Old Man Affy not dead, Yet!

[Affirmation]

I got a handful of private messages in the Q server, thought I would write a public Forum message thanking all my friends/allies all over this wonderful world for thinking about this silly, crazy old man and checking in on me and Mrs. Affy!!

I got laid off (a REAL up the azz blindsided type layoff with half the company) back in May, luckily I have a 'few' small skills and started another job within a month. Problem was, that company was in a real pinch, and needed about 5 employees on a project about a 2 hours drive time away from where Affy & Mrs. Affy live in our peaceful rural Florida USA farmstead, (and where 'Bad Affy's' dungeon of depravity resides...) so I accepted the new job, UNAWARES of the hell I was getting into.

I got a payraise even, problem is I have worked for this new company (Hotwire Communications LLC) for about 72 days thus far. I have worked 68 of those averaging 13-14 plus hrs a day, bookended by the 4 hour round trip drive. (Most of you know why I like to come home daily to assist Mrs. Affy with her new situation post-stroke). Anyway at one stretch I worked 47 days straight and every weekend since I started this new job. Old Man Affy has lost 55 lbs (from 290 down to 235) and I am back to my US Air Force Reserve weight when I got caught up in Desert Storm in the 90's. They are about to kill my old arse though, so methinks I must start looking for a new job soon before I am over for this world.

Meanwhile I am doing my hired role as Regional Operations Manager, but also filling the roles of Fiber Tech, Field Tech, Sales Engineer, Project/Construction Manager, HBS (Hotwire Business Solutions) Retail Tech, and Network Engineer and was just told this week by my new managers that I am doing such a 'wonderful' job that I will NOT be getting any help anytime soon. Basically I am a manager, hired to manage people, who will NOT have any people to manage!!
(I was stupid enough to do such a great job busting my old azz that they see no need to hire any other people while I am doing all 5/6 jobs myself!! Yeaaaaa me!!)

The best part of this job is I am back exclusively in Fiber Optics, we are delivering 1Gbps Internet/Data/IPTV/and telephone via GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Networking) transport facilities so the work is exciting, but the overall job is killing me. I can't have any fun nor enjoy the technology because I am always running around like a chicken with my azz-feathers on fire!! Here is a link to the Student University housing I was overseeing the engineering and network build-out for:

http://www.stadiumcentre.com/

I also had to engineer and deliver the data connectivity to the new housing complex for the defending National College football Champions FSU (FLorida State University) Seminoles:

http://www.championshall-fsu.com/

Biggest problem with THAT is I am a lifelong UF (University of Florida) Gators fan who are the bitter and hated in-state rivals to FSU. Mrs. Affy found out that I was working for the Champion's Hall project and promptly said "You have to quit that GD job..." (No BS that is the truth! She hates FSU...)

Needless to say in the last 3 months I have designed, engineered, delivered, and maintain a MAN network in Tallahassee Florida between 4 facilities near the FSU campus with a 30 GBps fiber pipeline, capable of delivering Fiber to the Unit - 1 GBps Internet speeds (1000 Mbps!) to a bunch of entitled, impatient, pompous rich-kids and azzholes, and worst yet, also to my hated rival college football team players. YES, I think I am in hell....


Anyway, I hope to find time to get back to playing Quantum soon, but I am averaging 3-4 hours sleep a night for the last 70 days, am so sleep deprived I may just be hallucinating RIGHT NOW thinking I am writing this post to you all, but in fact I am actually half dead having driven off the side of the highway in a sleep-depravation stupor and crunched into a tree...

I have my first weekend off in 7 weekends so I was trying to catch up on a little 'Q' time...

I am OK, Mrs. Affy is surviving OK and I REALLY REALLY appreciate the kind words and the messages when you check up on this old fool!

Cheers to all, keep your health and sanity, and try to live a good life!!
(I have more horrow stories to tell about my new job but we will save those for later...)

[Neimenljivi]

If you're doing the job of 5 people, make them pay you the salary they'd be getting I really hope that new job opportunity pans out mate, it really isn't worth getting yourself killed with all the stress and exhaustion. Your family needs you - and heck, we need to read a few whacked posts every now and then as well

Do you have to deal with getting the permits from land owners as well? And getting the final infrastructure plan based on the permits? That's what I do, for a telecommunications company as well.
I hope you at least get some of the benefits, like laughing your ass off when you're trying to explain something to someone that's drunk in the middle of the afternoon and tries to get you drunk before telling you where he'll allow the lines to go, even though he won't remember it the next day anyway

I know you can't do something like this in a job.. but sometimes you have got to make yourself look completely incompetent for a certain thing in order to leave other people with no choice but to do it themselves and never ask you to do it again Maybe you could try out such a strategy after you've already secured a position at the next job, and just see how far you could wing it, along with the salary not decreasing of course

~Jack