Careful What You Wish For

Work related, but not a rant, per se.

Yesterday towards the end of my shift, I was shooting the breeze with one of the Swedes when my boss came in my office. He asked "The Great Swede" to leave so he could have a private chat with me. I knew that most likely meant trouble.

My boss told me that I needed to trade jobs with someone else on the account. I thought that was odd then he told me who it was. He told me that EVERYTHING that I do would go to this guy and I would only be working on Incident Mgmt. This is to take place in two weeks...I we start training Monday.

Why is this happening? It seems that the guy I am switching with is "the bad cop", so to say. He is part of a two man team for North America (there are 2 more for South and Latin America) and people have been complaining that when he is handling issues, he is rude. He has been doing this job for about 4 years and before that, was an employee of mine. I like him but he has a lot o baggage and a monkey or two on his back. If he is considered "the bad cop" performing the role he is in, the customer is gonna love him in his new role...my current role. He needs to be ultra pc when handling escalations.

For me this will be good and bad. The good news is that I will have a set schedule on the days I work and will actually have days off. I should actually have a holiday off every now and then and some weekends. The down side occurs on the weeks I am on call...that team is rather busy during that time. When you are on call any issues that are not resolved are carried over to the on call person...end of month and busy times can get bad. Still, actually being able to be off at least every other week sounds good.

For "the bad cop"...well, he inherits my life. That means he does not get any days off. He is scheduled to answer a hotline from 10:00 AM-6:00 PM, seven days a week, including holidays. "Bad cop" likes to unwind and have a brew or ten every now and then and this will not be possible when we switch jobs. He also has family in east Texas, and since he has to be available to manage certain issues and answer phone calls, he will not be spending any time there. "Bad cop" also is not a healthy man. He is sick a lot and that makes it impossible to call off work. The one time I was sick I had to work from home...not easy, but better than trying to make it to the toilet at work every hour or so.

While neither of us is happy, I have a couple of things to look forward to... mainly time off. "Bad cop" is not going to be as busy as he was, but when issues get sent his way...he is going to be stuck with them for a while and he will not have a life of his own. If he misses any calls, he will hear about it. If he is not PC enough...he will know.

I have been itching for someway to actually have nights and weekends off for a long time now and it looks like I am going to get my wish...at a price. Too bad that finding a job that pays as well as my current job is hard to find...