« Photo of the Day | Main | More Memory? »

July 19, 2005

Negotiating with Johnny Paycheck

I have had two people now mention something that made it clear they misunderstood a bit in my post on the Week From H*ll. Part way through I comment:

Twice this week I was on the verge of getting Johnny Paycheck to do my negotiating.

What did I mean? Did it mean I was haggling for a bigger paycheck?

Nope. I was referring to a song made popular by Johnny Paycheck (although apparently he didn't write it). The chorus to the song goes:

Take this job and shove it
I ain't workin' here no more
My woman done left and took all the reasons
I was workin' for
You better not to try to stand in my way
As I walk out the door
Just take this job and shove it
"Cause I ain't workin' here no more.

So when you suggest negotiating through Johnny Paycheck - you actually mean to "quit" your job. Of course, you could always do it like the bloke quoted over at skipjack.info [NOTE: Link updated] ...

[Copy in the extended entry as Skipjack's blog was unreachable at the time....]

Copied from skipjack.info...

Apparently, this is an actual letter of resignation from an employee at “Zantex Computers”, Australia, to his boss, J Pilgrim. His boss, known as Pilly, apparently resigned very soon afterwards!

Dear Mr Pilgrim

As an employee of an institution of higher education, I have a few very basic expectations. Chief among these is that my direct superiors have an intellect that ranges above the common ground squirrel. After your consistent and annoying harassment of my co-workers and myself during the commission of our duties, I can only surmise that you are one of the few true genetic wastes of our time.

Asking me, a network administrator, to explain every little nuance of everything I do each time you happen to stroll into my office is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of precious oxygen. I was hired because I know how to network computer systems, and you were apparently hired to provide amusement to myself and other employees, who watch you vainly attempt to understand the concept of “cut and paste” for the hundredth time. You will never understand computers. Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options. You will also never understand why people hate you, but I am going to try and explain it to you, even though I am sure this will be just as effective as telling you what an IP is.

Your shiny new iMac has more personality than you ever will.You walk around the building all day, shiftlessly looking for fault in others. You have a sharp dressed useless look about you that may have worked for your interview, but now that you actually have responsibility, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for your glaring ineptitude. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle. Seeing as this situation is unlikely to change without you getting a full frontal lobotomy reversal, I am forced to tender my resignation; however I have a few parting thoughts.

1. When someone calls you in reference to employment, it is illegal to give me a bad recommendation. The most you can say to hurt me is “I prefer not to comment.” I will have friends randomly call you over the next couple of years to keep you honest, because I know you would be unable to do it on your own.

2. I have all the passwords to every account on the system, and I know every password you have used for the last five years. If you decide to get cute, I am going to publish your “favourites list”, which I conveniently saved when you made me “back up” your useless files. I do believe that terms like “Lolita” are not usually viewed favourably by the administration.

3. When you borrowed the digital camera to “take pictures of your mothers birthday”, you neglected to mention that you were going to take pictures of yourself in the mirror nude. Then you forgot to erase them like the techno-moron you really are. Suffice it to say I have never seen such odd acts with a ketchup bottle, but I assure you that those have been copied and kept in safe places pending the authoring of a glowing letter of recommendation. (Try to use a spell check please. I hate having to correct your mistakes.)

Thank you for your time, and I expect the letter of recommendation on my desk by 8:00am tomorrow. One word of this to anybody, and all of your little twisted repugnant obsessions will be open to the public.

Never f*** with your systems administrator. Why? Because they know what you do with all that free time!

Sincerely

Adrian Barragan

Posted by Ozguru at July 19, 2005 07:00 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://mu.nu/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2366

Comments

yeah sorry about that switching software, and there is no good script for converting wordpress to drupal

Posted by: skipjack at July 20, 2005 05:14 AM

here is a updated link to the letter
http://www.skipjack.info/?q=node/83

Posted by: skipjack at July 20, 2005 05:39 AM

I think the summary is that there is rarely a good way to convert from anything to anything (as I struggle to convert the next 1000 wordpress posts to MT3)....

Posted by: Ozguru at July 26, 2005 08:11 AM

Thanks for the update. I have amended the links in the post...

Posted by: Ozguru at July 27, 2005 10:11 AM