Lil disapointed with the moderation of this comment

Journal t0qer's Journal: Lil disapointed with the moderation of this comment 2

Journal by t0qer on Wednesday August 07, 2002 @04:01PM

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=37505&cid=4023060

The story was about office toys (nerf guns, ect) Seeing as how i've been attacked by these projectiles while working at metricom, I thought i'd share this little page in my life..

Well, I had ppl tell me "Oh poor baby" or "You must have been the kid that cried when playin dodgeball" To them I say this, Fuck you!

Metricom was one of those idiot jobs I poured my heart and soul into (I was 19-20?) Quite a bit older and wiser now, I no longer let myself become attatched to any job. Fuck em, if they want loyal devout followers they should start a fucking church.

I used to work 60+hours a week there, the customer was #1 in my book. I jumped at ever bit of overtime I could just to show them I was a "company man"

Somehow I just didn't fit in with this rich brat crowd from Los Gatos, didn't matter how much I worked my ass off, if I wasn't a part of the "in" crowd I wasn't going to make it anywhere in that company, and I didn't.

To my defense, my termination was a big deal for the lvl 1 techs and even one of the lvl 2 techs. Everyone knew I was targetted because I was such a hard worker. Keith Donahue quit the day after I was fired. This level 2 tech was a guy that worked at IBM on OS/2.

I remember one day, Rick Ried came to fuck with me..

"Toq, you got a minute? Let's go outside and talk!"

"Sure!"

So i followed him outside to the great big oak tree with the benches around it.

"You know toq, you need to pick it up a bit"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, frankly it's the way you dress, it's unprofessional"

I looked us both over real quick.

Me Rick
White T White T
Black Dockers 501's
Dr Martins Redwing boots

Seeing as how we were pretty much dressed the same I asked him to point out the differences in our styles.

"Well, it's not so much what you're wearing, it's how you wear it" he said

"What do you mean? Both our shirts are tucked in, you're wearing boots, i'm wearing boots, I'm sorry I just don't see a difference!"

"Well, that's the problem, you just don't get it"

Now at this point, I should have realized he was trying to say "We can't fire you because we don't like you, but if you quit then we won't look like bad guys"

Instead I took everything as literal statements.

"Rick, tell you what. I know both of us aren't working this saturday why don't we get together, go to the mall, and do some damage to my credit so we can get me a more 'metricom' wardrobe?"

"No that's not the solution, now would you just listen to me? I like you, and I want to help you."

I went around for maybe another 20 minutes with him about this. I just didn't see WTF he was talking about. Here I was, doing everything I though was right, workin my ass off, getting thank you letters from customers, helping the other lvl 1 techs get up to speed, and this asshole was complaining about the way I dressed!

Well, as soon as I walked back in and sat down, my hero, my techie father figure Keith Donahue walks up.

"Got a second toq?"

"Sure anytime keith!"

So I logged out of the phone system and followed keith around the corner.

"What was Rick talking to you about outside?"

"He was telling me I didn't dress good enough for the company"

"WHAT?!? That's Illeagle! That's discrimination!" He went on to explain that had I been indian (or some other middle eastern person, can't recall) part of my religion means I dress in funny clothes and only shower once a week.

I love you Keith if you're reading this :) I never tried to keep in touch, wish we had :)

Well, keith told me don't put up with it. Like a dummy though, I thought maybe if I did pick it up a bit maybe they would leave me alone long enough to do my job.

A few weeks later, I went out and bought that new wardrobe. One of our lvl 1 techs (tom van leer?) cut hair, so I went to his house in the evening and got a hair cut. Tom, that had to be the best hair cut this head of hair ever had!

I came into the office the next day, new clothes, new hair, and ready to fit in. I figured it was time to put the past behind me, forgive those that tresspassed upon me, and start fresh.

Well, I got called into HR. I was thinking maybe that transfer to IT went through and I was going to finally transcend from this hell of phone que's and vantive trouble tickets.

I sat down, Mike Newton and the HR lady was there. Mike in a very quick and straight voice told me I was fired and before I had a chance to rebut it, he ran out of the room and left the HR lady to deal with me. Since then i've heard many bad things about that man.

Tears started welling in my eyes, I started to cry. It just wasn't fair that I went through all this trouble to "fit in" and now i'm getting fired. I had poured my heart and soul into this company. I thought this would be the place I would work at for the rest of my life. I was getting married in 3 months!

Walking back to my cube to collect my things the other lvl 1 techs just read my face. I didn't have to tell them. They all got up, formed a circle around me and gave me a big group hug. I looked out from the storage room to see Jaq and Rick with very satisfied looks on their faces. Keith dropped the call he was on and came in to find out what was happening.

"Did you just get fired?"

I nodded my head.

I saw his blood kind of boil, then he ran off to go chew some ppl out. God I love that man.

Well the next day some of my co-workers and I got together for some taco bell, it was chris, ty, and another guy I only remember as tupac. They told me Keith had given the company his walking papers and went back to IBM the very next day.

I never knew if he quit because of me, or if it was the culture there at metricom. Probably was a little of both.

With more experience now, I know how to pick up on these types of butt buddy corporate cultures. This is what really killed the ricochet modem and metricom. Most people had their jobs there because they kissed someone's ass, or because they were attractive. Throw work ethic, qualifications and experience right out the window just so you can have some buff guy or tight ass sitting in that cubicle next to you.

Eventually all but 1 lvl 1 tech made it out of los gatos and made it all the way to head tech support. The rest either quit out of disgust for the job, or was fired because they didn't have that right look for the job. Since when does looks count in phone support?

So what was my point in telling all this? Well, to me when you have 14 people trying to work their asses off, and another 4 goofing off because they have that "Right Look" I think that should send up a red flag to management. Like I said, it was a damn near daily event for those slouches to come in and fire nerf at our plantronics. Everytime they got hit there would be a break in the sound, then your ear would ring afterwards. Makes it pretty hard to do your job under those conditions.

Well, maybe some ex shareholder is out there reading this saying to themselves "Oh you mean my investment was used to hire tight asses instead of hiring and retaining qualified people?" Yeah shareholder, basically your money was spent on hot pieces of ass, sorry man.

I eventually threw out the "metricom'isq" wardrobe I bought. Boat shoes and silk shirts
till next rant, this is Senior Toq signing off.

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