Happy Fun Cog

I've been reading a great book lately. I won't mention the title lest I offend people with scrunched tastes in Southern literature, though if one were to look for it in a library it could be find by searching for "Edisto." Anyway, a particular passage struck me as being fitting to this part of my life, excluding the promiscuous drifters, fish, juke joints, and imperious but ultimately practical mothers:

This was heavy news. Taurus was good as gone. That didn't really bother me, especially because of the yet confusing whiskey revelation, but I knew I'd get over that and like him the same for showing me all he did, in the end. But I hadn't figured leaving the neighborhood - accessible mullet and the Baby Grand, the sporting life, being the Duchess's boy, and all that. That would be tough. I just figured I'd be tough, something was finally happening good or bad for damn sure, and if the good old days were on a respirator, I'd do them the service of going around and pulling the plug.

I've written many times in this blog about the frustrations I feel at work. I've spent a good deal of digital ink writing about one particular co-worker, a man who embodies much of what I despise in people - he's unprofessional, incompetent, refuses to take responsibility for his mistakes, and so on.

Recently, he was on vacation for a few weeks. For one part of that stretch, another co-worker who supports the same software I and the shithead described above work with; and that other co-worker was, when she was around, mostly focused on a big project that's going live soon.

The fact that I had to work harder and handle more tasks because fuckface wasn't around made me understand the reality of the everyday situation a little more. Quite simply, from a resource perspective, we need people. In the face of the practical demands of supporting software and being able to tell the business "Yes, we have people like that," even incompetent people are valuable. Furthermore, my team supports very specialized pieces of software, which makes it even harder to find people who can do the job.

Honestly, my anger towards him feels more like a mental exercise more than anything else. It's frustrating to work with him, especially knowing that he makes a lot of money (possibly more than me, but that's a different story) while doing less work and having less responsibility. I know for a fact that I will continue to get angry with him. But I think I understand the situation more. He does have value to the company. And as long as he's there to handle the bullshit small tasks that come with supporting all this software, that frees me up to pursue other aspects of technical support. My current manager has been engaging more in project management, giving me more responsibility and giving me more room to show initiative. So, ironically, the bastard actually has value to me as well.