rue-madame's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Singing praises

TA gave his notice the other day. It went much, much better than expected. It helped that he wrote a very diplomatic letter, stating that his reasons for leaving were strictly personal and that he would be attending grad school fulltime in the Fall.

It went so well, in fact, that he�s pretty much guaranteed:
a) an internship next summer working as part of the group that does technology research and development
b) sponsorship for his thesis project
c) a job at the end of grad school if he�s interested

Not even Operation Bad Apple affected the way TA is perceived. I don�t know if I ever mentioned it, but Operation Bad Apple was a program that TA implemented around May (when he got his acceptance letter) wherein he complained openly about policies at work, argued with colleagues about the general �kiss up/kick down� attitude of mgmt, openly ridiculed the dress code, and marveled out loud at how at company that designs implements for bariatric surgery could have 1) such an overweight workforce, and 2) such unhealthy options in the employee cafeteria.

The fact that he did odd things when frustrated did not adversely affect people�s opinion of him. He flipped over a giant garbage can just to make a giant pile of recycled paper in the middle of the floor. He picked a broken fax machine 6 feet off the ground and dropped it, just to hear all the little bits smash. He broke a bunch of trash cans.

On the other hand, he redesigned the studio space so that the environment would foster more collaboration; he Frankensteined some speakers to his PC so that he could broadcast music into the office; he created a bulletin board for articles on gastric bypass surgery, obesity etc; he routinely TALKED to engineers instead of sending them a million emails; he was on the phone to facilities every 5 minutes getting new lights installed and acoustic tiles replaced; he impressed surgeons with his questions and ideas� not to mention the fact that he brought tons of energy and humor (and color! thanks to his vintage shirts) to a place that was gray and dull and snoresville.

I�m sure I sound like his mom, but I am so proud of him. It�s about time he received positive feedback and recognition (even if it�s the �too little, too late� kind.) It must feel nice knowing that people refer to you as �brain trust.�

Pretty good for a Sociopath.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next