Category: :(

surprise road trip down to murica today. kids wanted desperately to try chick-fil-a and the closest one was in plattsburg, ny. k also wanted to go to target to… i don’t even know, she just wanted to go. in the end all we purchased was one overpriced football, a bag of parmesan flavored goldfish and an unnecessarily large bottle of sweet baby ray’s. oh and a bottle of baja blast for each of the kiddos.

i remember going to champlain center mall as a kid and it being this magical place filled with people and stores of all kinds. a place where you could buy almost anything. a consumerism mecca of sorts. to this day, people around here still reference “going to plattsburg” when talking about going on excessively large shopping trips for all kinds of random shit…

well holy hell has that place changed. granted, the last time i went there was likely 30 years ago, but i was not expecting this… not only was the champlain center mall a deserted skeleton filled with depression, but the entire town of plattsburg was just… sad? fast food joints, nail salons, vape shops, pawn shops, and a variety of other establishments that all screamed bien-être social. my use of french there was 100% intentional. i saw more quebec plates and heard more, VERY LOUD french speakers there than i do in montreal. every single one of them being the worst kind of quebecois. you know the kind, the loud mouths who insist their uniligualism makes them special and deserving of equally special treatment, the ones who believe the government owes them everything, the ones who are about as cultured as fucking turnips.

i don’t think i’ll be returning anytime soon. even though the chick-fil-a was good.

in other completely unrelated news, just when i thought i knew reddit pretty well, i stumbled across a subreddit today that really surprised me. r/UnsentLetters

woah… surreal. don’t go there if you’re not ready to get wrecked. i’m both in awe and traumatized by that sub. some of the writing there is impossibly good, but the subject matter is all just completely heartbreaking in a million different ways. a lot of it is like an ultra sad bizzarro version of craigslist missed connections from 10-15 years ago.

perhaps i am a glutton for punishment, but lately i have been having an overwhelming need to just feel something, and wow… this is like coming in from the cold and jumping straight into the fire to warm up. and i kind of… like it? i think i may also have some content to contribute… using a throwaway of course.

i love my job. for sure there are some parts which are challenging, and there are days that are so overwhelming that i can barely function as a human, but despite all this, i still, after almost 18 years, love it. i’ve done so much and learned so much and changed so much because of this job. i struggle to even conceive of another path i could have followed that would have given me the same level of fulfillment both personally and professionally.

yet, there is one part of it that i loathe. and the worst part about it is i know what needs to be done to fix it, but alas, it is out of my reach to effectuate any change on.

talent budget. fuck me. this is all managed by finance and vp of operations and then handed down to every dept head, who just have to make lemonade with the rotten, sour lemons we’re given. i know how they do it, and it drives me nuts. they look at the numbers for the last year and then laser focus on profitability only. they then make a calculation based on that one metric to answer the question “what percentage increase to the salary cap can we apply across the board, and maintain profitability targets?” which then gets directly translated into the budget available for annual salary reviews for all staff. so for example, if our profitability target is 15% and we’re currently doing say, 16%, exceeding targets. they then calculate what that would mean in salary cap increase to maintain at least 15%. this often translates to something like 2.5% for raises. which coincidentally is exactly the magic number for this year. i’ll let you imagine what happens when we don’t hit profitability targets…

anyhow, that means for each employee i need to meet this year, i can offer them a 2.5% raise.

inflation rate alone this past year is closer to 2.9%. so i have to, with a straight face, tell people who are doing their job perfectly well that as a reward for their hard work, they will have less money in their pocket this year.

meanwhile, the company they work for maintains their profitability targets, and as part of the leadership/management/executive board/team (we don’t really have the terms defined), i get bonuses because of it.

this feels so wrong. i hate, hate, hate how this works.

don’t get me wrong, i am not some kind of saintly figure who happily will give up my bread in order to feed the unwashed masses. i like making money. and if i offer a significant contribution and personal sacrifice in order for this company to achieve good profitability, i expect my cut. i don’t work for free. but i also want to recognize the contribution others have given. i would never have been able to achieve what i have without the dedication of the people who work for me.

certain roles and even certain departments are MORE VALUABLE than others to the company. that needs to be acknowledged and accounted for. sometimes certain individuals or even whole teams go above and beyond and really push the envelope, they deserve to be compensated for that effort, even if it means cutting into the profit margin temporarily. over the ever so slightly longer term, that investment will be paid back in improved productivity, efficiency, culture and ultimately profitability tenfold as they continue to push push push and set the example for others to do the same.

you know what happens to a high performer who gets slapped in the face one too many times? they lose their motivation, they stop performing, or they simply leave.

i so wish that instead of this arbitrary percent calculation for raises, each department would be afforded a total talent budget and then allow the department heads to allocate that budget as they see fit. the budget should be considered as a percentage based on the value of said department and should be adjusted quarterly in order to account for new contracts, or the loss of existing contracts. this would make the whole process of hiring and firing so much more accountable and representative of the overall health of the company and team and also allow individual contributors, or high performing teams to be compensated more equitably.

if i have a team of 5 high performers doing the job of 10 average performers, i would like the ability to compensate those 5 accordingly. unfortunately with the current system, i cannot. and instead i get to slap each of them in the face and hope they do not quit.

today i am doing evals, and i fucking hate it.

ok, vent over. not sure i will keep this post up, i just needed to get that out of my system.

8:30am. i’ve been at work for the last hour and a half. my eyes are bloodshot, my stomach is in knots. i couldn’t even bother to take a shower when i finally got out of bed this morning. thank god i work from home in my own little private corner in the basement of my house.

one coffee down, do i make myself another, or do i go for the more easily digestible redbull? i’m going to have to pick. why can’t i pick?

last night i tried going to bed “early” at 11pm. i thought i was tired, but apparently not tired enough. you know that feeling when you are just barely starting to fall asleep and then your whole body just fucking jolts and it almost feels like you’re falling for a fraction of a second? or you know the feeling of, i guess it’s some kind of acid reflux or something, but it happens while you are half asleep so you get woken up by the feeling of drowning in battery acid? that was the theme of my night. each event interspersed with thoughts and half dreams about things i didn’t want to think or dream about.

this morning is an endless stream of meetings. i’m not really paying attention. this afternoon i have meetings which were cancelled but i left them in my calendar so that no one could book me. i feel guilty about that. but honestly, i’m not sure i can deal with it today.

ok, redbull. get up, go. do it.

first, g, fuck you man. despite the fact we almost never see each other anymore, i love you like a brother. you’re one of the most important and influential people in my life. i know i wouldn’t be who i am today without you. no joke, you are one of the very few people in this world i would take a bullet for without any hesitation.

so it fucking KILLS ME when you pull this shit. i know you have social anxiety and a million other self diagnosed ailments, but dude, it’s me. you understand that you are a terrible liar, right? i don’t even care if it’s just a text, an email, a voicemail, we don’t even need to see each other in person or leave our respective homes. just please stop stop stop making plans and then disappearing. i can’t take it. i needed to talk to you, and i think you wanted to talk to me too.

you’re leaving the day after my birthday. are you going to AT LEAST reply before then? tick tock mother fucker. <3

next, k8, i really should send this to you in an email, but for whatever reason i feel like i need to state this out loud, well, this isn’t exactly out loud, but whatever, you know what i mean.

i read through everything and my heart broke a million times. i so wish i could have been there in some capacity for you. but instead i had my head up my ass. i can’t help but wonder how things could have been different if only i had picked up the phone, answered an email, anything at all. i also can’t help but feel indirectly responsible, a contributing factor or at the very least an influential precursor to so many of your trials. maybe i am giving myself more credit than i am due. maybe i am just projecting based on the headspace you take up for me. i don’t know. either way, i really do hope you’re currently the happiest you have ever been. you deserve that. also, please don’t give up on writing. just fucking do it. i know it’s hard. trust me, i know it all too well. even if what comes out doesn’t live up to your standards, it’s fine. at least you did it. you have a gift with words that i certainly envy. don’t wait until it’s too late to use it.

last, k, bruh… why must you insist on poo-pooing on everything. i was excited about that AND the other thing too, and now i just want to give up on both. thanks.

many times at work when working on a project, troubleshooting an issue or reviewing someone else’s game plan for the same i get this feeling that i’m missing something which will cause major problems for no apparent reason, or that there is imminent danger if i continue on that approach because i am working based on false assumptions or information. it regularly leads me to make decisions based on ‘gut feel’. more often than not, i’m right to do so and quickly discover a seemingly unrelated issue that would otherwise be a showstopper with the current plan. and even if i’m not necessarily right, then at least one potential cause of failure gets ruled out for certain. risk vs reward is always in my favor, because the worst possible outcome is that i will have spent a bit of time double checking something that is fine. so the only thing ‘wasted’ is a bit of time.

the same cannot be said for things that happen outside of work. i have the same feelings, the same impending doom predictions, or that the story is wrong, or even what the truth really is that no one is willing to admit… but it is so much harder to address it because fixing things sometimes means breaking things first. when you break something with people, unlike a line of code or a configuration setting, there is no undo, there is no revert, there are no backups you can restore.

e, years ago when you had your crisis, i knew your story was a complete fabrication, and i know what the truth was. but you sold a story to everyone and i went along with it. you’ll never read this, but i knew the truth, because i know you. it’s ok, i’ve been there too.

j, i know you know. and i know you know that i know that you know. we’re never going to talk about it, but i know.

z, stop it. you think i don’t know what’s happening? of course i do. i wish we could talk about it. we’re more alike than you know. i think i could help you, or if nothing else, we could be miserable together and you would not need to do it alone. then again, if i were in your shoes, i would probably do the same. actually, i did do the same. so i guess i can’t blame you.

m, i see you. (edit: phrasing? re-reading this it sounds incredibly creepy, jesus christ. that was not my intent, i don’t actually see you.)

and last but not least, k… i’ve messed up so many things, i don’t even know what to think any more. but for a while my spidey senses have been literally on fire and all i want to do is talk to you about it because i know there is something, but i am terrified to find out and i am terrified that it likely is a cat which can never be put back in the bag.

so i guess i will just go with the flow, and wait to see what happens next, like i always do because i’m too much of a chicken to rock the boat.

and in today’s episode of steve blurting things out before thinking them through and then probably regretting it later…

i slept soundly last night for the first time in like a month. as good as it felt, i woke up this morning feeling… i don’t know, scared? upset? worried? disappointed? angry at myself? i’m not even sure, but it wasn’t good.

ok, i’m just going to say it… i’ve been unhappy for a long time. lately it’s been pretty bad and i have been doing some things i’m really not proud of. a lot of it seems to be about love, attention, affection, intimacy, things like that. something that i feel i am missing in my life. i looked in so many of the wrong places to find it, and i made things weird for some people. it’s made me think a lot about a lot of things i didn’t want to think about. and i think maybe i’m doing it again.

i reached out to you for a lot of reasons. i’ve never been happy about how things ended. i regret how i treated you. i miss talking to you. i have so many, life changing, good memories in my head associated to you. i think part of me never got over you either… also, the last time i felt this way was when i first met you and you made the bad go away. but fuck you steve. that’s not fucking fair and you can’t expect the same things now. seriously, FUCK YOU. you’re a selfish prick. asshole. i wish i could punch you in the fucking face right now.

one email is all it took, and then suddenly my outlook on everything seemed less hopeless. one email and i was able to sleep again. one email and everything that’s happened in the last few weeks suddenly snapped into clarity.. and shame.

but that’s not right. am i just doing it again but placing this shit on you? i don’t know. i don’t want that to be it. please don’t let that be it. please let me have the courage to talk to you about this. please don’t judge me too harshly. please don’t be weirded out or disgusted by my actions. please be a friendly ghost from my past who can help me make sense of all this and find healthy ways to get past it.

thank god i’m fully booked at work today, i don’t think i could handle being alone with my thoughts right now.