The Red Headed Stepchild

It's not the first time that my Saturday morning has started like this. After straggling back home on the border between late night and early morning, I slept for several hours and woke up with a headache and a strong desire to stay in bed the whole day. Thankfully, I did finally gather the strength to get my ass up, take a shower and make a strong pot of coffee. The desired effects of caffeine have finally kicked in now and I'm ready to do some ranting and raving.

Most health and psychological professionals wouldn't recommend a person to deal with their professional problems by going to a bar with co-workers, vent their frustrations about their other co-workers and the job in general and get shitfaced. But after a frustrating day at work, I really needed to let off some steam and get a bit wankered...and now for some background before getting to the meat and potatoes of the matter:

Outsourcing companies really are white-collar sweatshops. Multi-nationals use outsourcing companies to keep costs low, and profits high. This is a major reason why they're hosted by developing countries with a high number of educated people, where salaries are lower than developed countries. Client companies aren't proud of using outsourcing companies, but they view them as a necessary evil. The result being that employees from the client company view us outsourced workers with a measure of disdain. One mistake will drown out many 100's of positive things that we do from a day to day basis, bringing us to the main point of my post today.

Yesterday started out well enough, I arrived at the office at around the usual time of 8:50. The necessary early morning checks and reports running smoothly, and the weekend around the corner. I opened my e-mail program and a message came into my inbox, the subject was :(. I felt a sick feeling developing in my stomach, My supervisor, Archie, went to company HQ and had a short meeting with some managers. Apparently they complained about me about 2 things that happened nearly 2 months ago, and another incident which was actually partly one of the manager's fault, but I'll come back to that later. I remember it well, it was just some procedural things that I had never really had to work with. Anyway, Archie and I thought we dealt with it effectively and...well, you live and learn, I suppose.

But no, she (we'll call her Alice Cooper) decided to bring these issues back up at the meeting with Archie. Apparently it was serious enough to where Archie asked me if I could get some positive client feedback that he could show the 2 managers...it was at this point that I felt my job security slip a bit. I don't understand why had to wait 2 months to bring this up? This could've been worked out at the time of the incident.

The 3rd incident, the one that REALLY galls me, had more to do with an inventory setup in the computer system, which I have no control over, but Alice does. One of the salesmen raised this issue, and wasn't sure why his customer wasn't receiving the products on time, he was pissed off. I then commenced on the first steps to have the products delivered ASAP to the customer. But credit to Alice, she at this point took control of the situation and arranged for the products to get delivered early next morning. This was the point where the salesman blamed Alice for the hold-up, I was in the copy of the e-mail he sent her, so I replied to him and decided to take responsibility for what went wrong. This really was the biggest error on my part. Alice seized on the opportunity and it was there in print that I took the blame for what happened and showed Archie.

You think you try to help out your colleague, only to have yourself get bitten in the ass by it. I'm still naive when it comes to office politics. Most people are just out there protecting their own backside, who cares if some low level outsourced worker is at risk of losing their job over it. I feel like I have to do the work of 2 people, and I have absolutely no margin for error. I came here to prove myself, to work my ass off, and to show that I'm dependable. Instead it seems I could've just slacked off, not given a fuck about anything and be just as far along in my career development. I feel absolutely betrayed, and nothing pisses me off more than 2 faced people. They meet you, they smile, they shake your hand and you have a conversation. But their cowardice shows on days like Fridays, when they are far away, they can fuck you over. When it comes to negative things, these types of companies have long memories and I most likely don't have any shot at any promotion any time soon because of this.

I realize I have to develop thick skin, because this won't be the only time. But I never EVER want to be like them I don't want to compromise my morals, just so I can lay the blame on my colleagues, I don't understand how they can do this?