Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

So I finally feel like it's about time that I explain my -lengthy- absence.

I spent about 3 weeks at the end of June where I was beginning to wonder whether I was going to be fired, for God knows what, and then one day I get a call from my boss. Immediately, I was worried, as I'd not heard hide nor hair from this man in weeks, aside from the various quick memos that go out daily.

"Can you talk?"

"Sure."

"Are you in private?"

"Give me 3 minutes."

So I went to the most private place I know about in the entire building (a completely unfinished floor - you can see someone coming from miles away) and I let him know, "Okay, I'm here. What's up?"

"The General Manager has requested that you be replaced. Truth be told, no one down at home office is really happy about this, but we've got to keep her happy. So, we've got a new account for you and you'll start there in a week, and we've got Bill coming in from your old account to take over. His account will be taken by Phil, and Phil used to be the account supervisor for your new account. Is that clear?"

"Well," I say, a bit befuddled and ... quite a bit angry, "I thought Bill said he'd never leave the account he's at... Matter of fact, I thought I'd heard that the client had threatened to drop our company if he left."

"We dealt with it," He says with authority, but I can hear a bit of hesitancy floating in there.

"So what's the deal?" I say. "Why does she want me out? I was under the impression that everything was kosher?"

"She decided that she wanted to have someone in the supervisory position who had more experience. I'm sorry you didn't know that this was coming, and I'm sorry I didn't let you know earlier, but I didn't want to say anything before I had good news to give you."

"Fine, I suppose."

So one week later, I am taking over a new account. I've got Ryan, who's going through a divorce, Val, who's a single mother, and Walter, who's a member of a cult - and proud of it. The first two are pains in my ass because they both don't want to work anything but the schedule they've got, and Walter doesn't want to work weekends because he has "religious obligations"... I'm the supervisor, damnit, I say when you work.

Matter of fact, Walter writes me a ... I hate to say it, but 'note' gives this little chit a little too much credit. Through a weird course of events, I end up with both the original handwritten version as well as the 'final' typed version. I hesitate to even call that final, as the thing starts out 'Deer Dan jones' - no, there was no comma... and the last name was not capitalized.

It all went downhill from there.

I'm talking, misspellings, random punctuation, random capitAlization, demands (no, not requests) ... I will never publish anything whether to my wife, my parents, my boss, or a prospective employer until I've had a chance to look it over, proofread it, and spell check it.

Blame my mother.

Ryan tells me that the schedule won't work because he has to go pick up his kids from the sitter an hour into his shift. Fine, I say, you'll just come in two hours later and I'll work those two hours instead. Yippee.

Three weeks later, I've got the account running just about as smoothly as I can, and I get another call from my boss.

"You've got to go interview for another account. It's up between you and another supervisor, but both your buildings have been sold and the new owners want to pay less for the security. And you get paid too much."

What? I get paid too much?!

"Okay. I'll go Friday."

I get a call Monday to inform me that I'm the new supervisor at building number 3. and 4. and 5. It's a complex of buildings - which I'd had no idea until day one, and encompassed 2 accounts. Well, crap. More work, same pay.

So I guess, all in all, it worked out for the best. I'm in a pretty good building, with a client who respects me enough to let me do my work and leave me to my devices. My officers now are by and large pretty respectable, and I'm getting some overtime.

Oh, wait, that's not 100% a good thing...