Technobabble

The Hellhole

In the main, I have loved working in high tech.  I get to work on interesting stuff (usually) with people that are really bright and share a lot of my interests.  I'm working in facilities that are usually clean, safe, and within driving distance, and I'm paid quite well.  All in all, it's bee a good deal for me.

But not always.  If you've seen "Office Space", or worked in high tech yourself for a while (or probably any other office/cubical-based environment), and changed jobs at a reasonable rate (in high tech, it's once every three years on average, I believe), you've seen the down side.  "Office Space" doesn't exaggerate.  Well, not much.  But the life of Peter, Samir, and Michael really is a life that many folks live.

This is a story about when it happened to me.

The summer of 2008 wasn't good to my family.  To put it simply:  I couldn't find any work at all.  Which is what caused me to accept a job in a place that Sami referred to as "The Hellhole."

Now don't get me wrong:  I don't work in a mine, or around dangerous machinery, or in a hot field picking strawberries, or wading through toxic waste.  I've watched Dirty Jobs; My Pop works on oil rigs; my Grandpa was a plumber back in the day when bathtubs were porcelain monstrosities that sat in the middle of rooms.  I'm well aware that I "have it good" compared to the vast majority of people.  Conceded.

That being said, if you've watched Office Space, or the opening sections of Joe vs. The Volcano, you're not too far off in imagining my life in The Hellhole (and Joe's office was 'way bigger than mine--I was in a 5'x5' cube).  I wrote all of the following during my sojourn there, but didn't publish it because, well, I needed the money.  Kids gotta eat.

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A few weeks ago, I received my time sheet--one of today's descendants of the timeclock--back. It was marked up, and torn in two.

I'm a contract employee, so we have to track my hours and get the approved so I'll get paid. The problem with my timesheet is that the figures on it--which I had put in to the nearest quarter-hour--needed to be to the minute. So my entered time of 10:15 a.m. was not good enough; it needed to equal the time when the card key reader said I entered the building. To the minute.

The card key reader? It said 10:19 a.m.

That's right; four minutes.  There were a couple of other errors of equivalent size (6 minutes, 8 minutes). And this was enough to have my sheet marked up, torn in half, rejected, and my pay check delayed.

The irony of this was that I was not charging the company for the time I worked late; I was being very careful to not bill more than 40 hours/week, even though I was working more. I wanted to show that "team spirit" that all companies (and especially start-ups) love. But since this company doesn't require you to card out, these times were not recorded. So my good citizenry really only resulted in losing me money and showing what a sap I am.

This is just one example of the picayune, "always watched," work-hard-but-get-asked-for-more nature of the place.  When I came in after 10--and remember, I'm paid by the hour)--my manager asked me to arrive between 9:30 and 10.  He came by my desk every day between 10 and 11:30.  He required weekly status reports and weekly "team meetings," even though he only had two people reporting to him.  He informed us that we needed to "look busy all the time."  Be on site at all times.  Work overtime, but don't exceed 40 hours/week on your time sheet.  Don't even look at your iPhone during meetings; it distracts your manager.  Keep your work area clean; we don't want ants.

All this stuff--always delivered in tones of seriousness that made it appear as if it were absolutely critical to the success of the company--is the kind of thing that shows you a) the company doesn't trust you, and b) they value butts-in-chairs more than output.

See, the problem is, once you reach this pass, there's no good way out. You either quit, live with an ugly situation, or get canned. Because no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try to meet ridiculous standards and details, there will come a time when the times on your timesheet have been off +/- a minute or two several times in one week because your watch is slower or faster than the "official clock." There will come a time when no matter how hard you "try to look busy all the time," one time a supervisor wanders by just as you are taking a break looking at Salon.com, or writing an email to your wife instead of someone internal, or simply sitting there in that stupor into which we all descend once in a while. There will come a time when you forget--or simply don't have time--to go outside for a personal phone call (be it to your doctor, dentist, kid's teacher, or what have you), and get overheard having a "non-work" conversation "on company time" (even if not on a company phone).

The standards are impossible to uphold, and when you flop, you experience a very painful and unpleasant meeting with a manager or supervisor where they discuss your "problem." Which is not a problem with your production--they like your work, and you produce a lot of it--but your attitude. But it's not that you're nasty to anyone. Or yelling in the halls. Or stripping off your clothes and dancing naked on the ping-pong table in the breakroom. No, it's this ridiculous, picayune, tic-tac stuff "that we've spoken to you about before." You're "still having difficulty" with it. You're not particpating in the "corporate spirit."

When this happens, trust me, it's best to bail as soon as possible; because it's all downhill from there. Better to go to a place where they appreciate the work you do and how well you get along with everyone, rather than how long your butt is in the chair, what minute after 9a.m. you key in through the door, and who you call on your cell phone.

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So like I said:  I'm not mining, or drilling oil, or working as a deckhand on a tramp steamer vying the Northwest passage or anything.  But it was my worst job.  Worse than the graveyard shift security guard job; worse than the restaurant janitor job; worse than working in the dishroom; worse than spending a week weeding a sunward-facing hill by hand during a heat-wave.  This job may not have hurt my body, but it was trying to suck out my soul.

Two months was all I could take, and then I found a new (and much better) position.  And now I'm in a job I genuinely love with a great group of people working on an exciting product.  But sometimes, when I'm feeling down, or happen to re-watch "Office Space", I remember my own time in my own personal Initech, and thank the fates I'm out of The Hellhole.