Work Stuff

So, as most of you know, I work in retail. At the headquarters of a huge company.
We have about 1800 stores and about 55,000 machines where the software I work on runs (point-of-sale registers).

As we go through management and organization changes things are getting to be a lot more of a pain in the ass.
I used to write the software. Then they decided India could do it cheaper, so now I mostly just tell India what to do,
and they do it (or try to).

So now, when anything complicated goes wrong, it can be HUGE DOLLARS (because the problem could be on 55,000 machines).
So, even though we lost many of the people that knew anything, those of us left are holding the bag.

Long story short -- I'm probably going to have to spend more time trying to fix that shit than I want to.
So, I'm not ignoring you. I just need to sleep from time to time....

Keep on rockin'

Z

A story I know only too well Z

I worked in the Geophysical industry (making oil exploration equipment) for a company based in Houston who had a sister company in Holland. The Holland branch also expanded into the UK to where I live which had a good airport connection with Amsterdam.
The Uk had a manufacturing plant and I was employed there to help with Planning for jobs and materials and give estimates.
Then they opened another satellite manufacturing plant to increase production in Dubai. There is lots of cheap Indian manual labour in Dubai.
The Planning was still all done in the UK using a linked computer network but eventually production ceased in the UK leaving only a team of Managers and Administrators and Sales running the operation while manufacturing was based in Dubai.
We were sourcing materials from India , China and Europe and shipping them to Dubai.

Then further cost cutting was planned by getting some manufacturing done in India and China.

All the time quality was getting worse and worse and the job was getting harder and harder with less control over making the targeted deliveries.

Of course.....being intelligent people....we all knew what would happen eventually.

The final cut was to take our jobs out to Dubai where the could employ Chinese and Phillipino administrators much cheaper and to make us all redundant.

Cutting costs regardless of quality is the name of the game now and ultimately we are all the losers.

The greedy businessmen of the West have sold us all out which is why the East is now prospering and the Western world is in a deep recession.

You can't blame the Chinese or Indians......its all the fault of the greedy businessmen and politicians who have allowed it to happen.

Theres a reason for everything that happens in our life. And most times its not what you might think. We all have personal things we, or "life" is working on thru what we have to do. What we DONT want, or dont want to "do", is what gets us to what we DO want. We cant just have things in our life for free. We have to work thru shit to get where we want to be. MOST time we dont even really know what that is. What I do is to look at whats going on in my "life" shit, then what is going on in my personal want, dreams, wishes. As I do this, i start to see there the same thing.

SO! Z....Your wanting things to be cool, run smooth in your "life". You want everything to be in control and managable. Your wanting"calm". SO, work on THAT the most. Dont look at work probs as probs. Look at whats going on and calm it, tame it, take control of it and manage it. Theres NO "fix". Its ZEN thing bro. The "reason" you have the job and life you do have is, YOU CAN DO IT!....Tell yourself, "I got this"....."I have been here before", "I will be here again".

Its not a big deal really. It seems as if it is, but its not. You just hold on Z! Take control bro. Dont "fight" the probs.

Remember back a few years ago the things your were dealing with? You got thru that to a point. There still there, but your in control. (I) feel thatsSTILL what your dealing with today. Its related to NOW.....Maybe dig that up some inside you and look at it again. Make sure you did not surpress or mask anything over. Confront your inner darknees for you light.

" There will be a Light!, I said a very bright light!, From the Darkness"
"The light you see, it comes from you, its your light, it comes from the darkness, from the Darkness of your soul"
DACE- (from the song and album-From the Darkness)

You should find time , and listen real hard to this song.

DACE>

Good words everyone.

We can see the writing on the wall Peter. They want to do the same to us (get rid of us and have India do it all).
But they can't.

Funny thing is, that on my last project I got along a whole hell of a lot better with India, than the people here.
Hell my Indian developers were listening to Joe Satriani and Black Sabbath. I'm a bit famous over there too
once they found out about my music.

Dace: You're right bro. I'm not too worried. Except a lot of this has to do with Security. Which can easily be a million
dollar problem for us. I don't try to rock the boat at work, but when they ask me to tell them what I really think -- well I tell them.

I've been working on my darkness problem. It's going well. It's hard not to fall back into old patterns.
But I have a lot to look forward to this year.

The novel is almost done. I'm making a few bucks here or there on my other fiction. And we have a lot of albums out.

I'm feeling good. Just stressed, because of the things Peter talked about. We can see the writing on the wall.
Fortunately our software is so DAMN COMPLICATED the Indians can't really take it over.

I'll still be around.... just not as much as I want to be.

Oh, I made Dace ADMIN (just wanted to wait until he said that was OK to announce it).
So if you want anything fixed or changed, you can let him know if I seem to be MIA.

Thanks for the words everyone. And I will listen to From The Darkness when I get to work.

Z

Z.....I would like to have Peter and Steve as MODs here please.

ADMIN and MODs here (right now) are not needed at all really as far as this group go's. But in the future might very well be. So, they need onboard I feel. If thats cool with them ofcourse.

DACE>

DACE wrote:Z.....I would like to have Peter and Steve as MODs here please.

ADMIN and MODs here (right now) are not needed at all really as far as this group go's. But in the future might very well be. So, they need onboard I feel. If thats cool with them ofcourse.

DACE>

Absolutely. Not a problem for me. We are all equal here as far as I'm concerned.

Z