Wow, that's a first (again)
Went a whole month without a single post in my own LJ. Bad monkey, no donut. Methinks it's time to avail myself of the backdating feature and catch up a bit. But first....
The primary reason for my inattention here has been the job to which I alluded previously. It started simply enough, basically searching the Intarwebs for candidates to fill open job orders. Over the holidays, however, with significant input from me, we switched to a new and far more serious CRM package, and somehow my job morphed into Application Manager, while still retaining all of the research responsibilities. Additionally, I was given the keys to and responsibility for the SYSADM account on the remote server. I am repeatedly reminded of the scary devil monastery motto, "Down, not Across" and of course their catch-phrase, "Either way I'm screwed."
The upshot here, of course, is that I have a lot more work to do, and while I've been pulling extra hours (and thus getting extra money, which is itself A Good Thing), not a lot of extra time to do it. Thankfully, I still only have to put in three days a week in the office, and can do a fair amount of the work remotely, half-dressed, in bed.
Come the end of this month, it's time for my 90-day review, where we decide if and how things are working out mutually. Accordingly, I'm gearing up for the "Give me more money, you bastards" speech, ensuring I meet the keeping track of the more invisible stuff I have to do, and making sure I have solid backing data for the 33-66% raise, plus full-time benefits, I intend to request. I figure if I have all my ducks lined up in neat rows, with good reasoning and evidence arrayed behind them, I should be able to turn this into a full-time salaried exempt administrative position that won't leave me spending half my gross on rent. I will resist the temptation to institute the Sysadmin Price List no matter how bad the (l)users get in the first six months.
The primary reason for my inattention here has been the job to which I alluded previously. It started simply enough, basically searching the Intarwebs for candidates to fill open job orders. Over the holidays, however, with significant input from me, we switched to a new and far more serious CRM package, and somehow my job morphed into Application Manager, while still retaining all of the research responsibilities. Additionally, I was given the keys to and responsibility for the SYSADM account on the remote server. I am repeatedly reminded of the scary devil monastery motto, "Down, not Across" and of course their catch-phrase, "Either way I'm screwed."
The upshot here, of course, is that I have a lot more work to do, and while I've been pulling extra hours (and thus getting extra money, which is itself A Good Thing), not a lot of extra time to do it. Thankfully, I still only have to put in three days a week in the office, and can do a fair amount of the work remotely, half-dressed, in bed.
Come the end of this month, it's time for my 90-day review, where we decide if and how things are working out mutually. Accordingly, I'm gearing up for the "Give me more money, you bastards" speech, ensuring I meet the keeping track of the more invisible stuff I have to do, and making sure I have solid backing data for the 33-66% raise, plus full-time benefits, I intend to request. I figure if I have all my ducks lined up in neat rows, with good reasoning and evidence arrayed behind them, I should be able to turn this into a full-time salaried exempt administrative position that won't leave me spending half my gross on rent. I will resist the temptation to institute the Sysadmin Price List no matter how bad the (l)users get in the first six months.