Did four years undergraduate at Drew University and went out with a BA - majors in History and Classical Studies.
Moved to Florida for two years and got a Master’s in Latin at UF.
Moved back to NJ in the middle of a recession so stayed with the parents…and there I am. I found miscellaneous work for a few months after moving back up, got certified as an EMT and joined the local volunteer ambulance corps for kicks, then started at a very small risk management company where the yearly turnover is about 200%. It’s been horrifying. I’ve been wanting to get fired but the sons of bitches won’t do it. Probably still scared because I confronted them with evidence of some illegal conduct. Had’em by the balls.
People don’t believe what this place is like when I tell them. Office hours are 8:30 to 5:30, but performance is based on “billable” hours - hours we can show we did work on clients that the clients will pay for. Naturally they harp on this all the time and load us up on non-billable work. Weeks are typically 50-60 hours with the expectation that you’ll answer calls anytime - there have been conference calls at 7am on Sundays. We get email and tasks to do in the middle of the night with the expectation the stuff will be done by office hours the next morning. Back in February I did three straight weeks of 7:30am to 7 or 8 at night, and went in on Saturdays and Sundays. Was horribly sick at the same time, too. That’s part of the best aspect of this job - if you take a sick day, you’re expected to make up the billable hours as if you hadn’t. Same for vacation and personal days. Get fewer of each than is standard, too.
I once worked a 14 hour day in October. 7am to 10:45pm on a Friday. Scrambling to do work the VP directed me to do. Owner didn’t like how much time got billed to a certain client, directed VP to take it out of the system. I caught wind of it due to excellent hearing, printed out the billing records before they got deleted. Printed out the records after, too. Threw them in a folder until after the 3-week nightmare in February resulted in nothing more than me getting yelled out for about 15 minutes, then interrupted a company meeting by walking in, throwing the proof down on the table in front of everyone, and accusing the VP of fraud. That was damn fun. All this would be fine, but they pay beans and there’s no hope for promotion. Couldn’t rock the boat until I A) had worked long enough to qualify for unemployment if I get fired and B) put in a full year (looks better on a resume).
Months later…leaving soon. Sent resumes out this morning. Looking to go into a larger company, probably not insurance. I have a non-compete blocking me there. However, given the 200% turnover, I now have a healthy number of business contacts I’ve met over the past year and prospects look good for internal IT auditing at a large financial company in the crown jewel of NJ cities, Newark. People die there a lot. We shall see. Job’s made me miserable for a disproportionate amount of time. Time to change.
Meanwhile, I continue as a volunteer EMT. I’m not exactly an adrenaline junkie, but it’s best I do something good while I’m young. I also have a little dog, a rescue case about 2 years old. She is very cute. Anyone who argues can meet me out by the flagpole at 3.
RPGC should have some sort of meet-up now that many of us are actual people instead of (only) O/C teens typing up videogame guides.
And one of the reasons I don’t post more often, as I was just reminded, is that the site logs me out in the time I take typing something up. Thank goodness I remembered to copy this one first.