise...

... they gave me a fucking raise...

... and a fucking promotion...

Now, it's still a far cry from the 60K my supervisor is probably getting now, or the 70-80K he'll probably be getting at his new senior position...

... but shit, considering I was making 39K a day ago, and fucking minimum wage as a student in the summer?...

... fuck... suddenly, even without benefits?... my new 48K a year ain't looking so damn bad...

It's what I wanted, right? 48K is the minimum in any branch for an IT job position... Sure, it's still only an entry level commission. But hot damn, at least I get the honour and pride of actually moving up in the working world for once, for the first time really. And it sure does feel sweet while it's fresh and hot off the goddam presses... not to mention the goddam pressure...

I get to sign my new contract on Monday. I'm still disappointed that I won't get any vacation time off without pay, but at least there's some clause in there that may let me take some extra time off during Christmas week with minimal losses in income or whatever... I'll make sure to ask those questions when the new contract comes rolling in two days from now...

Until then? Yeah, I spent over a hundred bucks on food and gifts in the past two days. But at least I'm getting an extra eight thousand bucks a year now at least... I can only hope they move me up in March, to the 50-52K that entry level developers make as full time employees. And at least, this whole FTE thing may have worked to my advantage, as a shorter contract gives me far more flexibility than the one year albatross of a vacation-less deal that I was scared I would be shoe-horned into signing my soul onto...

Yeah, one hundred bucks down the drain... I ain't so happy about that...

... but I got promoted...

Five months into my first ever job, and I got promoted...

... that calls for a celebration...

So let's just see how much more cash I waste and whine about this coming week, now shall we?...