#so no judgement at all

[burritosandpeppermint]

I feel like every little thing with my job sets me off now, so I'm sorry if you're tired of me ranting about it and then continuing to work here. I'll keep this "below the fold" so you can move on if you're not interested. I really won't be offended and I have no true way of knowing which of the dozen or so of you will read this anyway. Also, it's me so I'm not looking for sympathy but I'm also trying to learn not to push away other people's affection so...do what you want?

Also, if you feel like this is something that could be part of some larger conversation about work and capitalism or whatever, then please feel free to reblog it. I don't really think this will be enough to explode my career, and if it does, then it was on shaky enough ground anyway.

The company I work for got acquired by another, much larger and more famous company (and a rather infamous one here on Tumblr) about five years ago. Eh, why am I being cagey? I work in email compliance and privacy for Marketo and we got acquired by Adobe.

Anyway, I'd been through a couple of acquisitions before but this one was pretty cool. A big name Silicon Valley company! A cool campus to tour in San Jose! A new office space in the same city I lived in, and with only a 45 minute walk from home to office! Really, pretty cool.

Over time the excitement on my part and Adobe's part seemed to wane a bit. There were new acquisitions and we were no longer in the spotlight. That's alright, things happen, time moves on, and ultimately I just kept working, because abuse never stops and companies keep buying lists.

But after my mentor left for another company we got a new manager, and he's great, but he's been with Adobe for a while, and most of his focus is on the Adobe part of the business that he manages, and he cares about us and fights for us when he can, but we're definitely not his primary focus. Also, in the past couple of years the workload that myself and my one coworker/colleague do has steadily increased. To make things worse this year they finally implemented a huge change in what CRM we're using and it's causing all kinds of havoc because most of us who are directly working with customers now have to manage two portals or figure out which customer matches with which or educate yet another person on where to go to accomplish what they need. We also started getting direct feedback loop (FBL) reports from a new company that seems to only send them in a new-ish format that has been accepted across the industry but is honestly not really used by it, but our system can't parse it so we have to process every single one manually rather than feed it to a bot that can automatically process it, further increasing our workload. We've also been told that there's a team who can help us to automate certain aspects of our work, so we submitted examples of what we need help with and they said it seemed doable and since then...nothing. To top it off, during a recent "town hall" quarterly all-hands I asked a question in the chat that was basically "In light of the strong performance we've done can we hire more people to support our customers and colleagues?" and the answer is "No, because we don't want to have to lay people off if there's any kind of downturn."

Okay, so...not great.

So now, today, the day before Thanksgiving, the week after Open Enrollment closed, the day after I accepted the Year End Check In on my calendar - which will be grueling because, as noted above, we've been over worked and under staffed so I haven't been able to get to any of the projects that I was hoping to get to this year - I saw an email from Adobe that looked like it was part of the corporate spam we get every freaking day, and it was from the HR company/portal we use, so I clicked on it and

OOPS

Looks like you clicked on an Adobe Phishing Test Link

Read here to see how you could have prevented this...

And I'm incensed right before a holiday, and I just hate it.

Because as much as I hate to admit it I really bought into the corporate capitalism of America from a young age, bought into the shiny toys and apps and promises of "helping" people ("And if we happen to turn a profit, that's great, too!") to the point that my dissolution with capitalism has been a long, slow, denial-ridden journey.

And that's because it can be all too easy to regard those earning the joke that is minimum wage as being the only victims of capitalism and wage theft, but if we're being honest just about anyone who isn't making millions of dollars a year to tell the world and their subordinates how great their company is is really just sitting in a pot of water that is slowly getting hotter.

We're all being paid the least amount of money that companies believe they can get away with while trying to extract the most work out of us they can legally get away with, and they're probably getting even more than that if we're being honest.

So to get regular emails about how this organization put us on a list of the best places to work for or another invitation to another seminar about how I can work on being more efficient or less sad because, you know, that's apparently 100% my doing, and then get an email that I don't bother to really scan because, like I said, given everything it seems pretty legitimate, to be told "Well, you fucked up" was just the one more thing that I didn't need this year.

I really hate to sound like the middle-aged white man that I am, but I'm just tired of not being respected for the working professional that I am. I've been in this role for eight years. I know how to talk to customers about the actions they've taken that have caused harm to their reputation, or what abuse has been foisted upon them by malicious actors; I know how to engage with Support and customer managers and run Compliance Team meetings that focus on what's important; I know what blocklists are important and actually affect our customers; I know, engage with, and am friends with people who run the email servers at companies you know and might actually use; I'm one of two people who manage thousands of IPs and domains for thousands of customers, trying to protect the network's reputation and safety from the customer's own actions and also outside actions of people who would do nothing but abuse our systems all day if they could.

And what am I told by my company?

"We can't help you because it would make us sad if we had to let people go! :("

"Have you considered not having the feelings you're experiencing during work time and just working more instead?"

"Uh, oh! We send you so much spam that you fell for our trick! This is all your fault."

What does the company value? Is it me and my time?

No surprise, AI is the buzzword of 2023 in the tech world, and email is seen as more of a forgotten backbone that I think people believe is 100% automated. Meanwhile the valiant few of us are knee deep in water in the bottom of the boat with duct tape and Gatorade.

When I've complained about work or my career in the past it's felt more like angry grunts; this is kind of the most articulate that I can really be about it.

I'll be 46 next year when I take my sabbatical. If something doesn't really change at all I might have to make some tough choices.

I'm afraid of trying to change careers or companies (if I even can; people much more experienced than I am are being laid off right now).

I'm afraid of trying to go back to school while I'm working because I just don't think I'll have the bandwidth for it, and I don't know what I'd go to school for, or if it would pay what I'm earning now.

I'm afraid of staying where I am.

I know I earn okay. I know I have benefits and that I can work from home in my pajamas.

But I also know that the good times I have with work are less and less these days, and opening my laptop is more of an invitation to an assault on my confidence and self-worth than ever before. And that's just not sustainable.

[wardinespurrit]

redid my hms designs. i go on a ramble in the tags beware

[jakeperalta]

keep seeing "taylor hates matty just like us!!" like.. she hates him because he broke her heart I hate him because he is a legitimately garbage person we are not the same

[benevolenterrancy]

It's like you can't even go get drinks with your nephew these days without the humans causing a fuss 😒

inspired by @allpiesforourown's post:

[ollylotl]

[sysboxes]

[Text: This introject doesn’t give a fuck if you think they are valid or not.]

Like/Reblog if you save or use!

[hinamie]

this past year has easily been one of the most productive and artistically formative years in recent memory and i'm so incredibly proud and grateful to have this little corner of the internet full of people who share my interests and enjoy my art <3

from the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who has supported me in 2024! I'll keep drawing and keep improving so here's hoping 2025 brings just as much growth!

[somegurl8]

“People are writing this” “People are writing that” Actually let’s talk about what people AREN’T writing because we’re like 6 episodes into Judgement and I haven’t found a single fic for it on AO3. It’s been around since mid October and not a single fic. Why is there no love for Judgement

[damiel-of-real]

that fucking flower i hate

[saturdaysky]

a little divine appreciation

-

God Gale is endgame for Mayhew, and Mayhew couldn't be more pleased 😌

their mutual wizard disease brought them to some pretty low lows, but hey, ignore the tragedy, they're gods now! first order of business is a little worshiping at the altar 😏

Here's the sketch, which I also like:

Got majorly inspired by these lovely photos, one of which I used as a pose reference.

[that1notetaker]

The ringmaster and the amphitheater. The chessboard and the player. Round and round they go.

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

jon val jon or something

[electricpurrs]

yall im making this post unrebloggable cause it got way too many notes and thats stressful and im scared of someone getting mad over this so im stopping before anyone wants to start online fighting 👍

[boysborntodie]

Soda, in his letter: Ponyboy we miss you so much :(((( Come back Ponyboy :(((( Darry's so upset because you're missing :(((( Things have been so awful Ponyboy :((( Ponyboy :((((

Ponyboy: Soda's spelling fucking sucks :-/

[luvrxbunny]

it is the most embarrassing, and humbling experience to search for smut for a certain character… only to find that no one else is horny for them.. like damn.. i’m weird, huh?

[maiuoart]

Who else has this idea that, on a really stressful night; Blue waits until it's like, 9pm at night and sneaks out of his room to go to one of the bars down town- (Probably his Grillby's or the swapped version of alcoholic bars)- and he's just... Having a good bunch of drinks.

And then, when it's a Multiverse thing where he's stuck with other versions of himself; It's HARDER to sneak out, but he's able to and finds a good bar place... He's just, y'know, thinking on life and other stressful situations; Maybe he cracks his own jokes with those around him, cause they're so drunk; They'll laugh at anything... And Blue's able to be that full on gremlin and know NO ONE is going to fucking recall shit... So he lets loose a LOT more than normal.

And one of the other bone guys comes in; Lets go, Mutt; Goes right up and says; 'oi, Bluester! i didn't know ya drank... wha's yer choice o'poison, bro?'

Poor Blue is like- 'Oh shit, oh shit shit shit- No?? Why is he here!? Shitshitshit' and internally freaking out, gets back in his shell and clams up... Barely talks to Mutt in general until someone around them is trying to get Blue to tell that joke again- Where Mutt encourages to hear it.

And it just ends with Blue bonding brotherly, maybe even drinking someone under the table with his high alcohol tolerance, and for once; Blue doesn't feel like he's going to get scolded like he would is his brother showed up- Lolol.