Dealing with "Children"

It's been several months since posting to the blog, I don't know if that's because I spend most of my time on facebook and what little I have to say I do via twitter and facebook status, or what. But the blog is long neglected, and apparantly I still have issues I need to get out, and if the world reads then, so be it.

Last week was one of the hardest in my professional career. It was teh first time I ever had to deal with lay-offs at my place of work. And I must admit I was scared about the possibilities. I like to think I'm indispensible and have made myself such, but then again I do recognize that I am a bit narcisistic in some cases, and being laid-off would have knocked me down a couple of knotches on the ego ladder.

That being said, the lay-off announcements are now nearly two weeks into the past and I am still here. I did not come through unscathed however, infact I came through with a heavier burden in that I now share responsibilities between two positions. The adjustment has been laborius for me, partly because of my grief for the departed co-worker who I cannot bring myself to contact, part for the adjustment in balancing the responsibilities of two positions in separate units with separate supervisors, and part because of a stomach bug I had earlier this week that knocked me down for two days.

As if that isn't enough to get the stress levels up, I completely lost my composure yesterday due to a well executed prank on my supervisor who sits in the cube next to mine.

The set-up:
About a week ago this beeping started coming from somewhere in two of the supervisor's cubes in our office. Normally when I hear a shrill beeping sound I investigate and attempt to find the source, because it usually means there some piece of hardware that is asking for attention. Last week, I was in emergency mode trying to get up to speed again on things that I hadn't had to be aware of for more than a year, so the beep got shoved to the back of my mind as I focused on higer priorities.

The tipping-point:
I'm out of the office on Monday and Tuesday of this week remembering why I can count the numbers of times I drank to excess on one hand, and thinking it cruel that there is an actual illness that causes the same gut reaction. Tuesday, was more of a recovery day to make sure food stayed down, as I tried to work from home. I say try, because of the younger generation is at home when I am home trying to work, I tend not to get much work done as they demand my attention, and there's only so much you can do to fend them off. So needless to say I didn't get much done. Wednesday arrives and I am somewhat happy to return to work because I'll be able to get things done, or at least make good headway into catching up on my double-workload. But the beeping has not ceased, and it's becoming a distraction for those who work in the spaces where the beeping has occured.

The payoff:
After the "lunch hour," the hunt begins. Forst the laptop is shut-down, then unplugged, then the monitor, then the laptop and monitor are moved a distance away, then the car keys, the encryption fob, the desk lamp, the power adapters... still the beeping continues in the cube. Drawers are emptied, the emergency disaster kit under the desk is dumped out and the cube panels start to come off. The 'instigator' comes in several times during all of this and offers sympathy and suggestions as to other items that may be beeping... This all has taken over an hour... and now involves not only the two victims, but a Director (for a time), a programmer, and myself.

The Explosion:
Finally, while the supervisor is under his desk removing yet another wall panel he hears the beep again in his ear and finds the magnetically attached chip-board with watch battery and beeper, stuck to the bottom corner of his storage unit. Now that we know what we are looking for, we soon find another in the other cubs that have been experiencing a weeks worth of beeping. The 'instigator' now fesses up and reveals the location of additional 'beepers' hidden in the same cubes.

At this time, my initial laughter turns to frustration as I realize that the project I had hoped to wrap up shortly after lunch is going to take several more hours of work, and the suggestions I'm receiving for corrections revolve a complete redo of the code. People are still milling about talking and laughing about the prank for another 20 minutes, and the stress boils over. The project I am working on is a roll-back of code because the forward progress of the project had stalled due to another project receiving priority over mine, additional work I had been requested to perform didn't even get thought about because of the lack of focus on the coding project and the nearly 2 hours spent looking for a practical joke, that had been taken too far... the instigator should have relented when 4 high paid people were dismantelling a cubical for over an hour... when not a week earlier we had to lay people off...

Did I mention that the instigator has turned in their notice several weeks ago too? I smell a bridge burning.