When he came upon an impassable river.

A fox came to the riverbank bank and, before he could pass, the scorpion asked if he would take him across with him.

"No," replied the fox. "Because you'll sting me and I'll drown."

"I wouldn't do that," said the scorpion. "We'd both drown."

The fox contemplated it for a few moments before agreeing.

The scorpion climbed up on the fox's back and the two set off across the river.

They were only half-way across when the scorpion stung the fox.

Paralyzed and sinking below the water, the fox asked: "Why did you do that? Now we'll both drown."

"I couldn't help it," said the scorpion. "It's in my nature."

Goddamn parables, man.

Especially when I've grown more than accustomed to hearing how much of an absolute piece of shit the process row is collectively.

Fwend objected to it adamantly. That much I expected.

Site lead... not so much.

He asked if we could talk about it, and then calmly stood there as I screamed at him on the verge of tears from being so fucking impotent against the force of C'thulu that is EBM.

The end state of that conversation was that site lead reiterated that EBM had done the same thing to him for a year before he got bored and moved on.

"He likes to test people," he said.

That didn't sit well with me.

At all.

Because of that other test I'd had to go through for six weeks just a few short years ago: CPO initiation.

And as Rick had mentioned a few weeks ago, that's what interacting with EBM feels like every single fucking day.

Another day of initiation.

No matter what you say, you're wrong.

And as another interesting parallel: during initiation, you could approach each "genuine" on their own and they'd dropped their facade. Same thing applies to EBM.

Which is another fun thing that happened Friday: I had another demo for this cursed project I've been working for the past year I've been here.

"Is anyone else coming?" EBM asked.

"Nope, just you and me." I said.

"All right..." he replied.

I could tell that he was somewhat frustrated by that answer—or at least, he gave the impression he was frustrated.

But it worked out: project got the green light to finally be pushed to production.

...After one last tweak.

So.

Something that's been in the works for the past four years finally gets past the finish line.

Thank.

Fucking.

Christ.

But yeah...

Site lead asked if I'd think about it over the weekend.

And so I did.

And ultimately came up with the decision that I'll stick around, but...

But...

The next time it gets too rough for me to hack it anymore, I'm just going to stop coming in.

It's a less than optimal condition to be sure, but far better than the other thing I'd started considering lately.

So we'll see what site lead has to say about it.

I either stick around or I don't.

And I'm at peace with it.

Because honestly, the two week notice bit is... archaic.

And binding.

Just another one of those things that made me feel trapped.

So either I've already submitted it and I've got nine days left here, or...

I've already submitted it and if EBM continues to go off the rails and/or escalate, I'm just... done.

Either way.

I'm content with my situation.

Which is more than I can say I've felt over this past year.

Short week.

Thankful for that.

Also, Steve: how'd your departure from this place go? Roughly the same?

Hope things are still stellar your way.

(But also I know you're better off just by virtue of not being here.)

I'd finally gotten in the stuff I'd ordered:

• A plastic hood,
• A plastic hose,
• Duct tape, and
• A small party-sized tank of helium

Loaded it up in the car and headed in to work.

Traffic was traffic.

Got to work, grabbed the stuff, and went inside.

Went to EBM's office, shut the door, and took a seat in his chair.

Grab some paper and a Sharpie, write the words "[EBM] did this. You win, [EBM]."

Cut a small hole in the bag, put one end of the hose in there and made sure it was sealed.

Other end of the hose obviously went to the helium tank, sealed properly as well.

And then I put the bag over my head and wrapped a few rounds of duct tape around my neck to seal it there.

Opened the valve to the tank and took regular, calm breaths.

"Fuck you," I say.

Hours later, EBM gets in to work.

Strolls into the office and sees his door is shut.

"Who the fuck is in my office?" he asks, turning the knob and pushing the door open.

"JESUS CHRIST!"

Yeah...

It's time for me to quit.

Notification scheduled for delivery to site lead at 0900, and I've removed the reminder to stop it.

I'd say it's been fun, but...

It really fucking hasn't.

But ultimately decided better about it.

The TLDR: it was a way that hopefully would end in me being a martyr and EBM leaving.

Or at least shaken.

So yesterday, the plan was—and maybe still is—to submit my notice.

Except fwend reached out last night telling me that I shouldn't.

I can't.

So there's at least a couple people that either want or need me around here.

Which is touching.

But.

When it comes down to it, that's not enough.

Not in the face of plans to self-terminate.

Ultimately, the fact is that nobody needs me here, and EBM doesn't want any of the process folk here.

Except Suze.

EBM had come over and asked one of the other process folk a question.

And it seemed to be going pretty well until...

"I know what it's for! I just..."

And then he huffed off in his typical EBM manchild hissy fit kinda way.

"When does Suze get back?" he asked someone else.

"Tomorrow."

"Thank fucking God," he said.

Two things:

Fuck you, you goddamn baby.

But also:

We literally have an app that tells you when she's getting back.

Maybe if you checked your own shit, you wouldn't be so fucking clueless.

Across so many fucking domains.

Stupid asshole thinks that because he (allegedly) got some kinda CS degree that he's some kinda genius?

No, asshole.

That means you're just smart enough to be dangerous.

Like a fucking toddler that just found its birthers' gun.

Fucking.

Christ.

I've decided to redirect my notice to fwend for three hours to give her a chance to convince me it's the wrong idea.

But I verified my pension and disability last night and was surprised to find that because of what I'm guessing are COLA adjustments, they're both now totaling $5,000.

It's not enough to be rich, but it's enough to cover the expenses I need to survive with my wife and pets.

And yeah: I only discovered it because I normally don't check financial shit unless I feel it's important.

And this is pretty damn important.

$5,000 from those compared with $4,400 from this job... yeah, it's not worth it.

Because I'd take a pretty substantial paycut to remove the EBM tumor from my life.

Pending some massive shift in my brain chemistry over the weekend and/or a pay raise in this upcoming paycheck...

I'm putting in my two-week notice on Monday.

Boss man—whom recently got a neat new moniker of EBM, or Evil Boss Man—came around the corner.

"Oi!" he yelled. "Who's the process people on [project]? I wanna have a quick sitdown and discussion about it just to make sure we're on the same page."

And so I got roped into it with Jen, our newest process person.

Because somehow, I think she somehow became my ward, and now I get to supervise the work she does.

And though I'm more than happy to help her—or anyone—I'm loathe to sit in another meeting with EBM.

Meeting kicked off, and he asked a bunch of questions that I didn't know the answers to because it's not my fucking project.

And after a mostly alright meeting, he wrapped it up with, "I'm confused how the process people don't know what the MVP is."

Motherfucking

Broh.

So we had the way ahead for the project and we came back to our stations.

And FNG dev was gushing about how he managed to get a UI element to refresh every minute.

EBM was walking by and started gobbling that knob so hard.

"Wow," he said. "That's really fucking cool!"

And after a lot more unnecessary praise was dumped on FNG, EBM said, "That's not right."

"Well that's how the story was written."

"Well whoever wrote that is wrong," EBM said. "But thank you for doing that. That's awesome."

What the fuck.

Yeah, EBM is clearly a twisted asshole that doesn't want any of the process folk here anymore.

We're pretty much just support staff for Suze, and I'm done doing that.

Not remotely looking forward to losing the income this place provides, but I think it'll be nicely offset by the lack of anxiety.

Even just told my wife:

That dude is increasingly making me want to kill myself. Just so I can have a note that places the blame squarely on him.

What an absolute toxic waste dump of a human being.