2003-11-12 - 10:42 p.m.

Call In Sick?

I've been debating calling in sick for tomorrow. The idea didn't enter my head until I was walking down the hall and saw the project manager who was asking me to ignore water quality violations back in August.

Since that time, I've asked to be removed from the project, but since we are short on staff, my request was basically denied. It isn't that I don't like the work, but I do hate this guy's style of management.

However, as a concession to my needs, my management told him that in the future he would have to work through channels and should not be directly talking to me at all. The idea is that once he starts putting unrealistic deadlines on me, if he isn't talking to me, I can just say, "Sorry, I can't do that now."

This is what I wanted all along. It shouldn't be this way, but this guy is an old school engineer who doesn't trust his staff.

Anyway, he came up to me in the hall and said, "[Contour], I'll call you tomorrow about our runs." This was a total shock to me. He is supposed to talk to my bosses first. But instead of saying, "Just talk to Curry, and he'll forward to me any details, as I'm swamped with forecasting work.", I just nodded and say, "Uh, Ok."

Now I'm debating playing hooky in order to just not talk to the guy. He isn't mean, but he is pushy and I've been warned through the grape vine that he has a dumbassed new plan for the studies. While I wouldn't mind doing the actual work, it shouldn't be my job to constantly tell the guy, "I'm are you kidding?!? Operating that reservoir is like shipping cancer straight to the Bay Area?" Or my other favorite, "Do you just want to be laughed at by every biologist? I mean, it is pretty obvious we're just gonna be making up numbers by this method, and if a biologist can see it, that means the lawyers will tear me a new one."

OK, it isn't exactly like that, but the guy is an engineer. He has no use for science. And I hate it when he twists science to make it look like he is using it, but really isn't. No, I've decided I'm just unplugging my phone tomorrow. I'll walk in and tell my boss that this other guy told me he was gonna call me, but that since he is supposed to talk to Curry first that I'm gonna make his job easier for him by unplugging my phone.

Fortunately my current boss doesn't mind it when I out government government. I think he likes my rebellious streak, though at times he does say, "Instead of saying you are gonna run over somebody else's work with a steam shovel, why don't you just say that you're going to give it your full attention. We all know that means you'll tear the study a new one, but management gets worried when they hear you talking about power tools!"

Naturally my boss is right. I wouldn't even trust myself to operate power tools. I do, but if I had a family I wouldn't want to be near me with power tools!

-=-

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