On November 26th, to my complete surprise, I got let go from Phacil. I could go into a ten page rant about it but I'll just give the short version here. My former boss has been abusing power, making his own policies, contradicting company policies and SLAs, talking down to everyone, etc. I had my yearly review in October and was only awarding 25% of my available annual bonus due to things he marked me down on that shouldn't be allowed because they're made up. I didn't like this so I went to the project manager, bringing e-mails between my boss and I to back up my side. I could tell after 20 seconds in that meeting things were not going to go well. The project manager was batting his eyes like a sarcastic woman and wouldn't listen. Basically what it came down to is if Michael says it, do it. Doesn't matter what the policy is. If he says to sign my timesheet on Friday even though Phacil policy says I have until Sunday and I'm on call that weekend, do what Michael says. I was baffled by the stupidity.
On top of that he made other issues of non issues. He said he had a problem with the fact that I didn't withdrawal my tentative offer with CBP when I started for Phacil. That's none of his business. He only knew about it because CBP called about my investigation. He then went on to tell me how he got fired from his last job when the investigator called them for his current job. I was thinking that's great, so Phacil wants to do dirty business like that? They want to fire people for trying to work for the feds, while at the same time trying to support federal contracts? Looking further into it later I could see that this inept project manager has only been able to hold every job he has had since he left the Navy in 2007 for 6-8 months before getting a new job. Pathetic. Then he made an issue out of my second job with Crimshield. Again non of his business. He tried to make up stuff saying that under Phacil policy that I signed I have to get HR approval just to work at Burger King. Well I have a copy of that contract and perhaps Wayne Kulick needs to learn how to read. He just made all of it up. Then he said he had an issue with the fact that I paid my boss, Michael, $260 one night to help me with an issue at Crimshield. He told me that is "Stealing Phacil resources". So let me get this straight. My boss can do the work, take my money, report me, and he gets off the hook while I get in trouble? If this was an issue Michael should not have taken my money and shouldn't have done the work. However after reading my contract again, Wayne made this all up. Then he went on and on with stupid accusations. He thinks its his business when I'm sleeping on a Saturday when I'm on call and blames me being tired from Crimshield. None of his business what I'm doing with my time off. I pick up my phone, that's all that matters. On top of that I was tired from everything else going on in my life, not work with Crimshield. The guy made a complete ass of himself in the meeting.
Anyways I didn't argue, I just took it, and figured I only had a couple months left there so why fight it. I should have reported him to HR, I didn't. In the meantime Michael was pissed off that I went over his head to the project manager so he was planning his attack. I should have known it was coming. A couple weeks later I saw Wayne in the hall and said hi. He gave me a look of disgust then looked away. If anyone questions this firing was an act of vengeance, consider this. Michael let me go two days before Thanksgiving, knowing no one is hiring at that time, knowing I lose my benefits at the end of the month (right after the holiday, also knowing my wife is almost due and high risk), and knowing that I had time off planned to go see family for the Holiday. The guy didn't even have the guts to do it himself. He scheduled a meeting with Wayne, at which point I knew what was coming, and then he sat there quietly during the 2 minute meeting. No write ups, no warnings, no incidents, he just kept quiet and waited for the perfect time for his attack.
I reported this all to HR after I was let go and they did nothing but a phony Obama style investigation. In the meantime Michael found a set of my handcuffs that I forgot to take out of my laptop case. He kept pulling them out, playing with them, and asking my friends randomly "Handcuffs"? He would also say things like "Maybe I'll return these some day". Keep in mind no one there likes him, at all. He sat alone at the company picnic in August. So I got calls from four of my friends about what was going on. So I called HR and demanded my property be returned. So a week later I received my handcuffs in the mail. Now they could have been sent in a padded envelope but instead they were sent in a big box. Why such a big box? I opened it up and under my handcuffs were a box of tissues. Not only were they tissues but they were Phacil ordered tissues from the supply room. So much for Phacil caring when people steal their resources, or waste money shipping a box instead of an envelope. So much for Phacil showing they have any class. I sent the picture to HR and they did nothing. On top of that they found a connection and have managed to get all four of my honest/negative reviews about them removed from Glassdoor. Not only that but they also made a bunch of fake counter reviews the same week. Pathetic actions of a desperate company. The company is so unethical that Wayne actually brags to people that he patrols Monster to see who is looking for another job so he can fire them. Unethical and pathetic!
I warned HR to take my complaints seriously. I told them half the team was looking for another job. The day I got fired I actually had one friend almost walk out (I had to tell him to sit down and relax) and another friend almost quit. HR didn't listen and just last week one of my friends there quit without giving them warning. He was so sick of the atmposphere there he actually quit before even finding another job. Michael was pissed about it. Perhaps he should have thought twice about who he was going to let go....
My ex boss' picture from Linkedin. Who in their right mind woudl put a picture like that as their profile picture on a professional site. No wonder he's pissed off, look at him.
Phacil policy screenshot. Perhaps Wayne should learn how to read. It says I cannot get Phacil employees to leave the company, not that I cannot get them to work a non competing 1099 contract with me. If this wasn't a right to work state Phacil would be in big trouble.
Acts of professionalism from Phacil management, also known as harassment.
Anyways at the time I was pretty mad about everything. Mostly because of the lack of class shown by Phacil and the fact it was vengeance. But in the end it all worked out for the best. I took off a day earlier than planned for Thanksgiving in SoCal. The day after Thanksgiving was our 5th anniversary. Natalie being pregnant there wasn't so much we can do so we went to the Mission Inn for a couple's massage. We got lucky, we got the same girls that did our massages the last time we went. The girl that did mine gets in really deep. I have problems where I wake up with tingling in my fingers in the morning. After the massage she gave me last year this went away for a couple months. Again after this massage it went away and just recently came back again. Guess I'm due for another one. After Thanksgiving weekend I went back to Arizona to do some interviews and work part time for Crimshield. Everyone I met with said it would be hard to get work this time of year, that people aren't really hiring until after the holidays.
So for the next few weeks I pretty much had a vacation. Work part time for Crimshield, spend time with the family, stay up late watching movies, and exercise. It was a good break from all the stress working in hell the previous year. In mid December I had two interviews setup. One was for a contract with Blue Cross, the other for my current employer. My interview with Blue Cross went really well and they wanted to try to get me an offer before my next interview, the next morning. That morning they called and I let them leave a voice mail. I wanted to finish up my interviews before making a decision. Well with my current company I went into the interview a little intimidated. The two girls from the staffing company were in there as well as their four lead engineers. It didn't take me long to relax and the interview went very well. Ten minutes after I left I got a call and was told they wanted me to start at the end of the month. I had to break the news to Blue Cross and they tried very hard to change my mind. However in end money and location talks. Eight bucks more an hour to work closer. We celebrated by taking Adri to see her new favorite movie Frozen. She was so excited she sat there with her hands on the top of her head smiling.
After this we took off to California for Christmas. My twin and our spouses went to see Thor2 that weekend. I'm not much of a movie goer because I don't like all the garbage that has come out lately but I have to say that was the best movie I have seen in a long time.
I spent a good portion of the rest of my week working on my Dad's computer. His motherboard took a dump and had to be replaced and it brought on all sorts of other issues. So I ordered him a new barebone kit which just led to new problems. I got that the day before Christmas but it didn't come with a video card, I swore it said it was integrated on the description. So the day after Christmas we went out and got a video card. Then we realized he had the Windows 7 update version on his old computer, he upgraded from Vista. He didn't have the install disc, didn't have enough space to back up everything, etc. So we bought Windows 8, another joke. We went to Best Buy and they sell the license but you have to download, it doesn't come with a cd. Pointless. So I went home and bought the license from Microsoft direct, downloaded, and installed. Then I got it all setup and the next day the hard drive took a dump! I had used an old hard drive of mine and my old computer case to put his hardware in. So then we bought a new drive and installed again. This time I got it to work but then it shut off randomly and sparked on me. Appears he had a cheap power supply and some of the cables came loose. Had to black tape the five or 6 bad ends. So after 3 days I finally had the computer running.
Now to add to my frustrations, for those of you who don't know, my mom has Semantic dementia and it's getting really bad. She had to ask me a couple times if I am Joe. When we first got there the week before she was very excited I was there. Not because I was there, but because she wanted her computer games. So all week she was pushing to get her computer fixed. She didn't understand that we had to get new parts and kept saying "You used to be so good at fixing computers. Maybe I can call my brother Jeff". Good luck getting my uncle to replace hardware over the phone. But my mom is at the point where she talks, mumbles and slurs a lot, and then doesn't listen. She says what she wants to say, you can't cut her off, and when she does finish there is a blank stare and she comprehends nothing. Her sentences have a few words followed by mumbling and a few more words. It's getting harder each visit to understand her. So not only was she anxious to get the computer but she would come in and sit next to me and talk and talk and talk about fixing her computer while I'm trying to troubleshoot the many issues at hand. So once I got it up and running she wanted everything the same as before. Good luck with that, we now had Windows 8. For those who don't know Windows 8 does not have the old games. I looked into it and was able to do some hacks to get the games from Windows 7. It wasn't easy but I got it to work, and in desktop mode at that. But then she was complaining that they don't look the same. The game looks exactly the same, it's the same game brought over from her old drive. However she was focused on where the desktop icons were. I tried to get her to look at the game and she wasn't having it. Eventually she stormed out. It was very frustrating. Eventually we got her to sit down and play her games but it was a real challenge.
The last challenge of the whole fiasco was backing up the computer. My mom had been doing the backups for the last few years as he mind was slipping. My dad had pictures that weren't on his computer that were on the external drive, backups inside of backsups, etc. It was a real mess and took me all morning to fix that one. So anyways that was my challenge of the week.
Christmas turned out to be good considering everything that was going on. Mom doesn't really understand everything anymore. She would open a present and take it to her room and be done. My sister gave her a quilt with pictures of all the family and my mom didn't know what it was. She didn't eat with the family, instead just drank a slimfast. She is also making a bunch of rules and enforcing them. For instance at 10 everyone has to start being quiet so she can get read to go to sleep. Then at 11 she sleeps. So every night at 9 she would come out of her room and remind us that we need to be quiet at 10. Then at 10 she would yell for everyone to be quiet. Christmas was no exception. At 8 she told everyone she wants them to leave soon, at 9 it was time to be warned curfew is coming, and at ten everyone shut up. It was like this all week. One night we were sleeping at ten and she woke us all up with the quiet time warning, the next she woke up Adri.
So back to Christmas. Adri is now old enough to really understand what is going on and was very excited about all her toys. I got a lot of cool stuff but my favorite has to be my Band Of Brothers/The Pacific Blu Ray set from Natalie. We actually just spent the last two weeks watching it every night.
A couple days after Christmas my dad and I took my Nephews up Mt Rubidoux. I always like a good hike up that hill (pictures below). Early that Sunday we had to get back to Arizona so I can start my job the next day. We stopped at my favorite Mexican restaurant on the way back, in Blythe, and Natalie ordered what I ordered and finally decided she liked the place.
The next day I started my new job. I have to say I really enjoy the new job. At Phacil I was bored half the day and there was division on the team between the seniors and non seniors. If you asked a question they would make you feel stupid and no one worked together. Well this place is quite the opposite. I am now an Engineer and if I ask the lead Engineer a question I don't get put down, I don't get mumbling that I can't understand, I get help. On top of that I am always busy. There are so many projects and they are letting me do a lot with Powershell. I really enjoy scripting so it's perfect for me. Looking back Michael the hobbit did me a huge favor letting me go. I was stuck in a job not working to my full potential, not learning fast enough, not helping me move up. Now I am finally happy, I'm learning a lot of new things fast, and I can see a lot better future for me and my family.
Pictures from Papago when I was on my long vacation.
Pictures from taking Adri to see Santa at Bass Pro Shops. I don't know what Santa said but apparently he is a funny guy.
Pictures of all the cousins.
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