Lion Power

The following is part six in a series of blog's celebrating my 20 years in the work force. Each Thursday, I will update this site with the latest installment.

My next job would be at Harris Bank. I would work there from July of 98 until May of 2003. I almost made it five years. While I was at Harris I felt that I would retire there. I felt I had finally found a home. Unfortunately, they would pull the rug out from under me and outsource me. I owe a lot to Harris, as it is where I met my wife. However, the bitter taste I still have in my mouth after the way I was treated lingers.

When I was first hired, I was put on an Y2K team, which meant I was not going to be doing tickets for a while. My main job was going to consist of updating software on every pc located at every Harris Bank throughout Chicagoland. This was no small task. This consisted of over 8,000 computers. We had a team of five other consultants as well as two interns to do this. (My wife was one of those interns.) It was great in that I got to travel all around Chicago to do this. I would visit over 50 Harris Bank locations.

After the Y2K nonsense was over, my consulting contract was coming to an end. So, I was approached about coming on full time and becoming a Harris employee. So, I handed in my five-inch pumps and short mini skirt and folded up my tent on the corner under the red light. I had a home of my own. Overall, it was a good enough job. My boss was Frank. He was a mick in his early 30’s and actually had a brain in his head. He left us alone and was real easy to work for. However it wouldn’t last.

In my five years at Harris I would have eight different bosses. Some of them were cool and some of them simply sucked. That is one thing about corporate America, if you don’t like your boss, wait fifteen minutes and you will have a new one. I eventually was moved onto a team at an off site building. I pretty much put my head down and did my job.

Life at Harris was pretty good. I made some decent money, had great benefits and worked on a pretty good and competent team. All of this caused me to become quite comfortable. All my years consulting had taught me that the grass is always greener. I knew Harris had some issues but, there is no perfect job and I was pretty content at the bank so, I felt I had found my home. I often told co-workers that I was never going to leave Harris. They would have to get rid of me, which is exactly what they did.

I will describe this asshole in charge of IT, Don as best I can. He was a fat, Canadian, old fart who never worked a day in his life. He was the classic rich old white guy who was good at one thing, cutting expenses. He could not manage his way out of a paper bag and had the people skills of a donkey. I’ve seen mutes with better verbal skills. However, since he was a good moneyman he was put in charge of a service area. It did not matter that this guy had never in his life dealt with people and would not know the front line from the hole in his enormous ass. He was in charge.

Often he would have these all hands meetings. I would rather go the ballet than attend these meetings at which we are all made to feel like shit and be thankful we had jobs. This guy was about as popular as Jessie Jackson at Bob Jones University. Anyway, one day he calls for one of these meetings. He then said that in a move that was sure to further our careers, (I guess his definition of further is standing in the unemployment line) we were “partnering” with EDS. The weasel didn’t have the balls to say the words outsourcing. He assured us that this was a move that had to be done to fight costs.

He said the days of going to someone’s desk to fix problems were over and that it is too costly to do things that way. I guess I miss the point here. My logic, (again I am using logic in a corporate environment) states that if a user’s system is down, he or she is now unproductive and costing the bank valuable time and money. If I can get to that system and get it back up in a timely manner then, like a doctor I’ve stopped the bleeding. The user now goes back to work and the assembly line keeps producing widgets. Again, Don (who’s only real skill was being a miser) felt that we should be in the business of making the company money not providing good support. He actually said those words in a meeting. Basically he told us that all our past efforts and work were for nothing. We had to be sold off so the bank’s stock could go up a half a point and some rich motherfuckers could get even richer.

With this motivation I was as eager as a teamster working on a Sunday to do a good job. I could have cared less at this point. Having gone through all of this once already I knew what to expect. The same exact bullshit happened again. However, this time the outsourcing came when the market sucked. Thanks to corporate America laying of IT people, left and right the market smelled like Rosie O’Donnell’s armpits after a five-mile fun run. Therefore if I want to keep my job, I have to take EDS and Don’s bullshit or be out on my ass collecting unemployment. In layman’s terms this meant, thanks for your four years of hard work. Just bend over so I can stick this corporate dildo up your brown eye.

EDS’ shit was a huge pile of some steaming feces. When the deal was signed Harris, wanted the cheapest deal they could get. So, EDS offered them a bare bones support package. Which basically meant that no one would have a job after one year. Of course instead of EDS being up front and telling us this they beat around the bush. Every time we asked EDS how many people were going to stay on the contract they would tell us that they had to evaluate the site and work the numbers. They knew since The Mr. Potter’s (Harris Bank) wanted the cheapest support and that they singed the cheapest contract that they were not going to be able to keep anyone.

Seeing the writing was on the wall, I decided that it was time to move on. I knew everyone’s days were numbered and I starting calling my contacts. I eventually got out of there and just in the nick of time. I still have friends that work there (The few who EDS could not get rid of) and they tell me it is a living hell. They are all biding their time and waiting for the contract to run out.

I bled for Harris Bank. I did my best work there. I cared about that company and I wanted it to succeed. How I got re-paid for that loyalty has never sat well with me. I miss Harris Bank to this day. My current job is not nearly as fulfilling as my old one was. Those days are gone and I will always wonder what would have happened if I stayed at Harris and never been outsourced. I owe a lot to that place and I even though I work for a competing bank I still kind of root for them. Even after they way they treated me I still care. How pathetic is that?