Thursday, April 30, 2015

The clock didn't ring to his head

From time to time we got the visit of Paulie for lunch, he was an old colleague who left the Corporation a while ago in search of more money. He ended up in a bank, with a better salary indeed but without any colleagues close to his age, vicious working envirnonment and lots of work to do. Desperate to socialize at least a little he always texted or phone me and Dave (yes, both of us) to meet him for lunch or coffee. Usually we didn't mind as he was a funny guy and a tormented resource like us.


One time at lunch he told us a funny story:
- Guys, there is a family in my block who had a kid, my age, my generation. That guy never worked a day in his life so far, his parents gave him money as a child, they were retired with fake illness pension and managed to declare him handicapped so he was granted a state-paid pension as well. For years and years while I worked heavy whipped in the Corporation he was making more money from his state pension than me.
- Yeah... Dave said, this wasn't exactly a rare case in the corrupted society in which we live.
- And listen to that, Paulie continued, his mom likes to brag in the neighbourhood on how they fooled the state. My kid, she says with pride, never had a clock ringing to his head all his life...
I started laughing while Dave had a grin and said:
- Yeah, smart woman...not like us, resources... we are stuck working, can't get out.
- Ah, Paulie resumed, that reminds me of another story, my grandpa had a young dog which he used to keep tied in a chain. At first he was restless, trying to get out. When they let him out occasionally they had to wait until he was starving and he had to come to then and eat while they tied him back.
- Like us... Dave mumbled.
- And after a while he got used to the chain, no more escaping and having to be tricked back to the chain Paulie laughed, just like us.



Saturday, April 11, 2015

Work hard resource!

- I want all these tasks ready this week and I want a daily status ok? yelled the customer through the phone. He had a strong French accent so I was trying my best to understand his words. Although I managed to understood those I had no idea how to accomplish more than half of it. Not to mention the huge workload, enough to keep two resources occupied full-time.

Dave was standing impatiently behaind me waiting for the phonecall to end, which it did in a caouple of minutes after the customer yelled some more and threatened he will escalate if the resolutions are not ready by end of the week. I closed the phonecall and tried to relax.

- When should we go to luch today? Dave asked. I have a meeting in less than an hour and I can't wait too much.
- Don't know I said reluctantly, I have to call this guy as the customer asked. He needs to send me some figures so I can start building a report and...
- Man, I see you for the last couple of weeks and you look exhausted, this new project is killing you. I remember the last month when I had one of those, I couldn't even get a good night's sleep.
- Me neither...Life ain't gonna be good to a frickin' resource...Don't know how much Ally can take with me being that down really....
- Have you spoken to Dale recently?
- Yeah, he advised to ease down with the stress, only a job he said... that's how he got an ulcer. However he seems to have resigned, tries to be at rest with always being a resource until resigning at a very old age. I don't want to do that, I will keep fighting to quit this frickin' rat race! Go to lunch, meet you downstairs if I manage to finish on time.

Dave said nothing, he just smiled and left. And I returned to the computer and started dialing. Long day ahead, I am sure I need to do overtime today too.