Best day ever
Despite the fact that all I do all day is work, things could not be better. As the economy trends further and further into despair, I am only getting lifted higher and higher. I am still settling into my new position, which started with a morning meeting that I will not forget.
At work I unwillingly took leadership for a java project, that I only got in on by accident. Now, I have been unwillingly given complete control on that project as well. Instead of accepting my help as a one time deal, this project manager used me to get out of being the project manager. This guy tried to dump everything on me, not only the projects tasks and it's deadlines, but it's failures as well. Last monday, he attempted to blame me for not having a portion of the project completed at the deadline date. He tried to spin everything in a way that made it sound that I took complete responsibility on completing that task, one that I knew nothing about. But, instead of arguing that I was not involved and saying that the other project manager is lying, I took the blame.
Once he was done I stood up, walked to the stand and played right into this project managers hand. I took complete responsibility on the project, on how the other developers and I were working out a major issue that the project manager missed, and now that it was resolved, completion of the project would only be a few days longer. What was amusing about the whole situation is that none of the other executives or managers even knew that I was on the project. Therefore when they saw and heard that I was taking blame for something they knew I wasn't even involved with, they knew I wasn't heavily involved.
That project manager booked it like a pansy the second the meeting was over, which also showed to me that he couldn't dare looking me straight in the eye afterwards. Surprisingly none of the executives or other higher ups said anything to me, or asked me any questions. So I did what any person would do when someone stabs you in the back, you take the knife out from your own back and drive it through that person's skull.
I called a meeting of the developers working on that project, and borrowed the conference room to have a meeting. Sat the four guys down, and had a discussion with them about it. Turns out, that none of the four were working on this project, because their project manager has been swarming them all with so much work, that it just wasn't getting done. After a little bit of explaining that they were not in trouble, and I was only calling them to a meeting to show up their project manager, they were all too willing.
I asked until today as an extension on that project, which was granted nearly immediately. The four developers and I worked on finishing it day monday, and I personally put the finishing touches on the project on tuesday. The four guys called for a meeting, and we were all back in the conference room on wednesday. Nobody told the real project manager what was going on, so when the executives asked him to talk about why he called the meeting, he was dumbfounded. Being completely out of the loop, and backstabbing me causes consequences. After a few seconds of him standing up lost like a fool, one of the execs broke the silence asking for an update.
Immediately one of the four developers raised his hand like a child in middle school. "If he does not have any updates, us four have updates we would like to show you." So thier project manager stumbles away from the podium, and the four approach and give a presentation that anyone would of thought was preplanned about how that portion of the project was completed, and demonstrated it's functionality to the execs.
After they completed the demonstration, one of the execs boldly asked "How were you able to complete this project so quickly?" To which all turned towards the table, and pointed fingers at me as if mother asked who ate the last cookie from the cookie jar.
"He is the reason sir. He lit the fire underneathe us to work on this project together, and even gave us programming advice. We could not of done it without his help." One of the four proudly said. Which of course draws the stink eye of death from the real project manager. Again as soon as the meeting was over, that project manager ran like the pansy he was. The meeting was dismissed, but none of the executives left, only the project manager and the developers left. Since I am always the last executive to leave, I stayed in my seat.
After a few moments of silence, the president of our small company, the guy who never speaks in any of the meetings stood up. He gave congradulations to me on my performance, and my desire to drive the business forward by taking control, and getting results. Of course after all the thanks, it was time to get serious. The meeting wasn't supposed to be about that demonstration, I kind of impersonated that project manager and requested the meeting at the same time on purpose. The real meeting, was about my salary.
It has been a good number of weeks now that I have been in this new position, and still doing so at my original salary, well no more. The president of the company leaned forward, offered his hand and said,
"Excellent work. You have exceeded out expectations and then some. We are proud to offer you a 30% pay increase.
Now I am the one who was dumbfounded. I could not believe that I heard the words correctly, but I was not mistaken. A 30% pay increase. I also learned earlier this morning, that the project manager who backstabbed me, was fired.
Today, was the single greatest day in my life. Even better then my wedding day, the birth of my only (nonexistant) child, and the day I returned home after being released from the military combined.
But, the day gets even better. During the day yesterday, I get a random call from the nearby church. Last year, I did an audition tape to be a singer for this churches weddings. Two days later I forgot all about it until yesterday. The church was calling to tell me that someone had selected me to be the vocalist. Today, I met the female at the church after work and we talked about the music.
She offered me $950 for the work I am going to do, but I declined. I told her that I didn't need to be paid for it since I was given the above raise, but she refused to take my no for an answer. So I am going to donate whatever she pays me back to the church, in their name without them knowing.
What a boring life, the actionman has!