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04.17.2001
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The saga continues at work. They wave the
new job under your nose so that you can just
taste it, and then they snatch it away --
better yet they say that they 'may' snatch
it away, but that they'll have to think about
it for a couple of weeks, so, they're just
gonna leave it there under your nose until
then.
Now, if you can believe it, the president
of the entire corporate group is in on my
transfer. He's apparently not too keen on
it because the people who are buying my old
site (which I am currently the webmaster
of) 'might' be expecting me to come along
with it and build them a new one. And because
these guys are big shots (the son of the
founder of Sony and the last president of
Microsoft Japan) he doesn't want to upset
them in any way.
I'm tell'n ya...I'm about ready to go postal
on their asses and show them how we express
dissatisfaction with our places of
employment back in the good ol' U S of A...
(no, just kidding).
So, what happened is that they decided to
keep me in a limbo state until they can suss
out the feelings of these outside interests.
I'll be performing my new duties for now,
but I'll still be employed by my former division
and getting paid the part-time wages that
I've gotten until now. Unbelievable! A typical
Japanese solution -- ignore the conflict
of interests which is the source of the problem
and hope that the problem will just go away
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Above are a few photos from March's trip
to Kyoto, back by popular demand.
04.15.2001
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There's been a snag. I KNEW! that there
would
have to be snag!
As you may recall, on Thursday I a got a
long awaited blessing from my current boss
to leave his department and take a new job
with our affiliated tech company. Great.
So on Friday I go upstairs to talk
to my new manager about my new job -- up
to this point he's been very vague. That
didn't phase me because in Japan people often
seem to confuse obtuseness with tact. Anyway,
I finally corner him and make him give me
a detailed job description, yet, he still
won't talk about salary, or benefits, or
contract, etc. So, finally I asked
him, "XXX-san, what about my contract...,
my salary."
His eyes open wide in surprise. "But,
but YYY-san (my self appointed intermediary)
told me that you already have a contract
with [your current employer] and that
they
would be paying you."
My jaw hit the ground. There's not
a chance that my current company is going
to continue to pay me while I work for another
company.
YYY-san, my go-between, who shall remain
nameless, but I'm sure some of you know who
he is, has been going around lying to everyone,
and telling them whatever he thought they
wanted to hear. Of course, for some
bizarre reason, he never told me about any
of his lies, which I'm sure he'll re-label
'strategy' when I talk to him about it tomorrow.
So now, I pretty much quit my old job, but
my new job, which was suppose to be in the
bag, has suddenly come out of the bag.
On the good side, the new manager said that
I could still get my new work area set up
on Monday. I'm guessing that they'll still
hire me, because I know they need me, but
there'll be some long, convoluted, painful
approval process in order to get my salary
approved by the upper management.
Sometimes the way they get things done here
just makes you want to go home, crawl under
your futon and cry yourself to sleep.
04.13.2001
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Okay. So my current boss was surprisingly
nice to me when I told him that I wanted
to leave his department and that I didn't
want to go along with my site when it gets
sold to an outside company -- I guess I was
kind of hoping he wouldn't want me to go,
y'know, kinda like, "Oh no, please Mike,
don't transfer away! Everything'll fall apart
if you're not here." Yeah, right, I
know...keep dreaming.
So the last stage in my transfer saga is
nigh upon me -- the contract negotiation.
Once again, wish me luck.
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gratuitous link:
Check out this great flash game
(thanks Fred and b-kid)
04.12.2001
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As you may have surmised from my lack of
postings these past couple of days -- my
'potential' new job is going well.
The reason that I haven't been able to post
to hunkabutta is because the man upstairs
sent me to a two day intensive Blue Martini training seminar. HUGE software suite --
really blew my mind.
Things are looking good, good, good. Yet,
I still haven't signed a contract, so things
could still go bad, bad, bad at any time.
Today is hopefully the day that I approach
my current boss, sans-intermediary, and confront
him directly with the fact that I want to
leave his department. I'm a bit nervous,
but hey, what's he going to do... except
maybe, sabotage my chances by talking to
the Tech manager upstairs where I'm hoping
to transfer too.
Oh man...
04.09.2001
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I am wringing my hands in anticipation. My
self- appointed intermediary (don't ask,
it's a Japanese thing) between my current
department and the programming/web development
department where I want to be transferred
has been mysteriously absent today.
I should be meeting with the manager
as I
write this post. What to do... What
to do....
Wish me luck.
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