First off, there is nothing terrible or damning in this post. I am making no threats toward anyone, there are no names mentioned, and I am not even saying anything particularly bad about my workplace; I’m simply sharing my perspective and my perception of my situation. If you are family, instead of overthinking the shit out of my posts and coming at me with doom and gloom worst-case-scenario prophecies, It would be best if you would just leave this site and respect my space.
When I came to my present job, I brought 15 years of IT experience to the table. I’ve been tech support, I’ve been a LAN Manager, I’ve been a Network Engineer, I have been a Linux System Administrator, and I’ve been a Windows System Administrator. I am experienced in scripting languages such as perl and have dabbled in Python, VBScript, and PowerShell and have enough of a working understanding of scripting in general to be able to quickly pick up and adapt to any language that I’m not well-versed in. I am experienced in deploying major software and hardware applications. Yet, my current employer refuses to recognize any of this, and doesn’t think I am capable of much more than being a tech support phone jockey. My pool of skills and experience should be enough to make anyone familiar with and manages any part of IT take me seriously. Yet, I instead live my work life every day with a feeling of complete humiliation any time I’m around the rest of the IT department. This is what my professional life has come to, and there isn’t any hope on the horizon.
Meanwhile, I got you in the door here. I hooked you up with the IT temp agency that I worked for before getting hired on full time. And when that contract was up, I hooked you up with yet another temp agency. Both times, these places reached out to me to ask if I knew of any good candidates because they trusted me. I didn’t have to recommend you, but I did. I felt you deserved a chance since we both learned IT skills in the same way, being self-taught, and I knew that you would otherwise have a tough time getting in the door anywhere without any IT schooling on your resume. I didn’t have to choose you. I could have let you rot away at restaurant jobs the rest of your life. But I got you in the door, which eventually led to you getting hired full time.
Then you decided to apply for the same job opening I did without telling me. This, while you got to listen to me rant and rave every day about the entire process of me getting interviewed for that job, the wait, and then ultimately getting turned down for it. Then when you learned you got the job, instead of choosing to finally say something to me about it, you just sent me a message saying that you could no longer walk with me every day like we had been doing for a long time, and came up with some half-baked excuse about your schedule, which instantly struck me as odd because it didn’t make sense. But I didn’t question you. I went a whole month without knowing, and getting more and more suspicious at your terse responses to me when I would try to strike up conversations or share jokes with you on our company instant messenger.
So imagine my surprise when I finally put 2 and 2 together and realized that you got that job. No matter how much I complain about the unfairness of how 90% of that position was a perfect fit for me, while you were only better versed for 10% of it, you had the skills they wanted. But opting to totally shit on a friend, someone that you’ve told others here was your “best friend”, a person you’ve known for 15 years, the person who chose you to take to that concert of your namesake, the person without whom you would still either be rotting away in a restaurant or rotting away in your bedroom high and depressed and on your way to another institutionalization or suicide…. yeah, fuck that guy, right? I mean, why not? You are set for life, why should I matter? And being a back-stabbing prick is par for the course in the corporate world and the best way to get ahead, according to television.
So yeah, congratulations. I hope you think of me as you enjoy your new life of success and prestige while I die a little more with each forced phone call that I have to take. And who knows, maybe in the process of that you’ll actually grow up and learn how to deal with situations like an adult. I mean, by the time a person is in their 30’s, I’m pretty sure “oh, but he doesn’t like to deal with confrontation” is no longer a valid excuse.
In summary, all you had to do was tell me. While it would have been a bit of a shock knowing that you applied for the job and then got it, I would have accepted it since I am well aware that I sabotaged myself in this case since I never took the time to learn Python, and you were a little more fresh at scripting in general. Attempting to ditch me and stop talking to me before I even knew what was going on was not the right way to handle this. That is why I completely quit speaking to you after I found out about it a month later- Since you already made the decision to ditch me as a friend with no explanation, I can only assume that this is how you want it. The ball is not in my court, not by a long shot.