Aaaand the plot thickens…
Seems I’ve become sort of a bad guy around town at the customer site the past few weeks. The ball got rolling here, after inept security personnel basically shot me in the foot, despite my strict compliance with their onerous forms of security protocol stupidity. To make a long story even longer, the big boss eventually chimed in, and with the stroke of a keyboard – voila! I’m back – Eight days later.
When will we ever learn that pieces of paper coupled with inexperienced, young worker bees does NOT a very useful system make? So Team-1 kid sends paperwork again (second time, remember the count), incorrectly, or so Team-2 claims, and an hour’s-long runaround for me ensued. Now I don’t mind doing whatever it takes to get the job done, never have, never will, but I’m starting to feel like they are teaming up against me doing this on purpose. So I get the 1-day temp badge after the paperwork creator Team-1 kid disappears early for the day. Seems the coding for certain portions of the system has recently changed and it was submitted in the old format. No biggie, Team-2’s boss assures me it will all be taken care of before I return after another week. I’ll try again next go- ’round…
Fast forward to next trip to the site and guess what? 3rd version of the paperwork still no worky – something about expired signatures. So I’m cool with all this, knowing better than most how these things go, being retired AF myself. But it seems my sheer number of appearances at the VCC coupled with their annoyance at this activity has apparently gotten up the chain. More on that later. Another 1-day badge, work till almost midnight, deposit said T-badge in the receptacle by the door, forgetting to take it to the window and exchange it for my I.D. Boy was that a big mistake. But in fact, it was the the first mistake I actually EVER committed of my own accord in this debacle. At the outset, I correctly recognized the initial PIN problem from 3 weeks ago before anything went wrong, but was DIRECTED by (as I mentioned earlier), inept security personnel to go ahead and fail it anyway. Sheesh.
At this point it has become a matter of principle, to me. Something is fundamentally wrong, I’m just not sure exactly what yet. Appearing at the ECP with yet another 1-day badge from the VCC, I politely ask for return of my I.D. from yesterday. This situation comes about because you get a badge at the ECP if you arrive at the site after the VCC closes. They have a different way of doing things which involves trading an I.D. for the badge they give you. But the T-badge they gave me yesterday is in the return receptacle to which they do not have the key. If I wait around while they call somebody to come open it, I can get my I.D. back. I elect to continue in to work and stop back around lunch time. Great. Everybody is still happy today, or so I thought.
Around the middle of the morning, me and my lead get to talking about things. I am informed that my behavior with the security forces is not appreciated and I might be banned from the facility. Evidently attempting to fix their mistakes is seriously frowned upon. To which I reply, OK by me – I have enough vacation to make it to the end of August at which time I expect to be laid off anyway. Never coming here again would be a welcome respite from this bullshit, which I would certainly accept unequivocally. Whatever. Now for the good part…
The lead elects to accompany me on the next expedition to sort out “my” problem(s). The frustrated bad guy (me) needs help to stay out of trouble. Back at the ECP, the badge box remains locked. It is suggested the guys at the VCC can help with this. Off to the VCC and Team-2, once again. There I finally obtain a more proper extended T-badge, but we are informed, no, they really do have the keys down at the ECP. Back at the ECP, it is believed a patrolman (we’ll call them and the ECP folks Team-3) has keys. Great. Wait some more. SSgt Team-3 patrolman finally shows up, sorry that he only has keys for 2 of the 4 boxes and mine’s in the wrong one. Really? Now By this point I suspect even a relatively normal, rational person might be inclined to go postal. But they have guns, so, maybe later. A call to the VCC, and after about 15 minutes a very annoyed-looking Team-2 member shows up, recovers my T-badge from the night before and the I.D. is soon safely back in my wallet where it belongs. You’d think it was starting to look like a happy ending at this point, right? Don’t be silly.
I now have what is supposed to be a correct, extended 30-day T-badge. But it does not open any doors. SRR informs us it is a Team-2/VCC issue. Back to the VCC, and unsurprisingly, their stance remains: incorrect paperwork. No SCIF doors for you, sonny. Alot more waiting around later, and Team-1 higher-up has a stern conversation with somebody from Team-2 while I stand by utterly nonplussed. At the end of the day it turns out Team-2’s system is incorrectly coded for the new area format. So everything will be good next time I return. Fool me once, shame on you…
Through all this, over the course of more than a month now, not one person apart from me has made the slightest effort to solve this problem. I must be some kind of idiot. Let’s just send him on the run-around and point fingers at others. Because don’tcha know, making somebody else look bad is the easiest way to make yourself look good! This bastion of corporate America’s customer seems to practice that misguided principle almost as systematically as my employer. The company culture revolves around a high-intensity PPP (Pricks, Poseurs and Primmadonnas) environment. I am just so, so sick of it. Less than 2 months to go…
Epilog: The more I think about it, that banning idea is starting to sound like a great idea! With only 8 weeks to go and >250 hours of vacation time banked, it’s really just a tax liability at this point. Hmmmmm. Seasoned managers are very predictable when it comes to covering their own asses. And as expected, when the Sr. Manager saw this she was furious. Would she be so predictably short-sighted and self-serving as to bite? Damn straight – hook, line and sinker! They can kiss my rosie red rectum goodbye. Funny thing was, she didn’t seem to realize she was only screwing the program itself. That’s just the way knee-jerk reactions go, I suppose. I am now in fact, banned from BOTH customer facilities by my boss’s boss. Yay!
All anybody had to do to avoid this whole episode right from the start was make a conscientious effort to get the job done and treat people fairly with decency and respect. But instead, it turned into screwing over an employee for no good reason. The proper approach does not appear to be in the corporate repertoire any more (if it ever was). Understanding how strongly the prick instinct is nurtured in these corporate buffoons goes a long way towards using it against them, when necessary. I’m circumspect taboo now – guilty of no wrongdoing, yet for reasons their willful ignorance prevents them from understanding, obviously disposed to sharing very embarrassing program information on the Internet. I’ll be enjoying the hell out of taking Mondays and Fridays off, going home early every day while accomplishing very little before I go on vacation until the end of August – during the most critical time of the delivery evaluation test phase. They always intended to lay off me and many others anyway, so no love lost there. I’ve learned to be good about not letting people get away with screwing me over. Blissful unemployment awaits for any news on this steaming pile of a program in the coming months. “We’ll see” about the last Word:
