Updates! Yay!

Posted by Michichael on Wednesday March 31, 2010 10:24 pm

Another long overdue update. Not a lot going on - I'm moving to a different apartment. I'm sick of dealing with roomies that can't pay their debts - I've got two people owing me a total of 8,000 dollars now.

And to top that off, I got a wonderful raise from work - you know, after all the ass-busting I did to keep our website online, our users happy, etc. The cost savings of tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. The perfect 100% network uptime. Managing the intranet and internet websites, written 10 years ago, and keeping hackers from cracking the retardedly weak security. Daily stresses of dealing with so many monumental tasks at once, as well as coding and developing new applications internally.

I mean fuck.  I wrote a program that when our users use it it's got 99% accuracy and 166% effeciency gains over them doing the forms by hand. I've got a hardware phaseout plan that will save the company tens of thousands of dollars. Not to mention the website stuff, tracking down who's pirating shit on Bittorrent for corporate (another branch, not mine) and the other stuff that they're too busy, or not as familiar with that particular problem as I am, to do. 

My appreciation for doing such a great job? Eighty. Two. Cents. I got an 82 cent raise. Words can't express how insulted I am at this point. It's like "What more can I possibly do?" I'm doing the work of 3 or 4 people, and doing it marvelously. And it's not good enough.

One of my co-workers at Corporate is trying to see if she can get me some kind of letter of recommendation from corporate, as the wages are dictated by the branch offices. I appreciate at least having somebody up at corporate that recognizes and appreciates the help, and is trying to help me out. I doubt it will do anything but it's nice to have.

I'm just so... yeah. Pissed, insulted, you name it I'm feeling it right now. It's not even funny. I'd be less insulted if they did nothing, because at least then they could stall for time. This is just a flat out. "We appreciate everything you do, keep it up, and we're giving you 3.5%". What's worse is my boss is trying to pitch it like it's some kind of massive, great raise. 

I'd be fine with 3.5% if my salary reflected my job duties. Hell, I just got done rewriting hundreds of pages of code on our intranet to be compatible with our new website that's launching shortly! 

Do I get any appreciation for it? "Thanks! Good job!" 

... It's my own damed fault that I am such a perfectionist. I can't stand seeing somebody do the job right so I do it for them. And then I don't even get recognized for it. I make my boss look good. If this doesn't change then it's probably time I started looking for new work. I do not feel appreciated by the company at all, and as much as I love working with the other IT folks, I just can't afford having 50% of my income going to rent alone. I live in a section of the country with a cost of living is 40% higher than the average in the US. 

Anyway... Something to end on a good note since I'm now depressed. This website is now being hosted on SKYNET! I picked up a small ITX box so I could power off my main system and save myself a hundred bucks or so a month on power. It's going well so far. Dem and Xale helped with the cost and are using it to store pr0n. :P Without further ado, here's something I dug up from Xale's archives! (Safe for work!)

 

Merry Christmas!

Posted by Michichael on Saturday December 26, 2009 3:05 pm

First off let me start by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays for whatever holidays you celebrate. Mine was decent, all thing's considered. I'll be going shooting next week at the local range. I think I'm going to pick myself up a Sig Sauer P226. I really enjoy the simplicity of the weapon, its accuracy, and all in all how it feels in my hand. That'll probably be a year or more off though - my room-mate is probably going to end up leaving. He still hasn't found a job and I cannot afford to keep supporting two people. He's way behind on rent and has no prospects for new rent so... yeah. Gotta let him go. I don't know if I'll re-rent out the other room at this point. I may just try to keep things going solid myself - cut back on things, etc. Dunno.

Anyway, got a buncha new clothes for Christmas. I'm amused by the fact that as a kid I hated getting clothing. Now, as an adult, I love getting clothing. Got some silverware too - which is good, since I am always out of clean silverware. Probably going to do dishes today since my room-mate didn't do them. I'm mildly irritated by the fact that he's not only out of work but not helping around the apartment to keep things clean either. So yeah! That's about it for me here. I'll post more when I have something interesting to say. :) 

Man...

Posted by Michichael on Thursday November 19, 2009 12:01 am

Well, personal update here. First off, the wage freeze is over! Joyous days! They instituted my raise (which, given the circumstances, I'm pleased with but isn't remotely near market value) and also opted to pay everyone who shoulda had theirs done by the time the freeze was implemented all of their back pay. Which means I got a nice "bonus" check. Life is good, right? Right. With this money, I decided to get my cars tires looked at (they did not need changing, thankfully. Erik (my boss) thinks that I can get another year out of them if I don't drive much, which I don't. Anyway, I also opted to get some pressing medical stuff done for my kitty pixie. She got her dental work done. Once again, not as bad as I feared, and I should still have a nice sum left over. As I'm typing this, Blaze is being brazen and hopping onto my desk, flopping on my keyboat3146... well you get the idea. He's been incredibly affectionate of late and I'm not sure why but I'm definitely not complaining. I think it's because he's cold. Wyre was set to bring in almost twice what he owes monthly for rent and everything was going good. Well everyone knows that shit doesn't happen to me - nothing good ever does without bad to balance it. Kinda a bummer.

Anyway, what's the bad you ask? Well, nothing other than Wyre getting let go from his job. Now he's jobless and set to once again not make rent. Oi... I don't want to have to do it but I may end up having to send him home. It sucks and I don't want to, but frankly he's way behind on rent, doesn't help with food, and overall is a burden I cannot, and should not have to shoulder. I gave him until January to find a job or a new place. I hope that I can maintain this apartment by myself, but hopes aren't high on it. I may have to try to find a new or temporary room-mate until April, at which point I'm hoping to find a house or something cheaper to rent. We'll see.So yeah, that's a fairly accurate summary of my life right now.

I did have to get a new couch, which I paid off immediately of course, and got a killer deal on it, though the kitties did manage to prick a few holes in the leather ($1800 Cordovan couch for 500 bucks out the door). It looks great. Um... what else.. work's been going all right. I need a vacation, and I guess everyone is getting one for the xmas shutdown. Dec 24th - Jan 1st. Fun. Oh! I'm Insane. Well, Insane in the Membrane. On WoW. Yup! I finally finished grinding out everything needed for the title "Michichael the Insane" in World of Warcraft (Venture Co).

That's about it! It's late, I'm going to bed.