Well, it's apparently "later", finally.

Part of the deal with Touch Support being acquired by The Planet is that some of the staff will be asked to relocate. I guess the reason is that they want the better talent at their core, working along side the existing staff. Having been the lead guy to maintain and further develop the systems used at Touch Support, and with my past and present experience working with PHP and MySQL, everyone has the belief that I will be among the first groups to be moved to Texas.

Am I nervous about it? Heck yeah, I am! I've only been living on my own for a little over a year now, and it's only been 30 minutes to an hour from any family. Now, I'll be 16 hours from any family, though it's only about 2½ hours from Houston to Indianapolis by airplane.

Am I excited? I really don't know for certain yet. I'm supposed to be going to see the area down there later this week, which may change my mind. One thing I am looking forward to is the storms they get down that way. We haven't had much around here since I was about 10, so it'll be a nice change.

Will I be better off, career-wise? A little to begin with, what with the better benefits package and such. There are many more open doors within the larger organization, and I think I will do better as a programmer with someone else shouting out the orders. I have never been much for a self-directed individual, as it's hard to stay focused. I think that someone else leading the projects, or at least working along side me to keep me on course, will allow me to show my skills much better.

I'll most definitely miss my friends and family around here, should the time come that I move. I'll also miss that opportunity to just run home every other weekend to see the parents, or to run to either sister's for the weekend (though I've not been to the older sister's hardly any, yet). I'm sure there will be many more chances for me to actually take a weekend off, as I'll (hopefully) not be the only one capable of working with any one product.

There are some points of our employment agreement that I'm going to have to hash out with our "district manager", or whatever his title may be. Aside from that, though, it's just going to be a matter of getting everything in line administratively and financially.

I'm quite curious what it will take to get everything moved. I'm sure I can squeeze nearly everything into rubbermaid containers, with the exception of a few things like my shelf, TV's, computers, and some furniture. I haven't quite figured out how to transport my firearms yet, but I hope to hash that out over the next few weeks, just so I know fully what to expect.

I'll try to take my camera along when I take the 2-day trip to Houston, just to share what I may be dealing with. I'll be sure to share those pictures either on my gallery or in my Facebook photo albums.

In light of the previous blog entry, I just wanted to inform everyone that there is a strong chance I may be moving to Houston, Texas to work at the epicenter of The Planet's operations. There is no certain claim that I will be moving, but it is a very strong possibility. I'll explain later.

If you live or plan to live in the Lafayette, Indiana area and have experience with Windows, Linux, DNS, and web hosting, you should really check out these openings. We have a good number of openings right now, and it's one of the most relaxed work environments you'll come across.

So yeah, stop searching Google for "Linux support jobs", and head over to the Touch Support jobs portal and submit yourself.

I work there, so it must be good! :P

So I found out something a bit odd today... We were talking at work about hair, so I figured I'd show everyone my creepy mullet, and I shared the URL in the office IRC channel. After I did, one of the new guys asked me what my handle from NewOrder was. After I told him, I asked who he was. Lo and behold, I now work with AZTEK.

Small: The world is it.

Okay, this is just a general notice to anyone who is considering or has urged me to seek other employment:

I work hard, and I work a lot. That doesn't mean I hate my job.

I'm not earning a 6-figure income. Money doesn't drive me.

I grumble from time to time about things that happen at work. Every job will be that way.

I'm just getting really tired of everyone suggesting that because I'm not driving a brand new car and because I have to live by a budget that I need to find a "better" job. I'm happy where I am, even though it's not the greatest pay in the world, and even though the position has its headaches.

Furthermore, just because several of my peers are moving on to other places of work, it doesn't mean I need to as well. They are finding that there is a position elsewhere that will better suit their needs; That doesn't mean it will suit my needs.

So please, stop urging me to leave my job because you think I'm unhappy.

Okay, so now I'm getting the whole guilt trip thing from everyone at the shop now. Things are starting to fall apart rather drastically, and everyone is trying to pin the blame on me.

Tomorrow night, after work, there's going to be some sort of shindig at the shop. They're going to close the other quick lube early so that everyone can get down to this one, but aside from that I have no idea what's going on. Boss Lady told me that if I had plans for the night they were to be cancelled because this was more important. Bleh. That means that anything after 6:00PM on my schedule for Thursday has been postponed or cancelled. Lovely. I guess I'll just have to come back home for a meal with Mom and Dad sometime in a week or so.

All I can say is that if any problems occur at the shop, anywhere from disgruntled customers to employees leaving, I'm NOT responsible. I tried my hardest to instill a sense of respect in my crew, and it appears as though they just developed a bond to me instead.

After tomorrow, I only have two days left at the shop. It's going to drag by, and I'm not going to get anything accomplished towards moving next week. Bleh!

Today was pretty much one of the worst days at the shop in the year and a half I've been there.

It mostly started with this one customer. Things were going pretty well until I hear one of the guys say, "Okay, so they charged you and you want us to fix it?" Here's what happened... The lady came in for an oil change yesterday, and part of the service is that we check and adjust tire pressures. She said she went home and check her tires and found that they weren't set to 35PSI, as they were supposed to be. She said that she didn't feel comfortable bringing it back to us, so she took it to another shop and they charged her $15 to check her tires. WTF?! I told her that I'd refund her money, made a copy of the invoice from the other shop, and we checked her tires again for her. When we started to check them, she said something along the lines of, "I'd rather you didn't check them, because they're set to where they're supposed to be." One of the other guys told her that we would check them anyhow, just to see if our gauges were wrong or whatever. I told the lady that if she ever had any concern about tire pressures, fluid levels, or anything like that, she could come back and we'd check it for free. She said something like, "Well, I didn't know that," and left.

Right after that, one of the guys called me down in the pit to handle a problem with a drain plug. Turns out, the oil pan was stripped out and it was the boss who did it. I tried to clean up the threads on this aluminum oil pan, but they were too far gone. So, to take care of the problem, I put a bigger drain plug in and all was fine. See, what happens when these things strip out is people over-tighten the drain plugs, or they start them in the hole crooked. I have discussed the issue with the boss before, and he said, "Just put a longer plug in. A torque wrench is pointless because a lot of these are already stripped out." What pisses me off so bad about that is that I've requested both torque wrenches and longer drain plugs, and we've gotten neither. Every time I've requested the drain plugs, I've been told something like, "You already have enough that size." Whatever. It's your name on the sign.

Then not 2 cars later, the same issue with another oil pan, only it was a different size than the prior one. I went to see if we had any drain plugs that size, and I could only find one. When I tried to put it in the car it wouldn't go in, and I didn't want to force it. I was PISSED. I thought it was the last plug we had that size, and it had to be replaced. I went back to see what we had for other drain plugs that might work, and I just so happened to find 2 more the size that I needed.

The next car was the same damn thing! This time we had the right plug and I was able to fix it, but I just absolutely HATE having to do that. If the person who tightens the drain plug doesn't over-tighten it, there would be no need to repair it. A simple $20 torque wrench can prevent a drain plug from being cranked too tight, and will save everyone a lot of headache in the long run.

I'd guess I had to fix about 10 of the 37 oil pans that came through the shop today, and it's all because people who work there are too paranoid about a drain plug falling out, so they think tighter is better.


Maybe my skin is just getting thin. I don't know. I'm tired of having to fix everyone else's screw-ups. I'm not a babysitter; I'm a manager. There's a difference. Why does it have to be that people are so ignorant and they leave these messes for me? It's the story of my life, I guess.

The burrito to end all burrito's(at EV1)

http://www.angryblog.com/burrito/

In my boredom yesterday, I searched around on Google Video and YouTube (both should be the same, IMO), for "quick lube" and "jiffy lube" videos.

I found some rather disturbing content about Jiffy Lube on both sites.

Google Video: Lube Me & Screw Me by Ronnie Larsen
YouTube: Jiffy Lube Scam Caught on Tape!

I would like to point out that where I work, it is shop policy to show everything to the customer. The customer needs to see what is going on, they need to be allowed to ask questions, and they need to be granted the opportunity to see the progression of things.

For example, in the first video, the customer was told he needed a new air filter each time he went to Jiffy Lube, even though they had replaced it for him the first time he went in. Visiting the store again and again, short time spans later, they even told him, "Your air filter is really dirty," when it looked like brand new yet.

We don't do that where I work. If I catch anyone doing that, it's grounds for an immediate write-up. I don't care if the Boss Dude himself does it, it's entirely unacceptable. Now, it is quite different if the customer says, "I don't care if it looks brand new; replace it." The customer has to be allowed to make the judgment and say, "No, I don't want to replace it," or, "Yes, please. Replace my air filter."

And in the second video, you'll notice they made a huge deal about their "T-Tech" machines, but never actually used them. Guess what... We LOVE to use ours! It's to the point at the shop that we pretty much fight over who gets to do the transmission flush service and who doesn't. But here again, we show everything to the customer. Once we connect the machine to the car, we show the customer the difference between the old and new transmission fluid, and explain the process of how it works.

So there you have it. These California-based Jiffy Lubes are pretty shady. If I EVER catch any of my guys doing this kind of thing, I assure you, it will not go over.