Burning Bridges

This is the photo that was on my security badge.  Behind me, standing tall, is The Tree of Hope.  There were fights over who would get the Tree of Hope.  I handed it over to Tina.  She has been in the department since the start.  She needs the Hope. Randomly, people will come and shake the tree to see how strong it is.  We hope the tree will grow tall enough and strong enough so we can hang ourselves. 
There were a few co-workers that wanted me to do a roast on my last day.  Instead I made the decision I would write some random thoughts of our department.  By the time this is posted, I will have walked out of the building.

I will start with a couple of negatives.  I was lucky and had some good bosses.  Let me talk about the boss that made a Jekyll and Hyde change as soon as she was promoted.  She seemed very nice until she walked from a little cubicle to a high walled office.  At that point she become evil.  The first problem I had with her was someone on the team complained that I would not be her friend.  Seriously?   I was work friendly to her, but we were not friends. Unless we are in grade school, adults do not need to be told who they have to make friends with.  This boss had a very black/white personal.  She had problems when everything did not fit perfectly in her box. Not going to lie, super happy when she moved on!!!  This evil woman made Arizona's life a living hell.  Some people are not good with power.  She was one of them.  I won't name names but she shares a name with a daughter I know.

The other bad boss was a male.  He was super controlling.  He would ask a question and answer it himself.  He once gave me a Rah, rah, corporate book to read.  When I finished, he asked me what my take on it was.  I gave him "my" opinion.  He said I was wrong.  I said I can't be wrong about "my" opinion.  This guy was a huge ego that has been moving up the ladder.  My fear was always that he would come back as a higher level boss.  Thankfully, no longer care.  Keith was a jerk then, I bet he is still a jerk today.

Let me talk about an awesome boss I had.  His name was Brett.  He was our bosses boss.  He was a great guy.  He treated us all with respect.  He tried to make us laugh.  He would come into the department with toilet paper on his shoe and pretend he did not know it was there.  He did John Wayne imitations.  He showed us if you think the job is fun, it becomes fun.  Arizona and I wrote a Twas The Night Before Christmas parody for him.  Weirdly, the evil bosses were at the same time as the great boss.

 I could probably make most of this list about the great times with Arizona.  We had great lunches.  We had so much fun together.  We could pack a 45 minute lunch full of fun.  We would find places to go and call them Field Trips.  One place that stands out in my mind was the bread store.  Seriously, that was fun for us.
Most of the time there were three of us.  Arizona, L2IJ, and I.  L2IJ was from a small town and had not lived in our city long.  She was scared of everything.  If L2IJ learned to get to my house from her house, that was the only way she could do it.  She could not go from the office.  She would drive home and go from there.  She was (and probably still is) very superstitious.  My favorite was "splitting a pole."  If three of us were walking and came up to a light pole, I went right, Arizona went left, that left L2IJ with a decision to make.  The person that walked alone was going to have bad luck.  She always tried to remember and rotate who went alone.  Once Arizona and I figured out what she was doing, we always split the poles. 
After lunch we would pull back in the parking lot.  Most of the time I drove.  Arizona would open her door too hard, bam whack the car next to us.  She would say, might want to find another place to park.  Top two lunches.  First was when L2IJ told us she finally watched Friends.  She was very excited and felt like she was cutting edge cool.  We ask what episode she watched.  She starts telling us.  We are like, no, no, that is not Friends.  L2 she gets dead serious, Yes it was Friends.  Eventually, we figure out she was watching Will and Grace.  We laughed so hard we cried.  Number 2 on the list of great lunches was riding in Arizona's beater car.  She realized she missed a turn.  She pulls a U-Turn (kind of a rural road) and goes into the ditch to make the turn.  Arizona was easily distracted while driving.  I worry that she drives with her children in the car now.

Stand Ups.  These are casual meetings we have (now once a week).  Management comes to us, we gather round and listen to whatever they have to complain about.  Our Managers are famous for never saying anything nice without following it up with two or three complaints.  Stand Ups are designed to be quick so that those of us doing the work cannot have time to voice our concerns or ask questions.  They prefer not having our input. 

We have five managers over our area.  Each manager is over a team.  The last time they moved us around they moved the managers so they are not located next to their employees.  Not that it matters.  Finding a manager when we have questions is kind of like finding a needle in a haystack.  There are times we can go all day without a manager sighting.  They are in constant meetings.  I'm sure they have meetings about how many meetings they have.  I think the company could accomplish more with less meetings, more work. 

Most obnoxious current manager.  This is the last guy anyone wants to go to with a question.  The only time most people go to him is when he is the only manager on the floor.  Asking him a question is like spitting in the wind.  Here are a few of his favorite answers:  What do you think?  (I think if I wasted all this time locating a manager and came to you, I don't know.)  What does the Claim Manual say about it?  Didn't we discuss this at our last stand-up?  Let me check into that and talk to the other managers.  We'll talk about it at the next stand up.  (We are never going to talk about it because we really don't care.)  All his answers mean the same thing, I have no idea but will continue to act condescending and arrogant.
This guy loves any report.  His new fascination is graphs.  He'll send out graphs that we have no idea what they mean.  Essentially, it is all about making the managers look good.  The most important things to Managers is finding an awesome report that makes them look fantastic.  They make up reports about reports that report on how great they are at writing reports.  Big waste of time!

File Reviews.  File Reviews are when a group of Managers go into a conference for about a week.  Their purpose is to review 10 files that each of us have worked on.  File Reviews make perfect sense if they are used in the correct way.  Procedures change all the time.  If I am doing something wrong over and over, I want to be told.  If I do not understand a procedure, I want it pointed out.  That is not how they are used.  Most Managers (almost all), use file reviews to "ding" (find an error) in every file they review.  They will pick, pick, pick.  There are only a couple that will compliment when they see good work.

Numbers, numbers, numbers.  We want quality handling.  It is not about how many files you handle it is about how well you handle them.  Not about quantity, it is about quality.  Sounds good.  If it were really true, we would not be handed papers with our monthly numbers.  We do not get monthly lists of how many things we did great.

It is frustrating to see how many smart, talented people are being wasted because they do not fit some corporate mold.  It makes me sad.  It is such a waste.

If you watched the show The Office or the movie it is too close to being an accurate portrayal of the work place.

Here are some of my favorite lines:

We do not owe you a break.  If you have to use the restroom and cannot wait until lunch, of course you can use the restroom.  Getting water, going to the restroom, these are comfort breaks. 

We have discovered some of you are going to lunch in large groups and not leaving enough people to cover the phones.  Now instead of addressing this with the people that are abusing the system, we will find a way to make all of you suffer.  You can insert any complaint into this group.  They never direct problems to the people that are causing the problems.  They have to talk to all of us.

To those of you saying, you should be grateful to have a job.  You are well paid, you get regular raises, you have great benefits.  There is a reason for that.  The jobs get worse and worse every year.  They pay well to keep every single person from quitting. Every time they make procedure changes the jobs become more and more robotic.  We joke that a monkey could do our jobs.  It would work out great for everyone.  Put diapers on the monkeys and they won't need "comfort breaks."

My current boss is a wonderful, positive breath of fresh air.  Did not have her long.  Enjoyed the year I was with her.  Before her I had the same boss for about 9 years.  He was a good boss.  I enjoyed working for him.  He trusted us to do our jobs without being micro-managed.  That was a good thing. 

Disclaimer:  You probably don't want to read this if you don't work in claims.
One of the most inappropriate but hilarious moments that I remember.   One day I had a claim where a person committed suicide with his car.  Not uncommon.  He went to a big parking lot and drove as fast as he could into a brick wall.  Stormy and I were discussing the accident.  I noticed it happened at 8:45am.  I said, what would cause someone to do that at 8:45 in the morning.  Without missing a beat, Stormy said, He had to work the 9:00 shift.  I can hear several of you laughing out loud from reading this.

There are many, many more great people than not. I have met some wonderful friends. I have met people from such diverse backgrounds. More people care about doing a good job and helping people than those that do not care. I had so many good times. I did plenty of laughing. I managed to make some miserable times more fun. You know I will miss some of you so much. Stay in contact.

I'll miss the laughter, the bitter, sarcastic humor.  The people I gravitate to seem to be great with sarcasm.  Next time you are driving to Chicago, stop by, find the Sweet Shop.

Thanks for sharing 12 years of my life.  (Was it really only 12 years?  Seemed much longer.)

JMGS has left the building.