Someone please pinch me

I think that I walked into a time warp here at work yesterday. I saw something that I have NEVER seen in the entire time that I have spent in the corporate world. I was told by middle management that they were moving out of their offices into cubicles. Not only that but they were doing the moving themselves. I could not believe my eyes or ears. LOL... Usually what happens in the corporate world is that management has an office and everyone else that is considered a working bee or non management gets a cubicle, IF you are lucky enough to get one of those. There was a point in time when an IT professional was considered a professional white collar worker that also got an office of their own. Granted, it was not always a corner office and it was never as nice as what management had but you at least got an office with four walls and a door if you needed to close it so you could concentrate and get your job done or eat lunch in privacy. Those days are gone forever. Today, I sit in a server room with noisy servers and networking gear. So, all in all I still have an office even if it is noisy and cold in here. I can close my door if I want and bang away at the keyboard and problem solve to my hearts content. The only complaint that I have here is that the 6 month contract I am on is for only 20 hours per week. I have been able to justify 20-27 hours a week when I am really busy. I am hopeful that in March that they will love me enough that when the contract is up they will just hire me full time. This would be an awesome place to work. As a contractor you are typically treated like dirt and you usually get all the crap jobs that no one else wants to do. Not all employers treat contractors badly but there are quite a few out there that treat you as sub human. I would love to tell you who my employer is but all I can say is that I contract through TekSystems in Columbia. I will have to keep where I work a secret here on my blog. Did you know that employers read blogs and they can and have used the contents of a persons blog to fire them? So, just as an FYI, if you get an urge to publish your rant about your employer and it is all negative they probably will see it and you could be fired over it.
Heck, as far as that goes, in a "right to work" state like SC they can fire you for parting your hair on the wrong side, wearing the wrong perfume/cologne or picking your nose in the parking lot. So , just imagine what a negative comment on a blog would do for your reputation at the office. Can you say CRASH and BURN?? Oh yeah, while I am thinking about employees and privacy at the office did you know that you do not have any? That is right, especially when it comes to using company owned computer systems and networks. They have the ability to track every single thing that you do on the network. They can and will read your e-mail and find out where you have been surfing on the world wide web. I know because I help to support the systems to make it possible. So, be sure to abide by the computer use policy or whatever it is they call it at your office because they can and will discipline you for breaking the rules. Some things like surfing porn at the office, booking vacations and gambling can get you fired on the spot. Some employers such as the one I support now just block objectionable websites at the proxy server which keeps folks honest.

The house Santa Claus forgot

This morning, Christmas morning, is a sad morning for the munchkins. For years the kids would always be up awaiting my arrival in the living room so that they can begin to open their presents. This year, since there is nothing under the tree from Santa Claus they are both asleep in their beds. The kids do not believe in Santa Claus however we do have a tree and lights and we always pretend that the gifts are from Santa even if they know it is not real. I guess that there is something magical about getting up on Christmas morning and being greeted by all of the pretty presents under the tree. It is sort of like going to church, you expect for the singers to be singing and the preacher to be preaching. Without those things the experience just would not be the same. On Friday night I got together with a friend of mine and shared pizza and Dr Pepper. I told my friend that usually what we do the payday before Christmas is that we say to heck with the bills and we just go to Walmart and buy the childrens Christmas presents and then just suffer the consequences of not having paid specific bills after the holidays. This year the bills were much more plentiful than the funds we had to pay them. Nevertheless we were out of character this year and spent our money on bills and not on Christmas presents. I guess what makes this even worse is that for the last five years our kids have been sponsored by Happy Days and Special Times and Food Lion for Christmas. Therefore our kids really had a nice Christmas each year after Jessica died. This is the first year since Jessica has died that we were supposed to provide Christmas presents for the kids. Luckily for me my 13 year old daughter is taking things in stride while my 10 year old son is not real thrilled about this. I spoke to him about the reality of things and why this year presnets are real sparse. He understands the why but he is still bummed out and I guess I can understand. While I was writing this Katy and the kids got ready to go to Walmart. Apparently Walmart is open today and the kids want to go spend the Christmas money they found in their stockings so they were pretty excited about that. Maybe Christmas wont be a total disaster for the kids after all..