Well, it took less than six months for me to ditch the
gig in Morgan Hill and move on to a gig in San Jose.
What happened? Inquiring minds want to know. I
really enjoyed the job in Morgan Hill, but basically
had a falling out with upper management.
I was seriously injured in mid-August, breaking my
back and collapsing a lung. I spent a week in the
hospital and a week at home, before I decided that I
could just as easily be in pain in front of my
computer at work as in front of my computer at
home.
However, my employers didn't see it that way. They
did not feel they should have to pay any sick time or
disability pay during the time I was out and insisted
that if I wanted to get paid for the period of time I
was out, I should apply for SDI (California's short
term disability).
Given that during the period of time I had been
there, I had saved them something on the order of
about $10 grand in the course of my work and that
my absence had been so short, I told them I thought
they were being "chintsy". Chintsy is a Yiddish word
(I revert to Yiddish when I am feeling ticked off)
which means to be "cheap" or "stingy". They claimed
that they could not possibly be considered "stingy"
because they had taken the trouble to have a $20
bouquet delivered to my hospital room.
They said my language was "inflammatory" and even
went to the trouble to write a formal reprimand which
I was required to sign. I signed it and promptly filed
for SDI, taking a disability leave for two weeks. A
leave which meant that they would be delayed at
least a month in delivering goods to customers. But,
hey, at least they weren't being chintsy...
shortsighted, perhaps, but not chintsy.
I took advantage of my disability leave to submit my
resume to several companies and within a week had
four job offers in front of me, all of which provided
substantially more pay and benefits.
Also, I spent the two weeks updating my Revit text,
so Revit users can rejoice. You might ask if the
company's upper management learned anything from
this entire fiasco, and I can honestly say...not a
thing. As for the new gig...well, that company is
purely Autodesk Inventor.
