Dec 18
It is 1:30 am and I need to be awake again in a little less than 4 hours. My family and I are driving to Michigan for the weekend to celebrate Christmas with our various relatives. It should be fun, but I wish I didn't have to go through it all in a state of exhaustion. I dont generally sleep very well. I especially dont sleep very well when there are things to be done the following day. I have been tossing and turning in my bed for the past half hour, and I can only hope that fifteen minutes at the keyboard will save me another hour of restlessness. It is a strange thing, falling asleep. The more I know I need it, the more it eludes me. And other times, when I try to fight it off, it seems to come on so strongly. My mind tends to save the strongest of my thoughts for the moments when i want them the least. Perhaps just as strange, the thoughts that fend off my sleep never concern that particular day, the morning that will follow, or any events during. Instead, I keep thinking about yesterday. Thursday afternoon I had the day off of work. I had swapped schedules with Roberto and worked Tuesday so that he could take a final for one of his classes. He took Thursday and I now have a four day weekend. By coincidence or not, my boss scheduled our Christmas lunch for thursday afternoon. That meant that I would actually need to drive down on my day off and spend two hours with my fellow Netstudy employees. I wouldnt have to work, but I couldn't help but be a little upset that my day off was once again swiped by a random company event. Last week my day off involved showing up to work at 7am and working alone for 3 hours. Fridays have been pleasantly free, but so far my 3 day schedule has seemed more like a 4-day. As part of our Christmas lunch the owner of the company made us all take a test. First prize was a gift certificate, second place gets nothing. And so we all put away our food for 15 minutes and took a 3 page test on various company trivia. Who was born where, what poster is missing from the boss's office, what company made the refridgerator that is in the development room… Last year I got second place on the test despite having only been there 2 weeks. Now after having been there a full year, I scored dead last. The only questions that I got right were the trick questions that everyone else missed. Just how my mind works I suppose. I really dont care that I lost. Matt won and gets the 50 dollar certificate (which he has been told to spend by taking us all out to eat, anyway). Everyone else lost. That I lost more than the rest doesn't phase me. I could have done without all the teasing and torment, though. If anything, I admit to being a bit annoyed at the consistent atmosphere of disprespect from many of my co-workers. They can't complain about the work I do, which is solid all around, but there is a feeling of animosity that I am trying to leave Netstudy. The only reason that I am even there on a part-time basis is out of courtesy to the company. Were I to leave, there is nobody to fill the void. I know that. They know that. They act like it is not true. When I showed up to lunch my boss presented me with a 100 dollar gift certificate to Best Buy. That was really nice of him. I didn't see anyone else with gift cards so I felt a bit guilty. It seemed such an unnecessary, but very kind gift, and not knowing if anyone else got a giftcard, I quickly put it out of sight. It wasn't until lunch was over that Lukas told me what happened. Lukas and I had each received the gift cards. Everyone else was given a new iPod and a bag full of miscellaneous gifts. I really don't want to seem greedy. I really don't want to seem selfish. But I simply dont understand. Each person at Netstudy was given around 500 dollars worth of presents. The only exceptions were Lukas, who has been there part time for a few weeks, and me, who has been the backbone of the company for the past year. All due respect to Lukas, but in this particular instance I don't see how our value to Netstudy is equal. I also find it absurd to think that I am valued at 20 percent of the next guy. I am grateful for the gift card, but I couldn't even use it to buy the warranty on one of those new ipods. I didn't complain, I was raised to be thankful for what I have. But for the sake of getting to sleep tonight, I am describing it here. Almost as an afterthought, one of the questions on the test was 'How many full-time employees work for Netstudy?'. It was meant as a trick question. “Nope, Jason doesn't work full time anymore.” Thanks for rubbing it in. Am I supposed to feel guilty about that?
As if the world could sense my unease that afternoon after lunch, my cell phone rang while I was renting a movie at Blockbuster. Roberto was calling to tell me that there was a big problem with the website. Things weren't working, they needed to be fixed, nobody knew what to do. He explained the problem, I rambled off the first thing that popped into my head and told him I would check it out once I got back to my apartment. 5 minutes later he called back to tell me that everything was fine, the problem was taken care of. I never found out what exactly was wrong, but I expect that nothing was ever broken. Of course, from time to time, I overlook something small and a minor correction needs to be made. A vast majority of the time the problem is in the person using the system. Brian tells me to do things, then ignores them once they are done. He never spends time learning to use the various scripts and functionality that I add, and that leads to problems later on. My inbox gets cluttered with emails claiming that the site is broken, pages dont work, the system has major problems. Almost always the problem is with him. I would expect that Thursday's escapade was similar. However, I wasn't there to point out his mistake and so they spent a few hours fumbling around. Lukas later told me that Roberto and Brian spent the afternoon screaming at eachother. Brian has a tendency to be wrong and not admit it, Roberto has a tendency to continue an arguement indefinitely when he knows he is right. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. I hope that the two of them didn't revert to blaming me for the problem. Brian has a serious character flaw that involves pinning blame on anyone but himself. As I was not in the room to defend myself the odds are about even that I was attributed the lion's share of fault. Roberto also has a tendency to brush off responsibility, although his reason is at least slightly justifiable. Brian and Ed (the company's owner) have been phasing out Roberto, keeping him out of the loop, giving all the work to me. As such I know how everything works and Roberto does not. The more significantly I modify the system, the harder it is for Roberto to step in and quickly find a problem. Because of this I also expect to have been accused, at least in passing, while Roberto fought to defend himself. I will probably never know. Neither of them would admit to being wrong. If I ask Brian about it on Monday morning he will probably blame it on Roberto, or even more stupidly, the system itself. In truth, I dont care enough to inquire.
As a side note. I gave my gift certificate to Justin for Christmas. Nobody else in my family is giving him anything. Last year I was the only one other than my sister to give him anything. Heather and Bridgette are going to Virginia on Monday to spend Christmas with him. They are each taking one present with them for their daddy. I hope he likes my note and uses the gift card to get something nice. I felt really good after I sealed the envelope. I turned the gift card from a negative into a positive and managed to do something nice for someone that needs it. I got a weird look from my sister when I set my card on top of the girls' presents. For Christmas my sister is giving Justin divorce papers. I hope he likes my gift just a little bit more.
Have a good weekend everyone. Good night.