“What was I thinking?” still races through my mind over this day when I turned in my two weeks at Dynamic Graphics. Austin was at best a “maybe” and there was no Plan B. Collecting unemployment was out of the question (I think it’s delayed by a month when you quit). I had entertained doing temp work around Bloomington-Normal yet it would mean remaining in Central IL.
So what led up this dumb, impulsive stunt? Part of it was impatience in waiting for the green (or red) light from Doc on Austin. Another part would be the bleakness of the recent holiday break. However, neither were strong enough to tip the balance because I didn’t have enough money saved up for the Milwaukee option.
Instead it was an idiotic job-definition task pointing out the futility of what I was doing from every angle.
My gig at DG was actually pretty cushy at first; technical support for clip art. Comical when you say it aloud. People calling for this are likely to be the same types who believe a one-dollar air freshener caused their car’s engine to break. A relatively easy job which grew unbearable quickly through a caustic, petty, territorial-pissing co-worker named Celli (pronounced CHEH-lee, like Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios). Had I known what she was like during the job interview, I might have passed and kept looking. Wouldn’t have mattered, I needed the job then and she was still on medical leave for a near-fatal car accident proving to some of us that Celli was part cockroach in her tenacity to annoy us. I recall she didn’t waste any time bullying me when she returned to work. Having a manager who only hired her just to get back at the IT director was no help. The day I proved to CJ (the boss) how Celli was lying about some software QA, he ignored me. Only the IT department (which originally demanded her firing) and a scattered few around DG knew of this person’s duplicity. The rest of the company tended to give her a pass because of the near-death experience and her gender. (Incompetent people come from all walks of life and if Celli were a dude, I’d still be as critical since I had a problem with the person, not the woman. So if you still want to send me a nasty comment, go ahead.)
Meanwhile, DG was also a company slowly spiraling down the toilet. I felt they had missed the opportunity to take advantage of distributing their clip art through electronic means and my suggestion of investing into a small BBS setup (to post corrections and samples for the modem-savvy customers) was poo poo’d. To be fair though, I got the BBS idea from Steve Jackson Games which listed how to access theirs in every GURPS publication. The BBS could’ve given DG a leg up on the upcoming Internet gold rush which got going a couple years later.
Technology issues aside, money was a common gripe I’d hear from other co-workers. Long before I joined DG, the founder/owner died of cancer. While he was alive, he chose to leave the company to the employees because he didn’t want it devoured, gutted and tossed aside by a larger publishing outfit. Sounds great on paper but it’s a scam. What’s worse? Being nickeled and dimed by one greedy owner or a dozen? It yields the same result in my experience. The only difference is the employee ownership model being saddled with a very public, obvious amount of debt generated from its “acquisition.” Whenever raises or expensive equipment are requested, the con artists in charge always feel obligated to remind you of it in their “sincere” rejection. Never mind their inability to pay it off through cost cutting and layoffs. Why should they anyway, it’s a great blanket of bullcrap to reuse. I should’ve known better after working for Journal Communications, watching all those reporters get the shaft at the Milwaukee Sentinel. Contrary to my complaint, DG remains in business, I checked their site while writing; I may be dead wrong. The Chicago Tribune‘s victims would agree with me though.
So several days into the new year, this consultant at DG asked everyone in our department to review our job descriptions. If we felt they needed to be updated, then we had permission rewrite them. Mine “required” a college degree with a couple years of experience. After a few months of doing it, I begged to differ. I also didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or both. Hastily, I corrected it to needing a high school diploma with at least a year of related experience (what I do at Apple doesn’t require higher education neither but it isn’t a liability like DG). I turned it in alongside my two-weeks notice stating I was overqualified upon further review.
Good thing I’ve had a charmed life. The following two weeks were a blend of relief, anxiety and anticipation until Doc’s call. It could’ve ended in disaster with the economy remaining weak. Until then, my personal mantra came from Tears for Fears’ “Goodnight Song,” namely the second verse:
Get some honesty
Take the best of me and then the rest let go
In every situation with its tireless rage
Step outside your cage and let the real fool show
I should have stayed round to break the ice
I thought about it once or twice
But nothing ever changes unless there’s some pain