Java developer out of work due to the big dot-bomb crash of 2001; had my fiance's insurance. We got married in September, had a honeymoon, Sept 11th happened on the day we were supposed to come back.
I'd been having night sweats for months and had lost a lot of weight for the wedding; wasn't eating much, but thought that fat guys sweat a lot at night, so didn't think much of it.
Lost 60 pounds. Night sweats. Drenched the bed.
After our honeymoon, I started having CHILLS. and Night Sweats. Crazy stuff. Teeth chattering, etc.
I got to the doctors and he said I had Montezuma's Revenge and... something else. Hepatitis? Blood work was coming up weird. He ran more tests then sent me to an oncologist at the "Cancer Center".
"Don't be scared of the name," he told me. "It just says Cancer. Doesn't mean you have cancer."
My oncologist was great. I had a lump under my armpit. She and the surgeon could feel it. I couldn't tell. Married for 2 weeks. No job. Whee, fun.
I had a bone marrow test; no cancer there. Surgery told us it was Hodgkin's Disease. Later to be renamed by Larry David as "The Good Hodgkin's" [ http://tinyurl.com/lpcsz ] He's a crackup.
Stage 3B. It's spread across my chest and into my spleen and liver. Curable, they told me. On the roulette wheel of cancers, you want Hodgkin's. No one in my family had ever had it. A blood aunt had Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. A non-blood aunt also had had NHL.
My mom kept a clean home - they say that many Hodgkin's cases come from clean homes. That bitch.:-)
I was told 6 months of chemo and then radiation treatment. In the meantime, I was frantically looking for a job, but no one was hiring.
Had my first chemo, then 2 days later an interview. Java development. They wanted to hire me, but I told him, "Look, I have to be honest with you. I can easily do what you ask, but I just started chemotherapy. It's curable they tell me, but I need one day off every 2 weeks for treatment; they only do treatment on a weekday. I just had my first treatment 2 days ago (true) and I'm right here, fine, and coherent."
My future manager really liked me and agreed, but I wasn't paid top dollar for my position. Who cares; we had 2 incomes and I had something to think about instead of mulling my "doom" in the apartment. They were fantastic to me, but have been out of business for 3 years (through no fault of mine - they were bought out and everyone was laid off or forced to move to Utah).
I had ABVD chemo on Mondays. In retrospect, I should have scheduled for Thursdays or Fridays. I was violently ill on Wednesdays and couldn't properly taste anything until the next Wednesday. Of course, that didn't stop me from eating and my mom said I'm a miracle - the first person to gain weight while on chemo.:-) That bitch.:-)
I got a potocatheter in my chest; if you're going to get Chemo, that's the f*cking Rolls Royce of chemotherapy. Just plug right into the chest.
Chemo ended up being 8 months, but no radiation. I involunterily vomited every time they injected me with saline to "clean the pipes". Told me that the old people didn't notice it, but since I was young, it was bad. I still can't swallow salt water without a little retching.
After 8 months, the PET Scan showed it was clear. Gone. Vanished. I was good to go. Remission. Had cat scans to follow up every 3 months and then 6 months after that. After 5 years, I'll be considered cured.
Regarding the weight thing; I was scared to lose weight for the last 3 years. I realized that I subconsciously related weight loss to having cancer. Saw a therapist and she helped me move on with a little advice. Told me that I was "easy because I'm a self-realized hypocondriac". She's was right. I eventually joined the Dr. Siegel "Cookie Diet" and lost 70 pounds.
On the cancer side, I just had one of my 6-month cat scans and bloodwork. I'm relatively clear; nothing is there, but the radiologist did spot a 2 mm item in on
I worked for a dot-com, not one of those huge corporate giants. I had a good, friendly relationship with my former manager/CTO, my former CEO, and my former HR/CFO.
I went up and told them, look - I have received a job offer and it's a literal 10 minutes from my front door whereas this is 40 minutes and I'm spending $300 a month on gas and tolls combined. You haven't given me a raise in over a year. I want to let you know that I'm considering this position; it's for more money and it's closer to home.
They don't bother to counter-offer, they don't have the $, but I'm a somewhat important guy, a primary developer of 2 different major company systems. I had spent many off-hours working with the systems, from work and from home. They have developers who could take my processes over, so that's not a problem.
I gave them my resignation and told them I'd be leaving in 2 weeks. Two other employees who had done exactly that (a QA/Customer Service guy and a Graphics Designer) were just instantly let go. One of them did not even get his honored vacation days.
I calmly laid out my intentions for the next two weeks: I said, I'm going to take these two weeks and finish a code clean up and document everything I've ever done for you guys and all the currently undocumented processes (not to say that they didn't ALREADY have documents, I was just going to update them and consolidate them) so that whomever you replace me with can maintain/manage this stuff properly.
They were totally fine with that. In fact, the CTO asked me to pre-screen a couple of candidate for my position in the second week. One was an OK fit who later came in, but did not pass the face-to-face interview; the other was too junior and they passed on him.
The entire time, I had full access to the production environment and would have been able to screw with them at any time. The thing is, I had been with them for almost 2 years and they knew me to be a responsible and trustworthy employee who had locked up the place for the night more than once.
It was a very cordial departure and I received full pay for my vacation days. They've called me a couple times for questions and I was invited to show up for yesterday's holiday party, but I had other plans.
Suffice to say, I still keep in contact with those coworkers and I would suspect the following for your situation:
If you're in a HUGE CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT where you are just a tiny, insignificant cog (I'm one now!), and one department doesn't know what the other department is doing, don't expect that you can't be replaced.
If you're in a smaller company where your work matters, it really all depends on your relationship with the other coworkers and your overall responsibility.
Look, the ability is currently NOT THERE. This is a request to put the ability to listen properly into place. That doesn't mean that every conversation is going to be tracked; they want the ability to there in the event that it's needed. Funding a listening program is going to likely be a separate concern. Northern Paranoids can relax for now; Big Maple Leaf Brother isn't going to be listening into your pseudo-French/English conversations about hockey, you hoser.
Slashdot Mirror
Java developer out of work due to the big dot-bomb crash of 2001; had my fiance's insurance. We got married in September, had a honeymoon, Sept 11th happened on the day we were supposed to come back. I'd been having night sweats for months and had lost a lot of weight for the wedding; wasn't eating much, but thought that fat guys sweat a lot at night, so didn't think much of it. Lost 60 pounds. Night sweats. Drenched the bed. After our honeymoon, I started having CHILLS. and Night Sweats. Crazy stuff. Teeth chattering, etc. I got to the doctors and he said I had Montezuma's Revenge and... something else. Hepatitis? Blood work was coming up weird. He ran more tests then sent me to an oncologist at the "Cancer Center". "Don't be scared of the name," he told me. "It just says Cancer. Doesn't mean you have cancer." My oncologist was great. I had a lump under my armpit. She and the surgeon could feel it. I couldn't tell. Married for 2 weeks. No job. Whee, fun. I had a bone marrow test; no cancer there. Surgery told us it was Hodgkin's Disease. Later to be renamed by Larry David as "The Good Hodgkin's" [ http://tinyurl.com/lpcsz ] He's a crackup. Stage 3B. It's spread across my chest and into my spleen and liver. Curable, they told me. On the roulette wheel of cancers, you want Hodgkin's. No one in my family had ever had it. A blood aunt had Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. A non-blood aunt also had had NHL. My mom kept a clean home - they say that many Hodgkin's cases come from clean homes. That bitch. :-)
I was told 6 months of chemo and then radiation treatment. In the meantime, I was frantically looking for a job, but no one was hiring.
Had my first chemo, then 2 days later an interview. Java development. They wanted to hire me, but I told him, "Look, I have to be honest with you. I can easily do what you ask, but I just started chemotherapy. It's curable they tell me, but I need one day off every 2 weeks for treatment; they only do treatment on a weekday. I just had my first treatment 2 days ago (true) and I'm right here, fine, and coherent."
My future manager really liked me and agreed, but I wasn't paid top dollar for my position. Who cares; we had 2 incomes and I had something to think about instead of mulling my "doom" in the apartment. They were fantastic to me, but have been out of business for 3 years (through no fault of mine - they were bought out and everyone was laid off or forced to move to Utah).
I had ABVD chemo on Mondays. In retrospect, I should have scheduled for Thursdays or Fridays. I was violently ill on Wednesdays and couldn't properly taste anything until the next Wednesday. Of course, that didn't stop me from eating and my mom said I'm a miracle - the first person to gain weight while on chemo. :-) That bitch. :-)
I got a potocatheter in my chest; if you're going to get Chemo, that's the f*cking Rolls Royce of chemotherapy. Just plug right into the chest.
Chemo ended up being 8 months, but no radiation. I involunterily vomited every time they injected me with saline to "clean the pipes". Told me that the old people didn't notice it, but since I was young, it was bad. I still can't swallow salt water without a little retching.
After 8 months, the PET Scan showed it was clear. Gone. Vanished. I was good to go. Remission. Had cat scans to follow up every 3 months and then 6 months after that. After 5 years, I'll be considered cured.
Regarding the weight thing; I was scared to lose weight for the last 3 years. I realized that I subconsciously related weight loss to having cancer. Saw a therapist and she helped me move on with a little advice. Told me that I was "easy because I'm a self-realized hypocondriac". She's was right. I eventually joined the Dr. Siegel "Cookie Diet" and lost 70 pounds.
On the cancer side, I just had one of my 6-month cat scans and bloodwork. I'm relatively clear; nothing is there, but the radiologist did spot a 2 mm item in on
Doesn't Hasbro have a lock on the "Optimus" name?
I worked for a dot-com, not one of those huge corporate giants. I had a good, friendly relationship with my former manager/CTO, my former CEO, and my former HR/CFO.
I went up and told them, look - I have received a job offer and it's a literal 10 minutes from my front door whereas this is 40 minutes and I'm spending $300 a month on gas and tolls combined. You haven't given me a raise in over a year. I want to let you know that I'm considering this position; it's for more money and it's closer to home.
They don't bother to counter-offer, they don't have the $, but I'm a somewhat important guy, a primary developer of 2 different major company systems. I had spent many off-hours working with the systems, from work and from home. They have developers who could take my processes over, so that's not a problem.
I gave them my resignation and told them I'd be leaving in 2 weeks. Two other employees who had done exactly that (a QA/Customer Service guy and a Graphics Designer) were just instantly let go. One of them did not even get his honored vacation days.
I calmly laid out my intentions for the next two weeks: I said, I'm going to take these two weeks and finish a code clean up and document everything I've ever done for you guys and all the currently undocumented processes (not to say that they didn't ALREADY have documents, I was just going to update them and consolidate them) so that whomever you replace me with can maintain/manage this stuff properly.
They were totally fine with that. In fact, the CTO asked me to pre-screen a couple of candidate for my position in the second week. One was an OK fit who later came in, but did not pass the face-to-face interview; the other was too junior and they passed on him.
The entire time, I had full access to the production environment and would have been able to screw with them at any time. The thing is, I had been with them for almost 2 years and they knew me to be a responsible and trustworthy employee who had locked up the place for the night more than once.
It was a very cordial departure and I received full pay for my vacation days. They've called me a couple times for questions and I was invited to show up for yesterday's holiday party, but I had other plans.
Suffice to say, I still keep in contact with those coworkers and I would suspect the following for your situation:
If you're in a HUGE CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT where you are just a tiny, insignificant cog (I'm one now!), and one department doesn't know what the other department is doing, don't expect that you can't be replaced.
If you're in a smaller company where your work matters, it really all depends on your relationship with the other coworkers and your overall responsibility.
It's called BitTorrent and a DVD Burner. Capture TV only. I pay for my cable. I just don't program my VCR properly.
BFD. According to that map, ginormous Canada has only one substation. :-)
Look, the ability is currently NOT THERE. This is a request to put the ability to listen properly into place. That doesn't mean that every conversation is going to be tracked; they want the ability to there in the event that it's needed. Funding a listening program is going to likely be a separate concern. Northern Paranoids can relax for now; Big Maple Leaf Brother isn't going to be listening into your pseudo-French/English conversations about hockey, you hoser.
I am surprised this is not the FIRST and GREATEST post. First one to mention Frontalot in any intelligenct sense.
BETTAR:a rthanpenn yarcaded/index.htm
b ettarthan pa/index.htm
http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/bett
AND MUCH BETTAR:
http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/much
The second one has pictures 3 comics in.