The Camel's Straw

I know its very unordinary for me to blog two days in a row, but I'm so angry right now I thought that maybe writing down what I'm feeling would make me feel better. My boss(es) are really pissing the hell out of me lately, enough so that I'm having trouble sleeping because I am this consuming ball of rage right now. Its kind of hard to set the context for why I am feeling what I am feeling, but I'll try anyway.

As I said before, back over the summer there were some major major issues with some software I was trying to use for my thesis work. I spent all summer working with various people trying to resolve the problems as they popped up one after another, before finally resigning myself to not using it and omitting that set of experiments from my thesis altogether. Of course I wasted so many weeks over the summer on this problem that I ahd to delay my graduation for a semester, which I was not happy about. There was also a guy from India that was supposed to be helping me with this, but due to various difficulties, he produced absolutely nothing useful for me and just ended up wasting my time.

Anyway, so there have been at least two distinct instances now where my boss gets this really condescending tone toward me and tells me that I "better graduate this December". When he says that I become infuriated because if its anyone's fault that I didn't graduate in August, its HIS. He doesn't seem to remember me telling him that there were all these problems with our existing software and that's the reason why I didn't graduate. Hell, as far as I know he's not even doing anything to address those problems. After all, I suppose it wouldn't be good if HIS bosses found out, would it? Instead our team just keeps plugging along, while relying on this crumbling foundation of shit. And then this week (while on my leave of absence), I went in to work to do some experiments and I get asked if I can attend the Monday morning conference calls. I was a little miffed that I was asked that, so I politely replied "Nope, sorry. I'm not being paid right now and I'm only here to work on things that I need to finish for my thesis, nothing more.". But I get talked to about that, and got told some crap that I have an "obligation in my continuing relationship with Freescale to finish the projects to which I was assigned". Seriously, what kind of bullshit is that? I'm an unsalaried employee there, hence I am unexempt from the provisions of the US Fair Labor Standards Act, and they want me to do work for free? Screw that man.

I am already considering finding another job, either within Freescale or elsewhere. That's pretty freaking sad considering that I haven't even begun working there full-time yet. I don't want to work a job that just leaves me coming home feeling extremely stressed and angry every night, that's not what I want. I want a job that I enjoy doing, and that I can feel good about. Money really doesn't matter to me, but happiness does. I had a really tough time going to sleep last night because I was so pissed about all this (and ended up being 15 minutes late for my class as a result), and I have a feeling that tonight might turn out the same way. Ironic isn't it, that I am more stressed/angry about my job when I am on a leave of absence than when I am actually there?