So like I said earlier I was re-reading some of my old posts.

Man I recall in Nov 2007 being very excited to start that new job.  Well 14 months later and I’m thinking I made a very large mistake.

The company is doing well and for the most part the people are great.  My issue is with the CEO/President.  He is truly the most unprofessional, manipulative person I’ve ever worked with and that’s how he treats his people.  He constantly says that what we do is easy and can’t understand why things take to long to build.  I can tell you.  It’s because we don’t have a complete understanding of what needs to be built.  Sure we have functional specs but they having huge holes in them every time (something is always missing or not elaborated on).  He over commits to deadlines without checking with anyone.  He breeds an atmosphere of “cover your ass”.  And how dysfunctional is a company that is ecstatic that the CEO is out of the office?  No one wants him there, we all walk on eggshells.

Sad thing is he thinks he’s this great motivator.  His VPs don’t want to even manage people.  How are you a VP and not able to manage people?  I want that job.

Biggest issue I have with him is that he believes if he can’t understand it, then it has to be wrong.  No!!!  If you don’t understand then we need to make sure you do before saying it’s wrong.  It’s not wrong by default.  How this guy ever made it to this position I do not know.  I could go on for days ranting about him.  So suffice to say I think I made a mistake.

I know I should be lucky to have a job in this economy.  My previous employer has done some layoffs and who knows if I would have been part of those.  I’m really frustrated that I jumped at the first opportunity and didn’t see this coming.  My friends tell me I couldn’t have seen it and not to beat myself up over it, but I can’t help myself in that regard.  I’m also frustrated that I’m not in the financial position to just quit.  I guess not many would be but again I think it’s something I did to myself.

Enough of that, I’m trying to maintain a positive outlook while I look for a new opportunity somewhere else.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll get hit by a bus.

Or I’ll get truly lucky and win the lottery.

Great link over at MilkandCookies today

 http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/64513/detail/

I’m not advising anyone to sign the petition at the end.  I just thought the recorded interviews of several government officials contradicting themselves (OK call it lying) was worth the view.  And of course “I’m mad as hell and can’t stand it anymore.”  is always worth a listen.

I noticed that the most popular post on onLine Me was my post on John Lovell.  Curious to know why, I did a quick Google search for “John Lovell” and there it is, the 8th post down.  Pretty cool.  Never thought this blog would make the Google first ten of any search.  I hoped those who visited enjoyed it, really wish you had dropped a comment or two.  Oh well.

Sox vs Blue Jays tonight.  Let’s go Sox!!!

HERO: From the Greek ἣρως, in mythology and folklore, a hero (male) or heroine (female) are characters that in the face of danger and adversity, from a position of weakness display courage and the will for self-sacrifice, that is, heroism, for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence. 

Well he may not be Peter Petrelli, Hiro Nakamura or even Claire Bennet, but I’m thinking John Lovell just might qualify as a hero (read the story here).

In regards to Grandmother Rosa Jones’ statement:

“He ain’t no hero. He is a murderer and God will serve justice.”

I believe GrandMa Jones you might want to think that quite possibly God did serve justice that day.  You should be happy that His justice didn’t end up with your grandson dead next to his friend.  Your grandson, should he be ok, might get that second chance to turn his life around again.  Be happy for what God didn’t take away from you.  Be happy that at age 71 that Mr. Lovell’s eyesight may not have been what it was 20 or 30 years ago.  Be grateful Mr. Lovell didn’t have a second firearm.  I could go on, but mostly Rosa you need to be grateful that your grandson, who tried to rob a 71 year old man, wasn’t found lying face down with a bullet through his head.  Mr. Lovell isn’t the problem here.  He reacted to your grandson and his friend pointing a gun at him.  If it was me instead of Mr. Lovell, I’m sure I would have been found dead in that restroom because I don’t carry a gun.  What justice would you seek then from your God?  Be grateful that your grandson isn’t at least an actual murderer (that we know of).

Lately I have had several people in my life that consistently do not do what they say they will do.  It may be something trivial or it might be an important project at work.  Either way I’m very black and white on this subject.  If you say you are going to do something, then do it.  Think of it this way you made a promise.  If you promise me that you’ll do something and then do not do it, where does that leave me.  I trusted you to do that item you committed to doing, I didn’t trust you not to do it.  If you could not or did not want to do the task then don’t tell me you’ll do it and then not do it.  It’s a matter of trust folks.  Pretty soon you’ll find that if you continually do not do things that you say you will others will not find you reliable.  At work that is a bad situation to be in.  I believe it’s an even worse case if it happens in your home life.

I’m fortunate enough to coach my child’s baseball team.  The league is one step above t-ball.  In our division basically the coach pitches to his team.  We do not keep track of strikes or balls and even bats each inning.  This is also the first year the children are introduced to the concept of ‘out’ and when they are out they need to sit.  Since it is still an instructional league and to keep play moving, if the ball is hit on the ground the batter tries for one base.  If they hit it in the air into the outfield the batter can take two bases.  There is no leading or stealing and we’re not supposed to keep track of scores.  Let’s be honest how accurate is a score where everyone hits and you can make 3 or more outs an inning.  It’s about teaching the kids about what to do and where to play.

So why the above description and how does the title of this post tie in?  Well there “has to be” a coach in every division who decides that his team doesn’t need to follow league rules.  I’m fine changing certain rules and other coaches and I have done it, but we agreed ahead of time, before the game begins.  This “coach” had his team taking as many bases as they can.  In this league, if you hit a ground ball odds are you could run all the way home each time.  What does that teach the kids.  In any other league you’re probably thrown out at first.  Now the “take as many bases” approach didn’t bother too much (he should have consulted with me first but oh well).  What really bothered me was that he did nothing to stop his kids who were on the bench from interfering in the game and preventing my team from making plays.  That bothered me and I said something to this “coach” about it.  He apparently didn’t see anything wrong with it.  “They’re just having fun.”  I mentioned that interfering with my team is not fun and besides there are league rules for hits and bases the runner gets.  His response was “do you want to teach them baseball or stop at two bases”.  My reply was teach them baseball.  He replied, “there you go”.  I told him that teaching players, let alone players on the bench, to interfere in the game isn’t necessarily “teaching them baseball” and reminded him that this was an instructional league.   We continued to play.  In that time I noticed that his idea of “teaching them baseball” was basically letting them hit the ball and run like crazy.  There seemed to be no concept of playing positions and team work (his team was pig piling each other to get to every ball).  His players continually tried to push or one-arm my players off bases to try to get them out.  And who would have guessed that the worse offender on his team was his son.  Way to go coach, you’re child and team are in for a lot of disappointments in life, you’re just one of them.

I can’t stand people like this.  I’m all for playing to win, but play in a league were the motivation is to win, here it’s to learn.  As evident by his team, the children still need to learn to play their positions and know what to do with the ball when they get it.

 It’s people like this that make me say people suck.  What an ass.