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Going forward

2010-09-19 - quittin time

I really haven't had a chance to write much about the new job I will be leaving shortly, which is unfortunate because it was a nice place to work, for the first and last month. My contract status will be over in a couple of weeks, and so I will not be able to hang out with the girls there anymore, or instant message my favorite people who will likely not stay in touch with me when I leave, no matter what they say. Some other phrases I won't miss, from our company wide corporate conference calls:

"...we need to grab the low hanging fruit"

"We're going to be rolling out another..."

"...effective immediately"

"...those positions have been eliminated"

"...going forward, would you please..."

"soup to nuts..."

I do have a good time with the girls at my job during lunch hour, when we sit in a circle around the conference room table and talk about irrelevant issues. Some of the women are in their mid 50s which is when I think you become brutally honest. I was telling them about how I don't know how I gained so much weight since working there.

"Oh yeah! Remember when you started and you were thin?"

"But you did say you didn't care how curvy you got, you just liked to eat. Remember?"

On the up side, I'm not upset that I will no longer be witness to the "all our food is tan" taco truck that comes twice daily, because pig's feet really shouldn't be on anyone's menu. Btw, many mornings when walking through the parking lot, I would notice something like bacon cooking. But it didn't really smell like bacon, it was more like sad burnt hair. While putting to work a Sanitation Tech employee recently, he told me he used to work next door to us at the Farmer John factory, which is where they make bacon. He said he was in charge of cleaning the slaughtered animal area, when I casually mentioned I wouldn't need any further elaboration. But he was proud of his time there, and who am I to intervene on a moment like that, so now I know all about the festivities at the plant. (Hint: he used to scrape blood and other inedibles off the floor with a spatula-type instrument). Which is funny because all around the plant on the outside walls are cute little colorful mural paintings of healthy cartoon pigs running around in the grass, like at a little pig party.

As the Farmer John sausage factory / pig butchery is right next door, what I also found out recently is that next door to that is a place that burns dead dogs after they've been euthanized. So I won't be missing so much of that either. Now I know it wasn't bacon seeping through the parking lot. I would hope Farmer John's never "borrows" any of their animals for any reason.

My supervisor is transferring to Texas, because she can. Two of her replacement interviews came in recently and we interviewed them after she did, which was a total surprise. I was about to go to lunch, and happened to walk back inside to get my water, when I saw my next-door cube mate Crackers, interviewing a young woman for the position. She was laughing maniacally, which was surprising because I've never seen him smile, much less make anyone's day, so I thought it was worth checking into. I think she was just nervous, because her resume reflected someone else's experience that most likely wasn't hers, and so I'd probably laugh too. I had no idea what to ask her. I considered asking her if she liked tacos or bacon.

"So what do you think so far?"

Crackers was sitting next to her and huddling over her so closely that it looked like he had just purchased her for a mid-day snack.

"This looks like such a progressive company and I've been looking for something exactly like this. What a great team you guys have!"

I guess no one told her that our training policy is loosely based on survival of the fittest, and the guy hawking over her normally has the interest and attention span of a sausage link. Undeniably, she'll be in for an experience should she get hired. The experience will likely be 1/3 of her previously reported salary.

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