I have some serious issues at work related to job satisfaction and fair compensation for the work I do, especially as compared to others in my group, who I'm basically carrying on my back. I've tried to address these issues with my manager, but she's managing the way she sees fit, and refuses to acknowledge any kind of problem. I could go on for pages about the absurdity of some of the decisions that are made, but rather than vent, I'd like to ask here if anyone's ever had a "skip level" meeting with their boss' boss, and if so, how it went. I am running into a brick wall with my current manager, and this seems to be my only recourse. I've never had to go above my manager's head in my 5 years here, but I'm at a point where if I don't get these issues properly addressed (or at least acknowledged) I'm going to either explode and get myself fired, or lobotomize myself to the point where I can just come in and be another timecard-puncher with no career aspirations whatsoever. Given my nature, the former is the much likelier scenario.

So if anyone's ever done this, I'd appreciate if you could kindly let me know how it went, and if your issues were really addressed, or if you just got lip service. I realize that there are a lot of opportunities outside the walls of this company, and I'm certainly exploring those, but there are some financial incentives for me to stay here until at least June, and I'd like to do whatever I can to make my remaining time here tolerable. I'm especially interested in hearing what the results were, and whether the ends justified the means. I've already set up my meeting, so I'm in it to win it, but I'd just like some advice, and maybe some success stories, if there are any.

Thanks.

I had an experience at my current job about six months ago that almost had me walk out. You can read the details here (including a "skip-level" meeting of sorts and how it went).

From that experience I came away with a few realizations:

-Standing up for yourself is importantt: after the experience in question, I notice a definite change in the way I was treated by management. I’ve started being given bigger responsibilities now that I’ve demonstrated that I know how to handle myself; due to being tasked with some very visible projects now almost everyone in the company knows who I am, leading to a new job opportunity within the company (it’s likely I’ll talk more on this in a new post at some point). The converse is that if I’d suffered in silence I’d always have existed in the shadow of my “manager”.

-You always pay a price for going over someone's head. It's up to you if this is worth it, but even if the issue is "resolved" (as it was in my case) it will always be known that you skipped a level- not just the person that was skipped but to the others around you. I was definitely branded for a time as a person who'd "run to the boss" when there was an issue. However, the future bore my stance out and I have weathered the storm well enough.

I know my issue wasn’t spot on with what you’re dealing with, but I learned a lot and hope it’s helpful.

One more little experience, though. As far as compensation goes, I’m highly reticent to approach this subject at all. I figure I should do my work and my company should pay me what they think I’m worth. Not a good attitude for getting ahead. So when I first got here, the company made it VERY clear they wouldn’t be paying for my relocation. I humbly accepted that, simply wanting the job, and then moved my life to a new city so I could work. Three months later I was happily working away but feeling the pinch of the move cost. After a LOT of prodding from a coworker I went to my boss and meekly asked for moving compensation now that I’d proven I was a solid employee who would stick around. He didn’t even blink and within a week he cut me a check. So sometimes it pays to address these issues, even if it isn’t in our nature.

Ah, I had read your initial post, but somehow missed your follow-ups. It is a lot like my situation actually, though the issues you were focused on were more technical, whereas mine have to do with resource allocation and putting the right people in the right jobs. More "soft skills" than anything. But it is good to know your issues were addressed. I agree it's never good to be labelled as someone who goes over someone else's head, but my manager refuses to do anything about the problems until something breaks, at which point she throws staff at it, and those people do a half-assed job just to meet the date.

My goal in this meeting is going to be to lay everything out on the table and tell my boss that the quality is suffering, and I'm scared there's going to be a meltdown. That way, it's focused on a tangible problem (which is very much a reality) and doesn't look like me begging for attention or bitching about a non-issue. Sounds like you were in the same boat, you knew there was a right and a wrong way to do things, and you went to the boss with your idea of what's right. I think since I've been a good soldier for this long, I've earned the right to get an "audience with the king." It sounds like yours yielded good results, though I do understand your point about burning some reputation in the process... I think I can live with that, my rep here only lasts as long as I stay here.

Good luck!

All of what follows is my personal opinion, of course. I have held several positions that involved selling to executives and I think my corporate political skills are reasonably good.

It sounds like you have tried several times to have your current manager resolve your issues and she won't; she won't even acknowledge them, so you have no choice but to escalate. It is very risky to do so, however. I've done so, and I've known many others who have done so, and the sr. manager nearly always aligns with the manager. That isn't what you want to hear, I realize.

I think there are a few things you need to have straight:

1. What, exactly, do you propose as an acceptable outcome? You need to know what you want before you have this meeting. You also need to have given your current manager a chance to provide that (more on that later).

2. You need to have documented how you have attempted to accomplish your desired outcome with your manager. You need to establish that you are going to the sr. manager as a last resort.

3. Are you willing to lose your job if this goes badly? Most likely, the sr. manager won't make a decision because [s]he'll want to "empower" his subordinate. At the very least, the sr. manager will go talk to the manager to get her side of the story.

Point #3 brings me to my last point: you don't want to surprise your manager with this. Take one last run at your manager and lay out point #1. Dont' focus on your issues with your job, focus on exactly what you want to happen to be happy in your job. Ask one last time for your manager to resolve the situation. Explain that these issues are critical to you and that you can't continue in this situation. Politely say that if she can't help you, you intend to take the matter up with her manager. Don't be threatening about this. Your intention is to make sure she isn't blindsided about your meeting with her boss.

I can guarantee that your manager's boss will talk to her after your "skip-level meeting". If it surprises her, she will be extremely defensive. The risk in telling her is that it will give her time to think up a response to her boss, but the risks associated with surprising her with it are much worse. Even if things work out better for you, you will have made an enemy out of your manager. That might be unavoidable, but I think you should give her one last chance to make it right and tell her what you're going to do.

FWIW,
Jim

As someone who has gotten rid of 3 incompetent bosses...

I have to agree that you have to let your boss know what you intend, and give her a last chance. And then face the possibility f a serious baklash. Yes, I managed to get rid of 3 bosses, but in each case 1) I was prepared to leave the company, and 2) the boss was also not performing from a results point of view.

Thanks for all the insight, Jim. To answer your questions...

1. Acceptable outcome.

For me, an acceptable outcome would be getting chances to innovate and develop software instead of fighting fires for other people who can't tread water. The way I'm going to pitch it to our department manager is that it's a resource allocation problem. Our team is adequately staffed (well, it's staffed higher than any other team in our department) but the resources are allocated such that the same two people (and I mean two people) handle 80% of the urgent support requests. At the same time, we're given project work (the dregs of the project work) and expected to finish it on time. When that doesn't happen (because we're pulled off saving everyone else's ass) they bring in some of those other people whose asses we were saving to finish up our work. You know what happens when someone finishes your work for you? It ends up being terrible quality.

So I think if I can pitch it that way, it comes off less like I'm feeling slighted (which I am, but that doesn't play well with managers) and more like I'm concerned about deteriorating quality of our software (which is also true.)

2. How to accomplish

I've already had a meeting with my manager where I tried to bring this up, and she very coldly and callously told me "you've been given opportunities." Which is farce. I have numerous examples I can bring up which illustrate the problem, but she refuses to acknowledge it. I have another meeting with her tomorrow, and I'm going to bring up the fact that I'm going to meet with her boss. I'm not sure how much I'll tell her about what my topics will be, because frankly that's between me and him, but I will tell her that it's an effort to discuss issues related to work satisfaction and career goals that she hasn't been able to adequately address with me. I'm hoping that's a good happy medium between telling her too little (and appearing sneaky) and telling her too much (and giving her an opportunity to pile on a bunch of BS to support her position.

3. Willing to risk it all?

Yeah, I'm willing to lose my job if it goes bad. But I can't imagine that happening unless I wanted to leave, or felt too uncomfortable about the situation. The team, including the manager I'm going over the head of, knows how valuable I am. This is also a company that's nearly world famous for being loyal to its employees (we've never had layoffs, ever.) I don't plan on looking like an attitude problem when I do this, I plan on bringing issues up in a professional but direct manner, and finding out what my department manager can do to right the situation. But if, for some reason, this ended up in a situation where I fell out of favor enough that I'd want to leave or be asked to leave, I would be okay with parting ways with my employer. God knows the economy's picking up right now, and I've kept close enough to the job market to know I have a wealth of options available.

So yeah, I am going to meet with her tomorrow and at least inform her that I'm going to talk to him, how she interprets that is up to her. I'll give her a chance to give me straight talk about the issues, but given that I already tried this before, I know what to expect.

Anyway, thanks for your very good advice... Sounds like it's definitely a risky proposition, but with the way my job is now, and the other options that are out there, I feel like I've got nothing to lose.

Wow, when you lay it all out like that it sounds like you're in pretty much the same exact situation I'm in. Only difference is we are understaffed. The other thing that sucks is that the only person above my boss is the CEO. :|

Best of luck, Tony.

Tony,

I've been away from the board for a couple of days. How did it go with your mangager? Poorly I suspect. I really feel for your situation. It sounds horrible. Still, I think you did the right thing by telling your manager your intentions.

I think the more specific and clear you can be about what you want the better you'll fare in the discussion with your sr. manager. I think I understand what you want, but I think you need to be much more specific.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but since you asked :-). Your point #1 starts out with what you want, but then goes into a discussion about how the organization is not being managed properly. Don't get me wrong! I think you are exactly correct about it, but I think you should consider focusing exclusively on what outcomes you want for yourself.

By specific, I mean things like this:

1. I want to spend no more than 20% of my time on support requests (or 0%, or whatever you are comfortable with).
2. I do not want to be pulled off my projects. It is important to my professional integrity that I see a project to completion. I do not want to be involved with projects that have last minute staffing changes that compromise quality.
3. I want to be involved in the innovation aspects of software development. That means I want to be assigned to the following projects (list) and have the following team roles (list).
4. I want my pay rate adjusted to a favorable market rate given my experience and track record. I would be satisfied with $X.

etc. Something like that. Be very specific in your desired outcome.

If you are specific, they will need to respond to your specific requests. It helps to have them written down so you work through them carefully. Then, ask yourself: will this really satisfy me? Be honest. Ask for what will make you happy, *not* what you think is reasonable or what they'll give you. If you have specific "demands", they won't be able to feed you a line of BS like "I'll talk to her", or "we'll find something", or "its just until after such and such." You need to nail them down. Not confrontationally, just openly and honestly.

After your meeting, you can respond with an email (copying your boss), thanking the sr. manager for his time and listing, in writing, what your desired outcomes are and your understanding of the actions he will be taking.

I think the whole point of this discussion is for you and the sr. manager to determine if a situation can be created where you will be happy in your job. In order to make that a worthwhile session, you need to be specific in what you think that situation is. Including, by the way, having another manager if that is required (though in that case you would not copy your manager in that aspect of the discussion). But, if that is 100% true, that you can't be happy working for this person, then you need to say so.

Again, FWIW,

Jim

Hey Jim,

Thanks again for a thoughtful and thorough response. It turns out I didn't end up having my 1-on-1 meeting with my boss, as I came down with a sinus infection the other night and have been fighting it for the past two days. When I called in, I did ask my boss to reschedule our 1-on-1 as soon as possible, so I'm hoping I can get it in before my meeting with our department head. If not, I see her often enough that I can pull her aside for 5 or 10 minutes to let her know what's going on.

Your idea about focusing on specific, tangible outcomes is well taken. I already did plan on going in with a cheat sheet of ideas written down, but in its draft form (which I've had some time to work on at home since I'm out of work) I definitely do need to focus more on outcomes instead of pointing out the current problems. The thing is, I don't want it to look like I'm demanding these things out of thin air, and because our department head only knows what's going on from the perspective of his direct reports, I think I need to at least introduce the problems so there's some kind of context. If I start saying "I don't want to do support anymore," or "I want a pay raise because I'm doing more than the others" it will look like I'm just being greedy. I think I need to at least paint a picture of the current state of affairs for him (from my perspective and not the tainted one he gets from my boss) to frame the problem in such a way that I can then point out specific actions that can be taken. Does that make sense?

I will continue to refine my goals for this prior to going in, but I think the underlying thing that needs to be changed is the constant focus on deadlines instead of quality. The overriding target objective for me is to basically say "stop the insanity" with the absurdly aggressive planning and complete doubletalk regarding quality. Either we're a sweatshop that churns out code to try to meet everyone's demands, or we reallocate staffing and chop a project or three off the list so we can actually do the job right the first time.

That's something management can definitely do something about, and if they continue to deny there's a problem with quality, I have many examples and hard statistics to refute that. The most recent one is a project that just went into system testing three weeks late, in which the people on the project were working 50-55 hour weeks, and within one day of testing, there were 15 high-impact defects (showstoppers.) This is only the most recent example. On another project that I'm being asked to code review, one of the developers on the project said "we expect the code review to be completed in an hour." An hour? For a code review? Oh, and the project is a custom single sign-on solution using SAML assertions to seamlessly authenticate users coming from another company's corporate intranet. Probably 5000 lines of code, and he says that we're supposed to finish in an hour. Hello?

I'm not saying that if I was "king for a day" I could change this entire "get it done now, make it right later" culture, and I know how hard it is to say no to customers. But I need to know from our department head if he's aware of these kinds of problems, and that one way to go about fixing them is to put the talented, motivated people in the right positions. That's where I think I fit in. Is that goal-oriented enough to use as the basis of my argument?

Tony,

I think your goals are the right goals, but they involve wholesale change of the company culture. Not simply the development team, but the entire company. Your 1 hour code review is a (sickening) perfect example.

My thinking is to focus on your particular corner of the world. Accept that the company culture will not (indeed, can not!) change until it fails, or, it will take a very long time at least. My question is, can you imagine a situation where the overall culture does not change, but your corner of the world is a happy, enjoyable place where you can work with integrity and (slowly) nudge the culture along to a more sophisticated one?

I remember reading about the company FedEx being pretty good at recognizing this kind of thing. Much of the company has an extremely time-focused culture. However, there exist groups within that company (software R&D) which supposedly have a more "research center" culture.

Your company will eventually need to address the issues of sacrificing quality for time-to-market. That's a big one for many companies and it *always* bites them. Eventually. In the mean time, can you imagine a role that you would enjoy until that happens?

I don't think its being greedy at all. You are unhappy and you want to be happy. You have the right to enjoy your job, your work, and your life. You would like to do that with them. I think that is all very positive!

I'm in a similar situation with my employer. The reality and the self-perception are not aligned. I doubt very much that your executive management would consider themselves to be running a sweatshop, but their behavior definitely says otherwise. In my experience, pointing out a collective self-deception is never appreciated. On the other hand, maybe you can enjoy life until they are willing to admit that change is necessary. Is there a way to define your role and responsibilities such that you suffer the minimum impact from the culture? I hope you'll forgive me for saying so, but I think that is more realistic that trying to define a new culture.

That's what I mean about specific outcomes: outcomes for *you*. If you can't be happy unless the company changes, I think you may be very disappointed with the results. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, by the way, and you may be much happier with a company that shares your vision.

I have totally different thinking about all of this compared to when I first entered the workplace. 15 years ago, I was all about getting the right job, lots of responsibility and money, etc. Now I really believe that the company culture is the single most important aspect of a job, because everything else flows from it. Now I'd much rather have an enjoyable job that fits my natural abilities in a culture that embraces my values than have lots of responsibility, authority and power in a culture that I find offensive.

I don't think I'm overstating it when I say that your employer does not (organizationally) embrace your values (quality as one example). I'm sure there are people there that do, but the organizational behavior is in conflict with what you believe to be "good" -- to the point where they demand that you do things that you feel are "bad". I just don't think that the company will see it your way. Either you need to be in a role where you are allowed to do "good" as you define it, or you need to go someplace that agrees with your values. I believe that Maslow would call this a "self-actualization" quandary. You have assured your economic well-being. As you've said, there are plenty of other work opportunities. I think both of us are now trying to find "meaningful" work, which means doing enjoyable and creative work in a way that is consistent with our nature -- in an environment that embraces our values.

Sorry for the long rambles. I love this stuff. I've spent the last 6 years or so studying a philosopher who frequently cites a book called Spiral Dynamics. Its not all that well written, but it contains an excellent model for organizational behavior. A very good overview can be found in the philosopher's own book _A_Theory_Of_Everything_, by Ken Wilber.

A whole bunch more comes to mind on the subject, but I'll stop (please, already!!!!). Send me a PM if you want to talk it over with someone before your meeting.

Jim

Slightly OT here, but I think it should be mentioned. The very first lesson I learned when coding professionally was that hammering code out as fast as possible is the worst approach there is. Often the task ends up taking longer than doing it correctly, and it always ends up as a shabbier product. So now I never take shortcuts, unless so ordered very explicitly by management. I've even risked ignoring those orders from time to time.

Managers who do not understand this concept shouldn't manage, plain and simple. I have been blamed for "over engineering" more than once, but I consistently beat deadlines and customers are happy with my code (I actually have a small 1.0 application that has been deployed to over a thousand users for over six months and no change requests/bug fixes have been made).

I realize this is nothing new to you (clearly you understand it or you wouldn’t be posting), but I figure you should know you're not alone in this battle. I've rarely worked for anyone who I didn't have to fight on this point, and ultimately only repeated success have allowed me the grace get away with my “over engineering” attitude.

About specific goals: overtime and missed dates are often examples of mismanagement. Not saying you should bring this up (you seem to be getting very good advise from Jim in this thread so I'll defer to him), but at least for your own sanity you should realize it. If you can’t meet a deadline with available resources, don’t commit to it and certainly don’t bid your services for it.

edited to tone down a bit of my criticism of managers who have to require overtime. Clearly it can be required even in the best of situations.

Hear, hear!

As the cliche goes, "if you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"

Speaking about corporate culture, it's likely that the real people in charge like the way things are running -- from their perspective. It's far easier (for a customer facing person) to recover from a bad deliverable than a late one, and it's much cheaper to just barely enough to get by than it is to do it right the first time. (It can take =years= for the kharmic boomerang to come back.)

I recently went through a similar situation, and it even looked like the president/CEO/owner was acknowledging that significant change was needed. In the end, all of the people who were brought in to "make things better" were fired or demoted into positions obviously below their experience. There were enough people throughout the company that liked things the way they were, including the owner, and there it was.

Tony, I hope it works out for you, but if you're going to rock the boat that much, please be prepared for the possibility that you'll be knocked overboard at some point in the future.

--Nathan

I think your goals are the right goals, but they involve wholesale change of the company culture.

Yeah, I've thought about this one a lot. Really, I think my company has great management at the top, in terms of how they run their core business (mutual fund management.) There's a lot of focus on discipline, honesty, and cost savings, all of which I think are essential to success when you're managing hundreds of billions of dollars. I think the problem is that many of the other features of my company that make us a leader in the mutual fund industry don't make for a very enjoyable life as an IT worker. I don't know that I'd have to change the entire corporate culture, but I'm probably at odds with my company's perspective on IT, and the way that perspective translates into how we're managed.

My thinking is to focus on your particular corner of the world. Accept that the company culture will not (indeed, can not!) change until it fails, or, it will take a very long time at least. My question is, can you imagine a situation where the overall culture does not change, but your corner of the world is a happy, enjoyable place where you can work with integrity and (slowly) nudge the culture along to a more sophisticated one?

That's a great way to look at it, and, to tell you the truth, while I can imagine scenarios where my day-to-day job would be more enjoyable than it is, I can't imagine being happy with the overall culture. And I know enough about my other options in the IT division that a lateral move to another organization within IT won't solve the problem... If you can believe it, many of them are worse, and I often count my lucky stars that I started where I did.

Your company will eventually need to address the issues of sacrificing quality for time-to-market. That's a big one for many companies and it *always* bites them. Eventually. In the mean time, can you imagine a role that you would enjoy until that happens?

It's hard to imagine one. And, really, this has gone on so long that I really feel like a sucker for staying as long as I have. If I do have any kind of perspective and ideas that my department manager will listen to, it's hard to believe that anything could be done about it within a time table that would keep me from going crazy. So, the more I've talked about this and mulled it over, the more I've realized it's more about my desire to hear that at least one person recognizes the problem. Even if he agrees with everything I say (unlikely) there's probably little chance he can do enough about it to make me happy. For all I know, he feels the same way, but is more willing to deal with the status quo and go home knowing he did the best he could given the parameters he had to work in. I wish I could do that, but I'm early enough in my career that I still have a shred of idealism left in me.

Now I really believe that the company culture is the single most important aspect of a job, because everything else flows from it. Now I'd much rather have an enjoyable job that fits my natural abilities in a culture that embraces my values than have lots of responsibility, authority and power in a culture that I find offensive.

Hmm. I always thought I could do fine without buying into the whole corporate culture, but I guess that only gets you so far. Maybe there's more truth to this than I ever thought.

Is there a way to define your role and responsibilities such that you suffer the minimum impact from the culture?

I don't know, and I'm going to try to get some insight about that from our department head. Scheduling this meeting was a step towards finding out whether my thoughts might be validated by someone who can do something about it. If that somehow proved true, the next question is how much could he possibly do to change things, and then it would be how long am I willing to wait. Really, it's also about sending a message to my direct boss and my project lead that I'm sick of being a sucker, and I'm going to stand up for what I believe in.

Now I'd much rather have an enjoyable job that fits my natural abilities in a culture that embraces my values than have lots of responsibility, authority and power in a culture that I find offensive.

Again, I've always thought of myself as someone who could shrug off corporate culture and just enjoy the day-to-day work I do, and as long as I'm being given interesting and challenging work, fair compensation, and opportunities for career growth, I'd be okay. I'm finding that's not the case.

I think both of us are now trying to find "meaningful" work, which means doing enjoyable and creative work in a way that is consistent with our nature -- in an environment that embraces our values.

Exactly. Man, I couldn't have said it better. My hope is that after this meeting I'll either know for sure that it's not going to work out, or come away with some idea that things might get better. I think deep down I already know those changes won't come in time to help me, but maybe they'll help the next poor sucker who's in my position.

Anyway, thanks for all the perspective, it's good to hear advice from someone who's gone through some of the same challenges. This is my first "real world" (post college) job, so this is my first time dealing with these issues. That also makes cutting the cord seem a lot more difficult than it probably is, so maybe this experience will be the kick in the ass that I need. I guess I'll find out soon. Thanks again.

Managers who do not understand this concept shouldn't manage, plain and simple. I have been blamed for "over engineering" more than once, but I consistently beat deadlines and customers are happy with my code (I actually have a small 1.0 application that has been deployed to over a thousand users for over six months and no change requests/bug fixes have been made).

Yeah, I used to know that feeling. It's a great one. These days, I find myself settling for goals like "boy, I hope this shit falls apart on one of our internal applications before it gets deployed to our external sites."

and ultimately only repeated success have allowed me the grace get away with my “over engineering” attitude.

Yeah, and for awhile, I was in that position, too. I had earned enough credit (through saving my team's ass several times) that I could get away with carving out a little bit of my time to develop new applications, or clean up things that were taking way too much effort to maintain. Then our management changed, and the new motto was "we're going to take on as many projects as possible this year, and do just well enough on them that we'll get more budget next year to do more half-assed projects." It became all about taking on more customers, but reducing our service to each of them. I think we've already started to feel the pain from it, but whether that leads to any change is a different story.

If you can’t meet a deadline with available resources, don’t commit to it and certainly don’t bid your services for it.

Yeah. And my manager's motto is "commit to everything, do as much as you can, and when the [censored] hits the fan, don't be around to get caught in the splatter." And maybe this is me taking on the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality, and understanding that it's best to get out of Dodge while there's still trains running.

Tony, I hope it works out for you, but if you're going to rock the boat that much, please be prepared for the possibility that you'll be knocked overboard at some point in the future.

Very good advice, though I think if that happens, I'll be well on my way to boarding the next ship by the time they'd have the balls to get rid of me. I'm essential enough to what we do that they'd need to at least keep me around long enough to train my replacements. I'm already starting to see nibbles on my line... All this exercise with my department head is about now is finding out whether I'll be happy with an average-sized catch, or whether I'll be content enough with my surroundings that I can wait until the real lunker bites.

Just to put a cap on this self-indulgent thread...

Long story short: Big boss believes it might be a problem, but wants data to back it up. Apparently, my company manages numbers, not people. He says he'll talk to my boss about my concerns, but says he can't actually go after the problem unless he can show (again, with numbers) that she's overbooking resources and not managing schedule properly. Not only do I not have access to the numbers he wants, but even if I did, I would have to spend so much time collecting them that I'd be making my lack of time problem even worse. A perfect example of the "chain of discouragement" in action.

So, the good thing is I now know what I need to do. Job search is already throttled way up. If it takes too long, I might have to ask for a transfer to another department just to maintain my sanity, but that has the potential of making things worse, since it takes months to do even a lateral transfer, and there aren't a lot of open req's anywhere. Even if I did find a dancing partner somewhere in my company, I'd be expected to "transition knowledge" (aka work both jobs at the same time) which wouldn't exactly help my situation... Maybe best bet is to stay put, try to tread water, and get the hell out of Dodge as soon as I find a job worth jumping ship for.

Anyway, I kinda feel like the alcoholic who's had his moment of clarity now... I know the path I need to follow to make things better, now it's just a matter of doing it.

Thanks for all the input, guys, I feel kinda silly for wasting my time (and yours) trying to defribulate a dead horse, but a couple weeks ago, I really felt like the job was worth agonizing over. Now, it's just a job, and I'll find another.

I feel much, much better now.

This calls for a new avatar...

"Excuse me? Excuse me, senor? May I speak to you please? I asked for a mai tai, and they brought me a pina colada, and I said no salt, NO salt on the margarita, but it had salt on it, big grains of salt, floating in the glass... "

excuse me...that's my stapler.