Once again, the calendar has rolled around to the midway point in the year and I have gotten information about how my next year of financial life is going to shift. That’s right, it’s raise time. I got a decent raise this year. Objectively not stellar, considering my experience and the work I do and so on, but my employer is not known for paying well and I got pretty much the maximum possible raise I could get without getting promoted as well, which is rather uncommon for someone in the upper half of the pay bracket for my current position. My boss seemed pretty surprised by the numbers, but he might have been goofing around. I literally have no idea if any of the things he said were jokes or genuine. I actively interpreted them as jokes in the moment, because my boss is the kind of guy who will let anything slide as long as he’s got you laughing, but I genuinely can’t tell if they were if maybe he’s a lot less involved in how people get raises than I’ve been lead to believe these past nine years.
Continue readingBoss
Going the Distance
“Rob, have those reports on my desk by five.”
“The ones about the iodine levels in our ice cream?”
“Correct.”
“Sure. I’ll scan and email the-”
“I need the actual papers.”
“Mr. Barnes, you know I work remotely.”
“I saw you taking your meeting notes on them and I want those for reference.”
“The scans will have those.” I propped the phone up with my shoulder and dumped the reports into my scanner. “I’ll have Lou print them out.”
“Mr. Gellis, if you don’t have those on my desk by five, you’re fired.”
“Mr. Barnes, that is impossible. I live five states away.” I pressed scan and started emailing Lou with instructions to muss up the papers.
“Then you shouldn’t have applied for remote work!” I could hear his sneer in his voice. He’d been trying to fire me for years because his boss let me move away.
“Fine. They’ll be on your desk by five.”
“See that they are!”
“Have a good afternoon, Mr. Barnes.”
Four and a half hours later, my phone rang. “Hello, this is Robbie Gellis with McLew-”
“These clearly aren’t your papers, Gellis. You’re fired.”
“No can do, Todd. I caught a flight just in time but I had to leave them with Lou so I could catch my return flight. You’ll find my notes throughout the reports and a coffee stain on page two.”
“There’s no way!”
“You’re welcome to come out here and prove otherwise, Mr. Barnes.”
“That’s five states away! I’m not flying over there just to grab some papers.”
“Have a good evening, Mr. Barnes.” I hung up and turned off my work phone. Someday, he might actually do it. I’d find that hilarious because my listed address is five states in the wrong direction. Working by phone was the best.