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But when I think about it
I don't see how you can
You're aching, you're breaking
And I can see the pain in your eyes


So, a couple of things to touch on, and this long, insane tale of ******** will come to a close. Finally.

Let's talk about outsourcing. For those not in the know, a lot of tech support desks are moved to India, because labor is cheaper there. While I was notified of being in the running for a team lead position, quiet things were brewing behind closed doors. Men in suits examined long spreadhseets, and calculated figures. After hours of painful work, they came up with a devious plan. I can just see it now. A wood-paneled conference room. Empty chinese food boxes and beer bottles scattered about. A large pile of cocaine on the table. The leader stirs himself from a drunken stupor, and shouts to the vomiting masses; "I have a great plan! Let's close the expensive boulder desk, and open a cheap one in india!" The other members of the meeting, bleary-eyed, look around. One in the corner quiety chirps "But, sir.. They're the only desk that is performing up to standards. Shouldn't we.. keep them?" The leader laughs, does another line of coke, and then promptly draws up the orders for a new desk in India.

Yeah, I assume it happened like that. Because only copious drug use and debauchery could explain the logic behind that move. We were notified of the desk being closed in march, then it was delayed to october. We were then told, "Oh, sometime next year." In july, people started being relocated to other desks. In august, it escalated further, and we started hearing rumors of imminent closure. Managers said that wasn't happening, and they didn't know anything. Finally, a contract manager let it slip that the October date was back on. So, if the contract managers knew, why wasn't the desk being informed? Why weren't all the employees given more information, instead of a select few being relocated to other desks?

To add insult to injury, while the outsourcing was still behind the scenes, the india desk was opening and being staffed. Rather than retread the well sown grounds of hatred for indian outsourcing, I'll just sum it up briefly. Cheap labor is fantastic, but by all that is holy, they grab the dumbest jackasses off the goddamn street and sit them in front of the computer and a phone, then wish them the best of luck. How do I know this? Because we had to help train the india desk. Yeah. We had to "facilitate the process" of our replacement. India was setup to take our queued web cases, and as such, we got to reveiw their work when it came back our way, so that it could be solved properly.

One case pretty much stuck out as a fine example of how badly they did their jobs. A case was opened *by* the india desk, for the India desk. So, they opened a case for their own desk, and then sent it to us. In colorado. They were having network issues. For onsite networking issues, they are routed to the onsite network support. So, we sent the case back. And they refused to accept it. So, we noted that local network issues go to local network onsite support. It sat in their queue, untouched, for three weeks. The case was regularly updated by an onsite technician, asking what the status on the case was. So, if you've lost the joke, I'll rephrase. The group that was supposed to fix it spent three weeks updating their own case, with themselves, asking why they weren't fixing their own problem. Got to love incompetence on gratuitous levels. Finally, we reassigned the case to another technician in the same department, and the case was solved, a week later.

There's not much more to tell, really. While I was toiling away, a great job offer came through to me. I saw this as my best chance to scale the walls of my cubicle prison, and escape into the land of milk and honey. (Well, not milk and honey, but maybe Guiness and barbeque chicken.) So, I turned in my two weeks. My last day was on August 29th. The job didn't work out, and I was jobless for a bit. Time went by, and I had a nice vacation while slowly draining my bank account. I've got a new job now, working for Webroot software. We have beer and bagels on fridays, I wear jeans to work, I get an hour for lunch, and I'm making a bit more than at IBM. So, all's well that ends well, right? No, not in the least. It's still a helpdesk, and people still take a double dose of stupid before calling in. Not to mention that two months off from a three year-tour in hell is just not enough.

So, my advice after all of this? If you must venture into the realms of tch support.. Make it a short trip, then run. Run like your head is on fire, and the nearest water is a mile away.


Try to understand that I'm
Trying to make a move just to stay in the game
I try to stay awake and remember my name

(PS) As promised, the next entry will be much more entertaining and light-hearted. It was actually compiled by my coworkers and I during one of my last nights at IBM.