James brought home a cold. He felt like crap for about 72 hours, I'm going on a week. Last night we went out for Chinese food because the place around the corner from our house makes a wicked spicy hot noodle soup. It's like of like war mein, but red with chili paste. Our waitress, who speaks very little English said, "Korean." Uh huh. So I ate a little bit of it last night, ending with the spoonful of soup that burned all the way down my esophagus, taking the rest home to eat for lunch just now. The spices release endorphins, which make me feel better, and the irritate my mucus membranes which unstuff my sinuses. So yea!
As Christmas approaches things in the job area are slowing down. I do check the USAjobs board daily and pretty much find something to apply for every day. Government takes a long time, and I suspect that if it's a numbers game, you've got to do about 100 submissions before you even get noticed. Not only that but the rigamorole you've got to do is insane. Some jobs require a questionaire with essay questions on it. Some you have to fax your transcripts in. Some jobs they're only considering the first 50 applicants, so no matter how qualified you are, if you aren't in the first 50 submissions, you don't get a crack at the job. But I have nothing but time on my hands and a whole lot of nothing to do with it, so why not jump through the flaming hoops? It might pay off. They have to hire someone, why not me?
Not only did they fire the BellSouth Account Executives, they fired the Technical Service Consultants. It's madness I tells you! Our job as AE's is to understand what the customer needs, work with TSC to design and price it, and to submit the orders through the correct systems.
The people who ostensibly will be doing this when we go are CSS/FMS (I don't know what the letters stand for.) At some point training in the old BellSouth systems, products, pricing tools and contracts was offered, but most folks decided to let those of us who were the experts just go ahead and do the job for them.
You can see where this is going right? So we're all gone as of the 29th. In fact we have a party planned. We're going into the office to clean our desks and turn in our IDs, Entry Cards, Laptops, Blackberries, company owned cell phones, credit cards and do our 'exit interviews.' Why are they bothering with an exit interview?
So what happens on Dec 30? A bunch of CSS/FMS realized that they are so far from screwed that it takes the light from screwed 10 years to find them. As it is I have a group in Phoenix calling me all day long asking for service quotes and location confirmations because they hired a bunch of kids to call into our customers to win them back to the death star, but they don't have any computer systems or pricing tools. (What is the point I ask you?) I also have a couple of CSSs calling me asking me to help them with the pricing tool, since it's the first time they've used it. They also want to know where to get the contracts, what the promotions are, how do they get into the customer contract system, in general they see the iceberg ahead and they're trying to steer clear.
So I have a cunundrum. Do I just smile and bide my time, waving good-bye from shore with my other penguine friends, or do I actually do something helpful like write a manual with quick and dirty information on how to deal with everything?
I'm kind of bored and I'm running for sainthood, so I'm thinking very seriously of putting something together for the poor souls. On the other hand, what would be more rewarding than having my customers call me on my personal cell phone (which is the number they all have) with reports of the carnage? What to do? What to do?
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2 comments:
Sorry the cold still has its teeth in your hide. I hope you get better soon!
Re work comedy of errors: I think you could turn this situation into consulting gigs, either on the phone company side or the customer side—or even both.
While its a very decent impulse to want to spend your remaining time as a employee writing a how-to for the CSS/FMS people, I doubt you could write something that covers everything you know between now and the 29th. It would be a tiny speck of gauge on the huge stab wound management inflicted on the company's body of knowledge with these ill-considered layoffs.
Maybe after separation as an employee, you could get a contract teaching these poor fucked CSS/FMS people some of the systems you used. Or you could consult for your old customers, continue helping them design and build their telecom infrastructure, but also walk the CSS/FMS people through how to fill the orders your customers place. Or—well, lots of possibilities.
I understand you're not crazy about the phone bizniz anymore in general, so this would just be temporary. Still, it would be money coming in, and with a little schadenfreude as seasoning.
You could potentially make it a sort of tit-for-tat. Do the manual, give it to source A, and then ask if you could also use that person's name for a reference in your jobhunt.
I hope you feel better. I've discovered that sage tea along with the Zicam speeds me through most colds pretty well, but I also think after last year's 6 week hell virus I may have developed antibodies for SARS.
Have you been doing anything really fun for you - reading a romance novel, writing a page, going to a movie, finding a pocket of crazies to stir up and watch? I just worry about you sometimes, and I think you should have some fun!
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