So, as a new section to Bob’s Room, I figured I would add some stories about my past. Just little things that come to mind now and then and I feel like putting them out online. So, I have this new topic and will post the odd little story here and there.
For today’s post, I’m kind of in the mood to share a little story about a job I had shortly after getting out of college, and how it sucked hard, and I am glad I moved on. If interested, read on.
In 1998, I graduated from EBCI from their Network Engineering program at the top of the class. Although I did well, my on the job training did not lead to a job so I had to find something else. I did. In fact, I had my interview and got hired so that I would start immediately after my OJT had ended. I thought all was good.
Now because I currently work for a company which sends students to this place, I will not mention them by name. But here’s my little story about working there.
When I was hired, as I recall, I was basically told that I was going to be a sort of tech/Y2K guy. Y2K was a huge thing at that time and this company had a LOT of locations that needed work done. I was however given the impression that I would be doing technical work. Like working on computers, and troubleshooting problems, along with the Y2K thing. This turned out to be far from the truth.
I spent almost all of my time doing Y2K behind a desk surfing the internet trying to find out Y2K information about software. When I wasn’t doing this, I was going from site to site, testing machines to see if they were Y2K ready. If they weren’t, I recorded it. Among other things, I was also given the fun task of doing system inventory on several sites. This consisted of recording every piece of info about the computers, and putting a fancy little sticker on them to trace the information. As you can imagine, that was a lot of fun.
But it got worse. I was not really allowed to troubleshoot issues. I was told to go to several sites and run an image zip disk to install software but nothing more. No troubleshooting or anything. It sucked.
Within the first few weeks, I became insanely frustrated. This was not what I was led to believe but I had to be there. At the time, I needed the money badly and the pay was way better than working at Greco. But unfortunately, my head was in the clouds, and my boss was an ass, so the job did not end well.
I had been spoken to about my attitude and I tried to curb it. Back then, admittedly, my attitude sucked about that job. I hated being there and did not want to be there and the attitude came out big time. But, I did do my job and did do as I was told. Which lead me to the final things I did just before I left.
Because it was Y2K time, we had to do something for other staff members so that they could check to see if their systems were Y2K ready. This had to be done since there was just too many computers and systems that it made more sense to the managers to try and get regular, normal users, to check for us. I was asked to make some documentation, with screen shots, to show how to identify certain things about the machines. I had thought about it, and figured there was a very easy way I could simplify it. I could write a small program that would detect the version of Windows or DOS, and install the appropriate patch for the user, instead of trying to make them do it themselves. I presented this solution to my boss who said no, immediately. He claimed that the right kind of documentation would be WAY better than any program. Although I thought he was an ass, I was new to the field, so I did as I was told.
I worked damn hard on making the documentation requested of me. I took screen shots and laid everything out just so that it was very clear and easy to understand. When I was done, I had a pile of time left, so to keep myself busy, I wrote the program I had mentioned to my boss, anyway. I tested it on a pile of different machines and it worked flawlessly. I submitted my documentation and then waited for my next assignment, which would never come.
I was asked on a Friday in early January 1999 to go down to the head office. I didn’t think much of it since it was common to get a new task this way. I was brought into a board room and basically told, I was fired. They made claims in the board room which were completely and totally unfounded and I responded with my own thoughts and feelings. First up, they told me I had been hacking into their systems. This was a plain lie. I had never even tried to hack into anything. They claimed I had questionable software on my machine. Yup. That was true. I did have a copy of Back Orifice on my machine as I had been experimenting with it on my own time during breaks and slow times. Never installing it on anyone’s machine but it was there. But this was minor.
What really pissed me off was they tried to claim that I had gone out to the web and plagerized someone else’s documents and claimed them as my own when I submitted them to my boss. This was complete and total bullshit. I worked damn hard on it and I was mad as hell.
I told them that although my attitude had not been the best, I had tried to do as I was told and apparently that wasn’t good enough. I denied what they accused me of saying I had no idea where they got the idea I was hacking or stealing. I also told them that I was mislead into what the job was about. I was then just surprised to hear what had happened, and sat down. They basically said get out. It’s over. I grabbed my stuff, went back to the other site I had been working at, formatted my machine and hence wiping out anything I had worked on since I was pissed, and handed my program diskette to the lead tech, telling him it works great and to not bother with the documentation.
3 weeks later, I got offered a job to go work for IBM in New York. Things happen for a reason.
Since then, I have spoken to others who have worked either in the location I did, or other locations, and have agreed with me in stating that it is the single worst place in the world to work. Just awful. I am glad to have that place way behind me.
One thing I do kind of wish is if I could have met with my former boss shortly after having left there, and been able to tell him that I left there to go work for IBM and let him know how I have been since then. Would feel kind of good. Interestingly enough, he’s still there, doing the same job. Wonder if he would remember me now? 😉
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