First day without having to worry about being screamed at by an irrationally angry man-child.

Thank Christ for that.

At this point, my only real concern is how he's gonna respond to that email that I'd sent out.

Assuming he finds it, I think the most likely outcome is that his incredibly weak attention span just ends up having him opt out of it. Because anything beyond a couple sentences (as he defines them) are a huge ask.

That being said, this will (hopefully) be the last time that I mention that job.

Ever again.

Because it's just not worth it.

And in the few days since I've quit, my blood pressure has calmed down and the pain I'd been feeling in my gut has subsided for the most part.

I've also been able to focus more on working at Zephyr.

And gotten a bit more active in learning C#.

...Though to be honest, I think the federal government could really learn to leverage more than just that damn techology.

But... it's whatever.

I've also got the time now to focus on checking out the folks over at APEX Accelerators.

See if I can't get me my own government contract.

Working on my own terms.

Without having to worry about other folks just slowing the whole goddamn process down.

We'll see.

Note: This is scheduled for delivery on 18OCT25 @ 1200. Ain't no way I'm gonna drop this bomb while I'm still here, lol.

Mr. [EBM],

Good morning.

I’m sending this email to you after I’ve gone because:

• You genuinely scare me more than anything I’ve ever encountered ever has (and that’s including grizzlies in Alaska), and
• I don’t trust you to act rationally.

On any given day over the past year that I’ve worked here, I’ve watched you quickly shift between both extremes of the spectrum when it comes to your emotional state. But since I’m no longer employed by the amazing people at [my employer], I’m not as worried about you doing something overboard.

That’s not great for someone in a leadership position, whether you’re a department head at [this bonkers circus] or a Crew Leader at McDonald’s. End of the day, nothing matters. Not really. (And a lot of [our department's] applications have COTS alternatives.)

That said, on Tuesday during your tirade about how “process is the worst I’ve seen in 20 years”, you asked what you’re doing wrong and what you could do better.

I’m no longer officially on the clock for [your establishment] but here you go, free of charge:

• I didn’t lie to you about “the leads saw this” for [that stupid project]. [Rowdy] told me to send it to you for demo (don’t believe me? I included a screenshot of his email on the [stupid project] card in the weekly update board just in case of such a situation). Last I checked, he’s a lead. If I’m at fault for listening to a single lead, that’s on me. But that segues perfectly into this next bullet:
• [Rowdy] and [his BFF] aren’t your friends. They’re your employees. Stop treating them like friends and force them to facilitate swift delivery of your product. [Rowdy] is back in the office more than he was—as are you and anyone else whose jobs could be done from anywhere—but he still spends half his workday outside on smoke breaks or at lunch.
• Follow-on from that point: nobody here is your friend. Everyone in this department is your subordinate.
• [Rowdy] and [his BFF] need to STOP DEVELOPING and start mentoring and leading their people. I can’t speak for your experience in the Navy, but I can say that for me, I was told when I got to a certain level my work would shift to the dull admin nonsense. It did. Theirs needs to, as well; especially for what I assume is a ridiculous six-figure salary. You're not getting your money's worth for this arrangement, you're getting a band-aid. ...Many band-aids.
• You have a unique (to me) frustrating habit of not remembering what you said. Or at least giving the impression that you don’t. SEND YOUR REQUIREMENTS IN AN EMAIL. You’ll say something in one meeting and by the end of the week, your requirements have changed into something only vaguely resembling what you originally said.
• Follow-on: “this meeting could have been an email”. You should consider having agendas for your meetings in typed out emails beforehand.
• This entire department is a house of cards just waiting to come crashing down. There’s very little code documentation in the front end, and I can’t imagine the database side looks much different. You have three people here that whose departures would cause serious problems: [Rowdy], [his BFF], and [his BFF's BFF]. You mentioned you’re going to be here for at least nine more years—would you stake your life on them sticking around the entire time?
• Everyone in this department has the permissions required to look at every single app and provide feedback at any time. Yet nobody does unless they’re asked. REPEATEDLY. Go through your catalog and see just how absolutely terrible things really are.
• You coddle your favorites too much. To repeat: nobody here is your friend, they’re your employees. Your coddling them only makes things worse for the department in terms of output.
• You’ve made it clear that you don’t care for anyone that’s not a developer or a DBA. Or at least, that’s the image you project every single time you intentionally loudly dump on people within earshot. That's both incredibly unprofessional and insanely childish. (And something being labeled childish by me is a pretty big deal.)
• Free example: You praised [FNG] for his “fucking cool” implementation of a grid that refreshes every sixty seconds, and at the same time shat on the process analyst responsible for writing a different story about the grid. Sir, with all due respect: refreshing elements on a web page on a timer isn’t hard, lol. There’s undoubtedly more, but those are the big ticket items.

If you want to worship developers and DBAs, by all means do so. Computer science is amazing and I’ll sing their praises until my dying day.

But if you don’t want anyone else here, change your contract requirements.

Fill the room with developers and DBAs.

So this department can be just like the folks on the west coast that “gave the customers what they wanted, with no documentation”.

Two final things:

• I believe that being assigned here and meeting you is the cosmos "balancing things out" for me for having a 20-year career with amazing department heads.
• Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, [EBM job title]. One of the things that I absolutely believed in during my time in the Navy was that a leader should have a good understanding of what it is their people do. Maybe you've got that knowledge. If not, please look into C# software development and MSSQL. Then dive into the codebase. It's wild.

Goodbye, Shaw

I don't know why I expected the fucking Nightmare Gaggle™ to be any better than it usually is, but... welp...

It wasn't.

We got to that project that I'd been excited to get rid of when EBM asked the question:

"I was told that all the leads have looked at this."

And the only one that rogered up was Rowdy.

Fucking

Rowdy

Of all the people at the table.

The one I don't really have much faith/confidence in to have my back.

What's more, he seemed just as surprised that the others hadn't looked at it.

Suze was gone on a European vacation for the time that it was assigned to lead review and fwend has her own stuff going on.

Plus... fwend is fwend. And I can't be angry with her because... history.

That left Rowdy and his buddy to be essentially the sole reviewers.

And Rowdy told me to throw it to QA, so I did.

But that wasn't right, apparently.

Nor was confirming it when EBM had asked me if all the leads had looked at it.

What I should have said was that it was assigned to lead review and then I was told by a lead to move it through QA.

And it was mostly seen through QA, though looking through the fixes that EBM had requested... those were done.

But...

Fuck it.

Doneski.

Tried to make it through the pay period, but I think I'm gonna fail to meet that because I just don't want to deal with it anymore.

This is at best a sinking ship, at worst a raging inferno a few doors down the hallway nobody knows anything about.

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.)