401(k) Rollover

After leaving the Shitshow, one of the first things that I tried to do was rollover my 401(k) account from the crumby one the Shitshow FORCES all employees to use in order to get the company match which is only paid in Shitshow stock (see the Proud Shareholder post). So in my retirement account, I have the choice of crappy managed funds with sky high fees or Shitshow stock. Boy I guess I dont need to worry with a nest egg like that! I am sure the Shitshow is getting kickbacks from the 401(k) management to charge these high fees as long as the Shitshow forces all of its employees to use their services. Anyways, I digress......so I tried to rollover my account and of course they make it nearly impossible to read the website and find the forms necessary to withdraw money but they post the forms to rollover money TO their service on the front page. Go figure. So I call the Shitshow help line and I literally spent 30 minutes being routed around an automated phone system with no option of speaking to a live operator. It was so ridiculous because they made me keep saying out loud for the automated system my last 4 digits of social security number, my address, etc and after I finished reciting this nonsense, the automated system would tell me that it didnt understand what I said and to "please repeat it". After repeating my address, name, etc 25 times, I finally got frustrated and hung up. What great customer service the Shitshow has for its employees who trust the fate of their retirement with them. I can only imagine the type of investment advice these flunkies would give.

Because I cannot even speak to a human being to get my hard earned retirement money from the greedy claws of the Shitshow, I throw rocks.

Shitshow Requirements

During one of my many pointless days at the Shitshow, my moron manager, King Kong, had me working on a government project "mapping requirements". For those of you who dont know what this means, its Shitshow terminology for pissing tax payer's dollars down the toilet. Basically, it involves flowing down requirements from System Requirement Specifications to lower level subsystem specifications and providing a justification of how the Shitshow meets these requirements. Some of the requirements actually make sense but a vast majority of them are written by Bob figures and are just incoherent rambling nonsense. So one day I was trying to document justifications for fulfilling requirements and stumbled across one that blew my mind. The requirement stated "Only the best and brightest shall work on this project"......are you kidding me? Only at the Shitshow would you ever see something this retarded. How the hell do I show that we meet this requirement? Especially since we have Bob figures everywhere, King Kong throwing chairs, The Zookeeper running the department into the ground. I mean, give me a break, we have nothing but a crew of flunkies working at the Shitshow. Nonetheless, I lied and made up some rambling nonsense about "flunktional management selecting only the top notch engineers best suited for the project"......I know what youre thinking......what a value added excercise this is.

Becuase the Shitshow is filled with flunkies who screw everything up and they get credit for being the best and the brightest, I throw rocks.

Throwing Black Berry Rocks

I’m in the process of requesting a shitshow provided black berry.  With any luck I’ll have I will have it by mid-August.

Throwing Rock followers maybe asking themselves “why would Jacko want to be that much more connected to the shitshow?”  The answer is simple; it will drive up cost as well as let me check email from home in the morning to see if the morning meeting was canceled so I can sleep in longer.  Additionally it will allow me to play BrickBreaker and surf the web during meetings.

In fact I told one of my leads to send a note to my flunktional director to approve my black berry.  When he asked me if I was sure I wanted one, I told him yes because it would drive up cost.  Minutes later an email urging my flunktional director to approve the request was sent.  Today I saw that the request was approved by the flunktional director!

Because I can justify a black berry request as a way to add cost and it gets approved, I throw rocks.

Shitshow InSecurity

One of the funniest things about the Shitshow is its security guards (rent-a-cops). Most defense contractors get their security from government approved agencies, such as Pinkerton, to prevent just anyone from walking onto the premises. You may have heard of Pinkerton from the old Western movies, like "3:10 to Yuma". In the old days, they were a force to be reckoned with; a militia of gunslinging cowboys that the US government could count on to protect its interests. Today, this very same security force is comprised of incompetent high school dropouts and grandmothers. Yup, grandmothers. (At minimum wage, I guess you get what you pay for.)

The main purpose of security at the Shitshow is to make sure that anybody walking onto the premises has a badge. This is really their only job and they can’t even do that. You can often walk right past them because…they’re incompetent high school dropouts and grandmothers! It’s hard to notice somebody walking through the main gate when you’re talking to your buddy with your back turned, reading a book, talking on the phone, or even sleeping.

So they need a little nudge sometimes. “Excuse me, would you like to see my badge?” They always jump out of their seat with that one. They not only look at your badge, but come over and touch it to make sure it’s real. Because as the guy who could have snuck past security but chose not to, you’re most likely the biggest security threat and need to be closely inspected! If you ever do walk right past them and they miraculously catch you, they get very mad and sometimes threaten to report you. Of course, nobody takes them seriously because they’d only be reporting themselves for failing to do their job.

Because Hollywood nightclubs have better security than the Shitshow, I throw rocks.

Baby Kong in the Making

Yesterday at the shitshow I was blown away by a true shitshow moment.  One of the flunkies in my group was apparently upset because people on his program were pressuring him to do the work he was supposed to do.    For any average worker the workload wouldn’t be that bad, but this guy is a complete flunky.  He’s not a Bob figure because he actually cares and tries, he’s just incompetent and slow.   I’m guessing he’ll be a flunktional manager in no time (see “An Abundance of Dunces” and “Fail Your Way to the Top”).

Anyways this guys comes into the office area really upset and walks directly to my cubical.  He takes a step into my cubical and starts yelling over and over again “hey Jacko, did you finish that task yet.”   It get’s better, as he’s yelling this phrase he’s kicking my trash can.

I believe I witnessed the birth of a baby King Kong!  It was a beautiful site.  Eventually the local flunktional manager comes out his office 10 feet away from all the yelling and defuses the situation.  

I should have thrown a rock and called HR, but in the end I figured it more entertaining to have a baby King Kong running around.  Of course, flunktional management did nothing to follow up on the situation.

Because baby King Kongs are born in front of me without any repercussion from flunktional management I throw rocks.

Throwing Rocks by Working

At the end of each year, we finally get to take the holidays we missed during the rest of the year (President’s day, Martin Luther King day , and so on).  The shitshow does us a favor by saving our holidays for us and bunching them up around Christmas and New Years for us.

The truth is, for everyone that leaves the company before then end of the year, they get screwed.  Oh well, it helps save money so I’m sure all employees are on board with this strategy.

The funny thing is, there is usually a couple of works days in the week before the holidays start.  If Christmas in on a Thursday, we might get the 24th off but Monday and Tuesday are work days.  Most people end up taking those days off anyways, so the people who stick around usually have lite work loads or can’t get anything done because Bob decided to extend his Winter break.   Now we have people charging for 2 days of work but barely working.

So what does the shitshow do?  Give us additional time off?  Nope, the shitshow ask us to use our personal vacation time during these 2 or 3 days.  Emails come from executives and flunktional managers begging us to take the time off to help reduce cost by not charging programs that are already running “tight.” It's actually pretty funny.

Well boys and girls we have the perfect opportunity to throw rocks here.  I choose to work those days and charge overtime if I can justify it.  Parking is great during those couple of days, I can actually get keep up with emails those days, and it’s a great time to do last minute Christmas shopping on the web!  

Because I’m asked to take time off on certain days of the year and because I loose holiday pay if I leave before the end of the year, I throw rocks.

Explanation of Benefits

So today I come home from my new non-Shitshow job where I actually do real work and I had a package that the post office has had at its office for weeks and they keep sending me post cards to come pick it up.....so today I went to get it. When I went to the post office, they made me sign for it and it was literally 6 inches of paper in 3 envelopes. As I wondered what in the world this could be, I noticed the Shitshow logo on it. So I open it up and it is literally volumes of documentation about my health care package, dental package, etc. Pages and pages of legal crap and the title was "Explanation of Benefits"....so I glanced at it and thumbed through a few of the pages and basically all it was trying to say was that since I had left the company that my healthcare would be expiring soon and the Shitshow wasnt obligated to provide me healthcare anymore........"Explanation of Benefits"

Becuase the Shitshow fills my mailbox with 6 inch thick tomes of worthless paper that say "Explantion of Benefits", I throw rocks.