The Death Knoll Sounds
“You should really tell her that you’re staying with me.”
“What? Why?” I was really confused.
“Just trust me on this one. It would be better for all of us
if you just said that you were staying in Durham full-time.”
“Right. And what
happens when my son is sick and I’m in Chicago - or if I blow a tire coming
down the West Virginia Turnpike? I’m just not comfortable with that. I’ve been
honest the entire time, and I’d prefer to be honest.”
When I would finish my 13 hour drive to North Carolina and
my 12 hour shift was finished, I would crash on a co-worker’s couch near the
office. Sometimes, if it wasn’t too hot, I’d just park underneath a large,
shady tree and sleep the day away. But this afternoon, my friend had woken me
up to deliver this strange message.
If you recall, one week before we were set to move, my
manager had done a 180 and decided that I would not be allowed to work remotely
from my house in Chicago. I had put up a tremendous fight.
“Ok,” I said.
All things being equal, I was thankful to have a job, and
the company I was working for had always treated me well. Lately, there had
been some changes that brought a little stress from somewhere above us on the
food chain, but the work itself was satisfying, challenging, and gave enough
free time (in general) that it wasn’t too bad, even for a 12-hour overnight
grind. So, I managed to slide everything back a month and stepped up my job
search in the area: to no avail.
Once that month was up, we had to leave our house in North
Carolina, all of our stuff was already in storage in Chicago, and we needed to
start getting the family used to going to school up north, so we picked up and
moved to Michigan City, Indiana. (See “Apartment Quest” for the insane reason
we ended up there….)
Thus, I began the 800 mile commute, leaving the Chicago (or
Michigan City, Indiana, depending on where the apartment hunt was at the time)
area around 3am, driving across Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and
North Carolina to work from 7pm until 7am for three or four days, then return
home. I generally got into the area around 5pm and slept for a couple of hours,
wanting to make sure I had plenty of time to deal with any highway issues.
I had nothing of any note left in North Carolina, having
moved everything else up into Chicago weeks earlier, so I either crashed at a
friend’s house, or in the car if he forgot to leave the door unlocked. It
seemed to be working just fine for all concerned. I was generally the only
person working Stateside, as the other members of the overnight team worked
remotely from India (which, one might note, is MUCH farther than Chicago). So,
it was just me and either one or two folks from Bangalore running the show.
One night my manager came in to talk with me. “You’re really
putting a lot of wear and tear on your car, you know.” This seemed a little out
of character, but my manager was generally pretty nice, and while I appreciated
the concern for my little polka dotted Prius, I assured her that we were doing
just fine. “Don’t you think you should just stay here on your days off?” Once
again, I said that I appreciated the concern, but my family was in Chicago, and
that is where I wanted to be on my days off.
It’s important to note that we had been doing the job for
nearly a year without any training in the systems we were supposed to support,
even though we had been promised training from day one. Suddenly, we were
getting little four-hour training sessions, and somehow they were always
scheduled on my days off. And I’m getting sweet notes from my manager, like:
“I’m giving you plenty of notice and I expect that you will attend these
training sessions.”
Now my wife is one of those people who was brought up believing
that when you point a finger at someone else, you have three pointing back at
you. So, while I was starting to have my suspicions, she was sure that I was
just imagining things. “I don’t know,” I said. “I certainly don’t mind finally
getting some training in these systems, but it is awfully convenient that the only
days that the trainer can do the trainings are on my only two days off. “
Again, to my manager, I said nothing but “Yes, ma’am” and
made plans to come in, even though I was going to have to miss my son’s 21st
birthday to do it. We would have his celebration a little early, at the same
time as I had my vacation scheduled to celebrate my own birthday scheduled.
Then suddenly, there wasn’t anybody to cover my own
birthday, and I had to work the entire week. So again, while searching hard and
fast for a job in Chicago, I dutifully planned to drive the 13 hours down to
North Carolina on the day before my birthday, and spend my birthday with some
friends in Durham rather than with my family.
But the week before my birthday, I was checkmated.
