Craziness at the workplace

So many thoughts go through my head during the day, some of them very pithy and deep, yet when I finally get home to write them down, I can't recall a thing. I know, I know. It's the first sign of age, forgetfulness. What was I writing about again?

In all seriousness, I suspect the spate of thoughts going through my head is simply evacuated by the doldrums of what I do during work. Some detail at work causes a "major" emergency (In other words, someone screwed up and the brown stuff hit the fan) and suddenly, everyone forgets that they have other more important things to do. It's especially amusing at my workplace, since the management/worker disconnect is extremely obvious and huge.

Management assumes (quite wrongly) that the process they've detailed is being followed to the letter. We won't go into the fact that if the workers actually followed those processes to the letter, output would slow down to a crawl. Workers, being pressured by management to produce units quickly, cut corners where they can to meet those demands. Occasionally, the corner is cut too deeply and we have abysmal yield rates and outright failure of an entire run of units.

Management analyzes what they think is wrong, not what their workers tell them is wrong, and issue process changes that may improve or worsen matters. The amazing amount of arrogance thirty years of experience engenders towards new guys like me is disheartening. Even though I may know what the problem is, I can't be trusted to actually know what I am talking about. So, I spend my time doing useless menial tasks that my nearly completed engineering degree over-qualifies me for. And the yield rates continue to stay low.

Since I can't recall what I really wanted to say today, and I've spent much of this post griping about my boss and his collegues, I will share some updated news about my life. I've decided to rise above my company's mismanaged woes and accepted a full time position at another company. Amongst the items I will receive are a few things that matter to me.

• I will no longer have to deal with the yahoos in management at my old company
• I get a significant pay raise (in the order of 40% increase on my current pay)
• I get a new title: Associate Engineer
• I will get tuition reimbursement on a pro-rated basis (depends on what grades I get)
  

To be honest, the last item was what really swayed me. As I have mentioned before, the inability to afford my tuition has kept me up more nights than I care to recall. In fact, I am still paying off last semester's tuition. This will go a long way in easing that burden. When I add what I expect to get in tuition reimbursement, the pay increase is something over 60%. Yeah, I am smiling at how my life has turned around. My perseverance has paid dividends.

I gave my old company my two weeks on Wednesday. When things go wrong at my company, I just remind myself how much longer I must suffer under the craziness around me and that brings me back into perspective.