Please, Mr. Vanilla don't pass any of this on.....
You are my friend and I don't think it will help.

I 've just joined the ranks of the unemployed. Yep surprise, it wasn't the economy that did me in.

I was as, or more, surprised than anyone to find out that I was involved in a major dispute!

We had a large number of users unable to access the network, and by the time the tickets came in, the natives were getting restless. I called in another tech to help. The problem was either the nic was disabled or that both the nic and the connection it hooks on the network to, called the switch port, was also disabled. Both of these things, finding out the port and reenabling it are the network teams responsibility, though we have the means to determine the port itself, but not to fix it.

To make a long story short I was told that Annette, Nickname, a net work problem, had been assigned to help me.

I called her and asked for help determining the port, so I didn't have to call someone in my group and then call her to fix it. She abruptly said You need to find out the port and switch then call me back, I don't do that. I'm really too busy to help you.

I called back and she said I'll just look at the switch and reenable all the ports so you don't have to bother me again. I said we can try, but it probably won't work because they will just disable again if I haven't fixed it yet. She was mad when I had to call her again in a minute. She said I don't have time for this. I said will you please do this one. she did, then hung up! The next machine needed it again, but when I called she said, "I can't work with you because I don't have time and hung up. I called back and said OK, I don't think I can work with you either because I can't work with some who can't follow instructions. That was it. No hard feelings, I called someone else for the rest.

Apparently she decided to find some one with the " Biggest hat size", bigger than mine and larger than my bosses, who is new and apparently not willing or able to stand up for his people. HE paged me and told me I had hung up on Annette and so I was being terminated. I said You haven't even heard from me about this. He didn't seem to care. I said for 1 and 1/2 years I've worked extra done a great job and never had a complaint, but you are firing me now because I tried to get our users back on line. No chances-no nothing. Never been warned or written up, so if I made a mistake I apologize, but theres absolutely no room for redemption here? You just fire me? He said you can work tomorrow if you want but then your fired.

I went and turned in my badge, parking pass, keys, etc and cleaned out my desk. Then I started to think, Who wears the biggest hat here? Why Mr J., boss of all x-Arizona. And who was friends with his wife who just volunteered to write a ltter of recomendation for me?

So I did the unfair thing of asking her to see if her husband would give 15 mins. of time tomorrow when I bring the laptop back. She said she would write an email to my boss to vouch for my exemplary customer service and let me know Friday if her husband would talk to me.

My boss praised my customer service, dedication and work ethic (his superstar) as he fired me. Maybe J will use his big hat. Hat is not what we normally call it, but I absolutely don't want to burn bridges or insult anyone. I don't even care if she is or isn't disciplined. It's a nonissue for me. I just like my work and co-workers and job. Everyone was shocked and some started to say they were going to document this person's poor behavior now and finish her off. But I said please not on my behalf, just make sure no one else gets this treatment.

I had offers to back me up, and "big hat" people's friends to talk this up but I was too upset to really do anything. I just got a phone call tonight from a friend in another department whose boss knows this persons actions and while not knowing me well, absolutely doesn't believe the cockamaymie story that I unceasingly paged her and was continually rude. It should be easy to show I never paged her even once, but
if I'm not wanted or worth fighting for, do I want to trust my new boss again?

My contracting manager was totally thrown for a loop over this as she had only heard good things about me for over a year. She said she would get me into something else ASAP because I represented them well for so long.

I'm just going to sit here and drink wine, then go turn my laptop in tomorrow and see if anythings changed...I was just told I hadn't been officially fired yet and give this other person a chance to get me out of this. OR maybe J will decree my job is still there. But why would he?

If you didn't finish this I don't blame you, Everyone has there own issues too. I'm lonely for Amy tonight, I really miss her right now.

Midnite is going to have to be put down too, very soon.

Fares to Ireland are $232. round trip today, maybe I'll just run away....

Always yours, Curiouoso*