on the colour of grass.

it's not the grass wasn't greener on the other side. truth be told, both lawns were pretty brown. no, I'm trying to get my old job back right now because the new grass is moving thirty miles away, and I don't want to deal with the commute. the new job is frustrating sure, probably even more so than the old one. but I was willing to deal with it for the convenience of not having to change everything. relocating to kent (or sumner or mukilteo or tukwila) just isn't gonna fly tho.

and really, the things I didn't like about the old job were the commute and the boss. I'm trying to get the same job, but at the ballard store. different boss (nice guy, too) and five minute commute. hell, my brother in law even told me the whole cycle counting thing will likely disappear soon too, and that was always my east favourite part of the job. they're switching computer systems, and logistically, the new system just can't handle the counting...

it's somewhat ironic that just as I was getting close to blowing my top, the guy whose job I'm trying to get finally quit. he's a nice guy, and it's amazing he lasted as long as he did with that company... he was always too good for the job, I'd worked with him at corporate. he actually took the seattle gig the same time I took redmond. if things go well, I may end up replacing him. I won't find out until friday, since the district manager is out of town. I spoke to the branch manager briefly, and he said it's the DM's call. I know there are least two other candidates in the mix, but I have them both beat in spades if it comes down to merit. I just gotta hope it does. there's a small chance I burned some bridges when I left last year. however, this same DM who is making the call told me when I left that he'd take me back in a heartbeat. guess we'll see if that was just lip service.

if this does happen, I will no doubt still be miserable at my job. fortunately, it will make the transition back to canada in a few years that much easier, if we're still so inclined. in the short term, it's a job I know I can do (and do well) with far less stress. I like the idea of fewer variables and having those variables more under my control. see, my current job is playing out like a nightmarish keystone kops flick...

I'm in charge of production. there are four aspects of production: engineering, purchasing, electrical and mechanical. big jobs need to go through engineering first, where they're designed. when engineering is done, it's released to our buyer, who has to procure all the materials. once the stuff gets there, an electrical control box has to be built and fitted to the mechanical part. on any given job, at least two of those four things go tits up. either engineering takes too long (or designs it wrong), or our vendors can't ship fast enough to meet the demands our customers place on us, or something goes wrong on the electrical or mechanical side. right now, I have a four week backlog coming out of electronics, and my main guy for one of the bread and butter mechanical lines has been AWOL for several weeks with a questionable "infection" in his groinal area. toss in the usual supply problems (we've been insanely busy) and I'm just not a happy camper. and every time a job goes late, I get yelled at by salespeople. I don't have the horses to ever finish the race, and yet it's my job to do so.

so if I go back to the old job, there's much less to worry about... it's not production, it's distribution. I buy stuff for other people to sell. if there's a supply issue, you can always sub something. a toilet is a toilet, right? sure, there's stress and there are problems, but the seattle store isn't redmond. it has a good manager, and more importantly, a competent warehouse staff. they don't have the warehouse monkeys averaging 85 on the IQ scale... they've got good guys who have been there a long time, and that makes a HUGE difference in the buyer's stress level.

worst case scenario, I'm spurned by my former employer, the new one moves somewhere ungodly (commute-wise, anyway) and I'm forced to find another job from scratch... but I really hope it doesn't come to that.