The color of infinity inside an empty glass

Well, this is it. I leave soon.
I'll be going to a new job. No more Kristen. No more Nick or Scott. No Edie or K.C. or Ebai either.
I might recognize a few people who left PBS&J once upon a time, but not many.

This feels weird.

I don't know if I'll be able to forgive PBS&J. Not yet. The wounds are too fresh and too deep. I may never be able to forgive people like Nick or Kristen for their complicity in that pathetic excuse for a first job. I've told PBS&J what my issues were. Twice. Both to Human Resources and a guy named Gary Guhl (our... THEIR Senior Engineer) who really always felt like a good egg.
Wouldn't it be funny if both of them ended up being excused from PBS&J? Oh, gods, yes.
I wonder if Kristen or Nick would even consider applying to Baker. Heh. That could be interesting.
Alot of What Ifs there, though.

Hey, I just thought of something... I don't feel the need to make this friends only. I don't CARE if they read this. There isn't much they can do to me anymore. They can't fire me. I've already left!

Anyways...

The future few weeks will be.. difficult.
Now.. now is the time I have to sort through all the bullshit decisions, the conflicting advice, all of it.. and figure out what nuggets of information are good and which are pure drivel.
It's terribly tempting to mail Nick once I figure it all out and teach him how to do his job.

Hey, Gary said something I always suspected but never knew.
He admitted that, when the FEMA contract started, they made people supervisors simply because they were there.
When Kristen said that there was a reason Nick was team lead, there was. It was because he was there.
I fucking KNEW it!

So.. yeah.
I'll post when I can to tell you how my day was.
And probably to give PBS& that last "Fuck You" as a year of damage to my ego is peeled away and, hopefully, the real engineer inside me gets to come out and do his job exactly like everyone else, including me.. once, knew he could.
...
That confused me :)

Hasta!

Apparently, so long as I'm actually in the office, I'm not allowed to take PTO. I have to bill it to general overhead.
You have no idea how relieved that makes me.

Bosslady is now making calls to.. someone to find me work.

This is alot better than what I was doing, which was sitting down doing a University Session because I had nothing, I was charging PTO and therefore I may as well do SOMETHING semi-useful.
I can't imagine what else I was supposed to be working on.

So I've spoken, in the past, about the fact that I wasn't, apparently, trained well and now management is trying to figure out how to train me to get me up to speed.
So, I went up to K yesterday and told her this, and she listened, thought about it and decided, on Thursday, that I would do the following: take some more AD letters, go through everything and write down what you think you need in a letter, if anything. Then sit down with a Team Lead and discuss the case.
No problem. Completely agree. Let's do it.
I get a case, go through it, and knock on K's door about 8:00 to tell her I was ready to talk to a team lead.
So K calls around.

Now, to back up the story a little, I've had some continuing personality issues with N. N and I are too much alike and tend to get on each other's nerves, whether we mean to or not.

So, of course, K calls me back into her office at 9 and tells me N will be looking over my case. She wants me to be attentive, ask questions and reminds me to be professional and try not to argue with N. Which I agree to. She has apparently asked N to do the same thing: be specific, attentive and professional.

So I email N, we get together and we go over the case for about an hour and a half. It was honestly good. I learned a few things. I know where I stand on this case and, though the requestor will be SERIOUSLY pissed, this case, itself, will be the better for it.

So.. I go to sit down and start writing the letter. I pull out my IPod, hit play, go for three minutes.. and E appears.
E pulls me into the coffee room and begs me to tell him how I got N to be nice to me! And then regales me with the continuing saga about some completely fucked up case that N has in review.
Mostly, I think E just wanted someone to hear his story and be sympathetic, but I can't help but be amused. Especially as a few weeks ago, E told me that he and N had figured things out and were better now.

OK, off to write a 316-AD letter and try to stay warm :)

I am now a certified floodplain manager.

You may now refer to me as Howard B. Kellick, E.I.T., CFM
Or, you know, just Howard.
or.. LITE.. even.

but not LITE, E.I.T., CFM, because that just sounds silly.

I hate trying to read Federal Regulations. I've just spent what feels like eternity, but was probably only about 45 minutes reading FEMA regulations on "Identification and Mapping of Special Hazard Areas". This is important for my jobs, but it's dry and boring and NO ONE likes it.
So I'm taking a small break so I can think like a human again.

.. Yes, I AM typing from work. I have my own cubicle (Tommorow I shall bring that picture of Kristen to put in here, if nothing else.) with plenty of office supplies.. highliters, pens, post-its, paperclips etc. etc. etc.

No, I am not giving out my Work Number or even my Work Email... not unless you're superspecial and I believe you have need of either. In any case, it's easier and just better to reach me by my cell phone.

Work is OK... I think I'm vaguely shocked that I AM at working and AM, after about 4 months of working min wage and having way too much time on my hand, here from 8 to 5 every day doing.. something I hope I'll love.

I should probably go back to reading regs, though. Don't wanna spend TOO much time goofing off. Certainly not on my first day.