cube_rat said:
Because you absolutely had it with the BS? Please tell your story to convice me NOT to make a hastie move today. My sane self tells me I must find something else before telling everyone to shove it. My insane self wants to walk out of mega corp with both middle fingers standing erect in the air.
For about a year, my boss and his boss were both the kind of person to provoke that reaction. I avoided a major blowup-- partly due to the influence of the UCMJ-- and survived. However I learned that living well was the best vengeance.
My immediate boss, an O-5, just loved to be surrounded by people whom he could entertain. 14 hours a day, six days a week. He didn't really have anywhere to go or anything else to do so he wanted to do it with us for company. He thought that his public observations on your personality and your preferences made him a funny guy. Very manipulative.
His boss, an O-6, also lived for the job to the harmony of 80-hour weeks. He used three admin assistants-- one from 5 AM to 1 PM, a second from 8 AM to 4PM, and a third from 1 PM to closing. The third shift was considered to be the best deal because you knew you'd rarely get asked to stay beyond 10 hours. He lived for a crisis, especially after the chief of staff's Thursday afternoon meeting. If he didn't have a crisis then he'd let something sit on his desk until it ripened into a crisis.
We had our share of arguments (kinda tough when you're the O-4) but we all transferred more or less on speaking terms. I resolved to never work with or even run into these people again.
Of course I didn't succeed. Five years later I had to run some paperwork up to an office and ran into the O-6. He was worse than ever, which made me feel lucky to have escaped when I did. In 2000 he managed to push a year beyond the "mandatory" 30-year retirement, stayed in the office until midnight of his final day on active duty, immediately went back to the same office as a contractor, and was still there six months ago. He was eating at "our" Thai restaurant while spouse & I were enjoying date night, and he was quite a performance. His cell phone rang about every 10 minutes for over an hour (on a Friday evening!) and each call was a loud conversation about his job. Keep in mind that this is a guy with an $80K COLA pension & lifetime medical who is still married to his first wife. He will be saving the free world, one crisis at a time, until he dies at his desk (or on his phad thai noodles). No one will remember what he did for the military's operational scheduling & fuel consumption procedures... except that he did it a lot.
My O-5 boss disappeared to the East Coast for eight years but ended up being the only guy in the Navy who could take over at my final command. So he came back to be my boss once again (this time as an O-6). I was only 18 months from retirement, I had nothing to fear, and he could smell my attitude. We left each other alone and interacted only when absolutely necessary. By this time his rheumatoid arthritis had nearly crippled him and he was such a workaholic that both his hip implants suffered staph infections. Instead of staying home for a few weeks of infused antibiotics he continued to work 50-60 hour weeks, so the doctors removed both implants and he was wheelchair-bound for another six months. His other problem, of course, was that I taught everyone else at the command how to deal with him. He finally retired (30 years to the minute) on full disability and immediately started the job search. It turns out that there are not many careers for a 52-year-old man with 100% disability and only a bachelor's in Naval Science. In his case the COLA pension, the disability compensation, and the lifetime medical were a blessing.
My second time around with these guys was mainly an experience of overwhelming pity. Their examples taught me a lot about grace under fire and perseverance under adversity. The way they turned out was a powerful lesson in not putting career above all else. I didn't appreciate all of that at the time but I sure do now.
So, Cube-Rat, they're not worthy of your flaming temper-- and don't give the b******s the satisfaction of seeing you break apart!
