If only I can trust my heart when doubting minds are everywhere
If I can keep my eyes in focus everything will turn out fine
If only I can keep my head"
Threshold-"Keep My Head"
Goodbye paperless, hello clueless, mused Dilbert in the famous Scott Adams cartoon. He had no idea how right he was.
I became a fan of the legendary comic strip that satirized the day to day drudgery of office life back when I was an ambitious journalism student going for his associates degree at Harrisburg Area Community College. I don't really know why I did, either. I never worked in an office at that time. I worked in the kitchen at a nursing home. Maybe it was the funky way the characters were drawn. Maybe it was the fact a dog and a cat with glasses were featured. Maybe it was a fact that a dinosaur gave out wedgies. Maybe it was the intellectual humor. Still, I found it hilarious. When the animated show was released, I felt it had jumped the shark and I eventually lost interest, partly because I did not think I would ever be in an office environment.
I was also a fan of the short-lived sitcom Working, which starred Fred Savage of The Wonder Years fame. Once again, even though I had not worked in an office, I found the show quite entertaining. I told myself "Self! Make sure you never get a job working in an office, it will sap the life out of you."
Yep, I was working in a pizza shop as a delivery boy and living off my tips. I was living in the basement of my mom and her partner's house, not really giving a shit to what either of them thought of me. I didn't have to wake up in the morning to go to some 9 to 5 job. I could be lazy and either eventually get in a touring band (though with my drum skills at the time, not a likely thing), or die with a beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other. At that time, I thought it was the good life, the life of just doing what you need to get by. I took such rotten care of my health at that time of my life I am amazed I am still here writing about it. Cigarettes and burgers, caffeine and alcohol, going for a couple days without food when I was unemployed because I didn't want to beg my mom for money. At the time, I thought it was the life I wanted, but in retrospect it was a road to an early death. It was a road to suicide by poor living. I thank the Lord that an angel came a long and helped me overcome all of that.
My lovely wife to be at the time, Andrea, told me about the pros and cons of getting an office job. Yes, I would be working the basic 9 to 5 like everyone else, but I would have the same schedule every week and the same paycheck every week. I would also get weekends off. Plus, since this involves living with and eventually marrying this woman who is the love of my life, it is time to start shaping up and flying right. It took a few years, but eventually I was able to become a much more mature and responsible version of myself, someone who was able to become a husband and a father and by the grace of God still is today and will continue to be for the rest of my life.
I started out working in the state's temp pool. While I didn't enjoy the low pay and no benefits, It was still more money than I ever made before and it gave me a chance to cross train and learn how to work in many different departments. Overall, I enjoyed my time there as I made a good impression on all the offices I worked for, and was even thrown a little party for my wedding at the one department I was in. Everyone liked me.
My first permanent job for the DMV was something I wish I could go back to. I was working in the mailing and output department, and I really enjoyed it. I could wear pretty much whatever I wanted, I got to get up and get some exercise, and I made a really good friend while I was there. I had a friend who was a Baltimore Orioles season ticket holder who would hook me up with seats of games he was unable to attend. Great seats too! It was hard work but I enjoyed it because I was working with good people and I had a boss who valued my work. However, after about 2 years, things started to change. New responsibilities were taken by the office and it put too much demands on everyone. As the old Ricky Nelson song went "It was time to leave".
The next department I joined would be my home for the next 6 years. When I first arrived there I was so happy, because I only had one job: data entry. Easy as pie. I figured the next part of my DMV career would be smooth sailing. It ended up being a rough ride. Not because of how I executed my duties, but because working in that department was a major eye opener to how bad things can become. It opened my eyes to double standards. These double standards forever clouded my attitude and for the first time in my life, I started to see how Scott Adams got his inspiration for Dilbert.
I started to be exposed to management decisions that made no sense. My section manager became the equivalent of the pointy haired boss, who made decisions that had no practical reasoning and seemed to be more interested with kibitzing with other section managers talking about their new cars or what they were going to get for lunch. I saw a very good employee railroaded out of her job just because she had the audacity to have a medical problem and take a lot of time off. When she was dismissed without warning one day, I almost cried because how she was treated was so wrong. However, I would see other employees who would be all buddy buddy with the supervisor and come in late all the time get no punishment. I also would see other employees just park themselves at other people's desk for almost an hour at a time and just bullshit with people. Nobody would get disciplined, no supervisors from other units would come looking for their employee, nothing at all. However, me, who would sit diligently at his desk all day and do his job to the best of his ability would get a finger wagging or a cursory remark for just getting up to go get a beverage from the vending machine. After all of this, I started to feel like Alice from Dilbert: "Must control fist of death".
After 6 years of dealing with that circus, I moved to another department which is the one I am at in the present day. Once again, I came into the situation full of confidence and optimism. While I had my stresses from the strain of my position, including a nervous breakdown, I liked everyone I worked with and was treated very well, which I discussed in detail on here before. Then, one by one, the management team here changed. Gone were people who were trained and honed by working in the department and learning every detail. In came people who were here because of who they knew and not what they knew. It is difficult to take orders from people who know less about the job than you. Goodbye productivity, hello meetings that were called out of the blue for no reason. Goodbye tried and true systems that worked, hello to using a million Excel spreadsheets to keep track of everything and heaven forbid if you forget to fill them out! Goodbye being considered the most reliable employee in the unit, hello being questioned all the time if you have done this or that just because you didn't fill out the damn spreadsheet! Goodbye trust, hello distrust. It is almost like the pointy haired boss and Catbert, the evil director of human resources had a love child and put them in charge of everything.
What used to be a well managed and well staffed ship has become a workplace version of the Titanic. When you have people in charge who have no idea of what they are doing, everyone is going to be lost. Morale is going to suffer and people are going to become unhappy. New hires come on to the job, stay a few months, and then leave. I don't bother to get to know anyone due to the fact they aren't here long enough to get familiar. I have someone telling me how to do something I am totally new at doing and the person training me and commanding me on what to do...well, she doesn't know what to do! It's like being trained how to drive by Mr. Magoo. Every day its a fresh new piece of adventure. "Why did you do this? What is this for? Where is this?" No one ever treated me like this before, or treated everyone like this. We used to be the department that was so well trained that we could run ourselves. Now, we are all learning new ways to do this and that and looking like buffoons! It's not that the people in charge are not good people, it's just that you have to have a firm and steady hand guiding the way and that we do not have. Maybe Bob The Dinosaur has to come around delivering wedgies
Looking back, I have no regrets about working here, and I am eternally thankful that I do not have to work as a pizza delivery man anymore. This is the kind of job you have to take if you want to live some form of a comfortable life, and at the end of the day it is being able to provide for yourself and the family that you love that keeps me here. I get passionate about the problems that are happening at the job because I care about it. I want to be the best I can. When you feel like you are being pulled in different directions just because new leadership wants to try new things, it is hard to give your best effort when you don't know what direction you are going in. Also, no matter how hard you try, every decision you make turns out to be the wrong one.
This is my job for the rest of working career, and I want to stay with it and hold on to it because it has helped to bless me with a good life. It has allowed me to achieve my dreams of a wife, a daughter, a home, and an awesome rock band. I want to fight to make this job the best it can be again, and help my department become a place people come to stay in, as opposed to one they cannot wait to leave. I don't know if Dilbert ever succeeds in making his workplace a great place to work, but I'm not Dilbert. I'm going to fight to make this place the best I can make it.
And if that doesn't work, I'll call Bob the Dinosaur. Wedgies will be delivered.
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