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Apologies, confessions and a bit of a rant

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Contro:
 :-* Are you a programmer ?

I am not the most indicated to tell you nothing. I have been ruined twice in my life. All the money lost. Now I work for myself but I have spent long periods working for others as commercial : selling bricks, elevators , fire extinguisers, books and so on.
I also think I deserve more, but the reality tells me is not an easy thing.
Everything for me is relative (as Einstein told), so I apply good sense of humor and perseverance.
I have been for years president of business people and never will let anybody treats me with injustice. I will fight forever. And of course neither of my fellows.
I have defeated the injustice many times with the simplest words.
So I hope you will be happy doing the very best for you. Put the point in place.

 :P

mouser:
I'm sorry to hear about your struggles with humans and office politics.. This article about autistic workspaces came to mind -- though I'm not saying your issues have anything to do with that.

I don't have any good advice about such things.. It sounds incredibly stressful.  But you aren't giving up and that's the important thing, I think.  Try to rise above the bitterness and frustration and be as zen about it all as you can be.

oblivion:
Thanks to everyone -- many wise words and supportive stuff, and that's all really helpful, even if only to help me arrange my thoughts.

I have another meeting with HR next week. The idea seems to be "as long as we talk to him occasionally, he won't throw his toys out of the pram."

I'm not sure about zen-like, but I'm planning on spending some more time investigating meditation, just as a way to achieve some more focus.

I'm planning to ask HR why their policy appears to allow perjury (okay, it wasn't a courtroom but it was a formal inquiry) to pass with impunity but for the subject of the attack to continue to be excluded, marginalised and anything else I can think of that reflects the way I feel.

Thing is, the organisation (whether it likes it or not) doesn't have anyone else who's prepared to get down-and-dirty with some of the more specialised systems we use. (I didn't say, but I work for a hospital. Or three hospitals, really, all part of a single organisation. So some of the specialised systems interact with diagnostic equipment with a specialist operator at one end, a patient at the other, and a PC and/or a file server somewhere around making things happen, or just storing data, or some combination thereof.) Most of our techies don't deal with the clinical elements of our systems or, if they do, it's only the data movement and storage end of things.

But that makes me complicated and confusing. My management wants me to be like a Lego brick (replaceable with any other Lego brick with access to an interchangeable set of core skills) but my primary attribute -- I get interested in weird stuff and have enough smarts to be able to apply general computing skills to things that look very, very odd being used by people with some extremely specialised skills in their own right -- isn't something that's easy to duplicate. I'm not unique, but I'm definitely regarded in that way and it's only a small step to jump from "weird" to "a problem to be solved."

It's almost certainly the case that my ex-boss has (a) a personality disorder, (b) a history of ... how to put this ... inappropriate relationships with colleagues that has almost certainly added another human being to the world, and (c) no people skills -- which may be related to (a) and may just be How It Is.

I think point (b) above may be the root of some of my problems, because I was quite friendly with two of the colleagues I'm aware of and, despite his apparent desire to stay married, I think -- not jealousy, exactly, but an overwhelming need to possess things / people  -- caused me to be regarded as The Enemy.

How much of this stuff I can use to make my problems go away? Maybe none of it. But I've just turned 57 (3 weeks ago today, for the curious) and it's hard to see that potential alternative employers are going to be easy to find, particularly if I don't want to go back to spending hours commuting.

In one sense, though, I'm really lucky, and really grateful. The people I work most closely with -- various clinicians, clinical managers and teams -- have all been really supportive, and never fail to remind me how helpful they feel I am, and how much better it is that I'm there for them rather than how it used to be before I got involved with their systems. And some of the letters they wrote (character references for the disciplinary that I ended up not needing to use) -- well, perhaps I should just say that a tear or two was shed.

So I'm still battling on. I just wish I felt that the corporate side of the organisation was a bit more inclined to fairness (rather than just paying lip service to the concept.)

And I'm still not doing very well at contributing here. Hopefully, that'll improve with time. :)

wraith808:
This isn't the life you deal with day to day.  Look at this as an escape, and visit as you have a chance.  I hope things get better- I know how work can affect all of the other areas of your life.  :) :Thmbsup:

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