I'm Outta Here...

Glad to report that my days are numbered. At work, that is. I've officially given notice, and boy has the stress level gone down. A LOT.

I love the fact that my team leader, who is one of the main reasons I'm going (don't get me started), hasn't even acknowledged that I've given notice. At least the head of my department has sent me an email saying I'll be missed. The team leader just goes right on talking to me about things that will be deployed/happening long after I'm gone. In a meeting the other day, he started talking about how he's really excited about a new development we'll be able to use in testing our products, and how it applies specifically to my colleague and to me. Deployment estimate: August. My last day: 30th of June.

Not to mention a host of other things that have done nothing except confirm for me that this decision is the right one for me right now. My mental health is sure to bounce back. The teeth grinding has already lessened. I don't feel as worn out as I have in the past. I no longer dread Mondays. And I have a positive view of my future (which is certainly something that I haven't felt professionally for a long time).

I've still got 26 days left, which is a long time (or it SEEMS a long time). But I'm not making any plans to do more than what I need to do. I have finished going to the extreme for this company. I've finished with going beyond the call of duty. I have 13 years' worth of experience, know-how, understanding of how it all works. I know things that could only be known by someone like me because of how long I've been around, and because I listen to what people say, and I know who to ask about things, and how to ask for help from people who would tell other people to just get in line. (As an aside, I think people are willing to do things for me when I ask them because I treat them like people. There are many around here who treat their co-workers like production-line flunkies. I'd like to remind a few people around here that just because you happen to have been promoted to 'manager', it doesn't necessarily mean that you know bugger all about how to manage people, or how to lead a team. I can tell you unabashedly: you don't know squat).

I'm going to do what I must do, and that's all. I'm going to record things that are part of my job description, but when it comes to divulging all my secrets about who to talk to, and how, in order to smooth the way and sort things out, forget it.

One of my strengths is being a facilitator. I'm great at getting people to work together. And what I've come to realize is that, around here, that's not desirable.

I'd also like to quote from my most recent appraisal, from a comment from my team leader: "I see the need for [her] to progress, and her enthusiasm to gain extra experience with which to make the case for further progression when appropriate roles arise that she can apply for." I've added the emphasis here. Two and a half years in the same position, without a pay rise, nor a promotion. What is the point of working your arse off to get a great appraisal, or to ask for help with learning and development, when there isn't a chance in Hell that you're going to be promoted? OOooh. You mean I'll be ALLOWED to APPLY for a job to move up in my department, but I'd still potentially be shunted aside, just in case there's someone from outside the organization? What about that old fashioned gem -- promotion on merit? Remember that one?

He 'sees my enthusiasm to gain extra experience'. Gee. That's nice that he SEES it. But he's never done a thing to work with it, or provide any opportunities to help me move forward. And when it's been queried, he just bounces it back to my line manager, saying 'oh that's a management issue -- not something for me'.

I'm gone. Long gone. Even though I've got 26 days left. I'm well and truly gone. And I'm taking my information, my know-how, my experience, and my secret ways with me. So have a good time after I've gone, trying to figure out how it all works.

Oh. And I'll be watching the salary and career progression of my replacement with interest. I reckon that if there's a promotion, or a pay rise, before two and a half years are out, you'll be hearing from me. And one or two of my professional friends. You know - those people with the letters QC after their names?

The Waiting Game

So tonight is Election Eve. There are so many things flying around the internets, and everyone has a video they want you to see, to prove some sort of point about one POTUS candidate or the other. Each camp has their good, and their not-so-good points. I know how I feel, and I know how I voted. But here's something I don't understand:

Somehow, the separation of Church and State has suddenly become not separate. I watched (albeit over someone's shoulder) a video of a preacher in a church welcoming a Cambridge-graduate Theologian (who also holds a degree from Harvard) as a guest speaker. And the preacher says to his audience that they need to tune out the rhetoric and the mainstream media, and that they need to VOTE WITH THEIR BIBLES.

Now, you can call me a leftist Commie pinko, or a radical Marxist Socialist Terrorist (the latter is what my uncle calls President Obama), but I thought that politics was supposed to be a separate institution from religion, and that people WEREN'T supposed to vote (or make policy) with their Bible.

There are so many things about American politics that drive me crazy, but using religion as a basis for why (or why not) policy should (or should not) be put into place, or turned into law, takes the cake. The number of people who think that American domestic political issues should be discussed and decisions about those issues made on the basis of how a religious text is SUBJECTIVELY interpreted are the SAME people who get all fired up about the dangers of America being overrun by The Infidel/The Arab/The Terrorist/The FOREIGNER.

I am closely related to people who actually think that the current POTUS harbours a secret agenda to try to make Islam the established religion in America. In reality, there is, and never WILL be, an established official religion in America. Because the founding fathers guaranteed that one of the main criteria for America to succeed as a free nation was that all its citizens had to enjoy the freedom to practice whatever religion they chose. It was the religious persecution that drove the first immigrants to seek America's shores back in the 17th century.

So now there are people who want to establish rules and regulations about who can practice what religion, about who can do what to their bodies, and when, about what can be taught in schools, and what can't. And these rules and regulations stem from a subjective interpretation of a religious text.

And these same Americans can't see their similarity to the tiny percentage of The Other (who've given Muslims the world over a bad name) who have also made decisions affecting others that are based on subjective interpretations of a religious text. These Americans don't notice their own reactionary methods and statements. And they don't see that they are in danger of becoming the same sort of society that those immigrants who sought freedom from persecution chose to leave all those hundreds of years ago.

While there will never be a world that is completely free of a fear of The Other, there have been moments in time where The Other has been seen as different, but not Different; as something perhaps to be investigated and discovered, not vilified and persecuted.

So I voted. And I believe in my heart that I voted for the candidate who chooses to help the American people move forward within the global community, and within their own country. I voted for the candidate whose campaign speeches don't ring with promises to exclude, restrict, deny, forbid. I voted for the candidate who seems to represent policy that includes, engages, offers, and allows.

Good luck, Mr. President. I'm with you.