The Update

I can't think of a better title than this. I haven't written in a long time - I refuse to use "blog" as a verb. I don't know how long; it can be counted in months, I'm sure.

I'm at a new job now. It's with a cable company. The fourth largest in the country, actually. I found out that cable companies don't actually compete with each other. Long ago they carved the country up like 19th Century empires carved up Europe. "Comcast, you can operate in the Schleswig and Holstein principalities; Time-Warner, you can have Damatia and Walachia." 

The job is milquetoast. Run a report, provide some analysis from 35,000 feet, escalate to manager and/or someone higher up. Rinse and repeat. But, I'm getting paid 30% more. I'm getting paid 30% more than I was to do a third of what I used to do with little or no ownership. For some reason, I'm not OK with that. 

I see my kids less. R is working her ass off to keep a family of five, which includes three kids at or under the age of three, from descending into anarchic chaos. I have a boss who's so busy he has delegated the de facto management of me - whether he knows so or not - to a squat Filipina woman who is overplaying her hand. He trusts her; she speaks his language. 

She has technically been charged with training me as we have the same role. She been doing this for seven years, so she knows the ins, outs, and pitfalls. She imparts these on me in pieces, often detached from one another, so that I don't get the full picture. I, in turn, crank out reports and analysis that lack key components. She has no problem calling me out in meetings with our boss for lacking said components, but we both know damn well that she left them out of my training on purpose so we would arrive at this occasion. The boss, in turn, doesn't trust what I put out and continues to approach her first for items. Rinse and repeat. 

I don't really care. I have a wife, family, dog, home. I have a life. She's older than me and has a roommate. I have been doing this for a month, and despite the game of self-preservation she is playing, I've gotten to, I would say, about 80% of her knowledge base. She's been doing this same freaking thing for a whopping seven years (shoot me, please). If I were her, I would be engaging in guerrilla warfare, too.

This job is a stepping stone for me. I said that to myself when I took it. Truth be told, I would have stayed at my old gig if it weren't for the money. But, my prize is something else. It ain't this. Only 22.7 months to go.