The Agency: Part 6 - The Ballad of the Bosses

[u/Mr_Cartographer]

Hello everyone! This is the next story in the saga of my time at $Agency, wherein we find out that there are still more issues despite the dismissal of $BadMike. All of this is from the best of my memory along with some personal records, but ultimately it is how I remember things. There certainly can be some inaccuracies. Also, I don't give permission for anyone else to use this.

TL/DR: Yeah, I don't do that. Enjoy the story :)

Again, for context, I am not in IT; rather, I'm a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) professional. This particular world is quite small, so I will do what I can to properly anonymize my tale. For reference, during the course of these stories I was employed at a research agency affiliated with a major university. Here is my Dramatis Personae:

• $Me: I wonder who this could be!
• $Agency: Research agency where I was working at the time.
• $MrScott: Very nice guy, very smart, and completely clueless as a manager. Sort of my superior at this point.
• $DragonLady: The director of $Agency. Brilliant, great fundraiser, and similarly terrible at managing people.
• $AwesomeBoss: Operations manager. Very awesome, very chill and approachable yet extremely competent.
• $AwesomeRed: Very awesome and intelligent analyst. She was my best friend in the office.
• $GoodMike: New GIS staff member that happened to have the same name as $BadMike. A superior Mike in every way.
• $GoldPhD: Very intelligent and awesome staff member (but not a member of the GIS team). She had some major issues with $DragonLady.

When we last left off, I had just achieved my first true victory. I had vanquished my nemesis, $BadMike, and helped to engineer his dismissal. The nightmare was over. From this point forward, we'd be able move forward with our work in a drastically improved way. The worst was past - we had won, hadn't we? Everything would be ok going forward, right?

Unfortunately, no. Very, very no.

With $BadMike no longer employed at $Agency, we started to see that there were a ton of other problems with the way the organization was being run. Most of these issues had been veiled by $BadMike's awfulness. To be sure, $BadMike sucked, and he really was responsible for the majority of the bullsh*t we had to deal with, but with him now out of the way we could tell that there was just as much to deal with between $MrScott and $DragonLady. What I've got below is less a transcription of what occurred in the immediate aftermath of $BadMike's firing; rather, it is more a laundry list of the crap we'd been dealing with for years by that point. What is important to know is that these problems now began to permeate every facet of our work lives.

We'll start with $MrScott.

As can be inferred from his name, $MrScott was a terrible manager. He was only placed in his position because he had been working at $Agency for over 20 years. Management by seniority, nothing else. He was a great researcher and actually very good at the GIS work that he did. And he was honestly a nice person outside the professional environment. I still have books that he gave to me. However, as a manager and a leader, he was awful. If you were to take a list of all the traits that can be exhibited by a bad manager, he probably ticked almost every box.

For example, he was patently incapable of taking responsibility. If one of us had an error or problem, then that was OUR error or problem. We needed to fix it, to ensure we didn't do that next time, and we would be held accountable in every instance. Nothing could convince him that he held any share of the blame. Similarly, if $MrScott had an error or problem, that was ALSO our error or problem - because, after all, we worked for him, so we should have informed him if we knew there would be any issues. He refused to make decisions, telling us to go speak to $AwesomeBoss (who was usually out of the loop) or $DragonLady (who was usually too busy to see us). When we would ask if we were finished with a particular project, he would never, ever let us know. We probably kept 90% of our projects technically "open" because nobody would tell us when we were through! Ugh.

He took great pride in the educational position he held in the academic hierarchy, as well. Dude, the ego that exudes from academia is more noxious than a landfill. As I said in previous posts, he refused to use the GIS system architecture that we created simply because he didn't want to learn it; it was, essentially, "beneath" him. He rarely even used the current GIS software suite that the rest of us were using at the time, preferring to go with one that had been in use in the late 90s! Again, this was because he didn't want to learn how to use it. He would often say things that were extremely dismissive to the rest of us - not because he was explicitly trying to be mean, but because he simply couldn't comprehend that talent and expertise can exist without a piece of paper from an academic institution. He would often state that we "shouldn't go around telling people that we understood what we were doing" because we weren't working towards/had a PhD or anything similar. The very essence of the moronic douchebag that says "using Google doesn't make you a doctor." I am 100% certain that you proper IT folks would have slapped the sh*t out of him on a daily basis.

Many of the things that he did were just bizarre. There was one instance in particular that I remember vividly. Do you all remember the Beach Games episode of The Office? During that episode, Michael Scott (the boss) asks Pam (the receptionist) to take notes of everything happening through the day while he awards things to the staff. Towards the end of the day, he asks Pam if she's been keeping score and who is in the lead. Pam doesn't know, as Michael has been giving them random awards. Michael then asks Pam to look through her notebook to see if there's a conversion chart - clearly something that he would have had to tell her about so she could have written it down!

Incredibly, I had an experience just like this with $MrScott. At one point, he performed some sort of analysis that used some data he'd saved to his own computer (instead of to the network, go figure). He hadn't recorded the steps he'd taken when doing this, and when it wound up going to final product, there were a bunch of issues and he got chewed out. He knew that I kept a notebook on my desk where I recorded notes to put into our documentation later. After this particular fiasco, he called me into his office, asking me to bring my notebook. When we started talking, he asked if I had any notes on what HE'D done in MY notebook. I just stared at him - WTF? He asked if I'd taken any notes on a process he had not told me about, that he'd saved entirely to his own system, that I had no access to, and that he'd never involved anyone else in?! Is this... is this a thing?!? What kind of moron asks this?!? He then proceeded to have me to look through my notebook for anything that might have been relevant! I was literally floored by this - it broke my mind that a mental deficiency of this sort could even exist. I should have pulled out my pen right there and written "You are f\cking stupid*" in my notebook and called it a "relevant note." Alas, I wanted to keep my job.

There were plenty of other problems, too. He wouldn't communicate on virtually anything, so if you told him something it would fall on deaf ears. If you went to him with a problem, he'd either deflect it onto someone else or just not do anything about it. Eventually, though, we determined that if you just didn't talk to him, he wouldn't come to you with anything. He honestly seemed content to stay cloistered in his office. Later on at $Agency, we'd just speak to $AwesomeBoss for pretty much everything. $MrScott would only be involved if someone specifically demanded it. Unfortunately, in these instances he also wanted to make sure he suitably marked his territory, and instead of peeing all over everything he'd invariably put some obsolete procedure or random bullsh*t into the project to prove his involvement. Peeing on things would have been far easier for us to deal with. Usually, we'd just ignore what he said because he'd never follow up later. Still, it got to the point where we'd collectively groan if we heard that $MrScott was going to be part of anything.

Eventually, though, he was so sidelined from our active operations that he was largely a non-entity (except when he wanted to slam his foot in the door).

Let's move on to $DragonLady.

There were a lot of things to like about $DragonLady. She was incredibly smart, and even better, was exceptionally creative. She was very good at getting support from a number of places. We never had an issue with funding, something that isn't so easy do to when you are in research. Remember that she gave me a big raise and moved me into my own office. And she helped defend me against the accusations of $TheLawyer. In a lot of cases, she was very understanding, and she could be very nice from time to time.

But there were a ton of things about her that were just awful (and remain so to this day). And the bad greatly outweighed the good. Buckle up, cause we're in for a ride.

One of the worst things was how much she micromanaged. Every one of you already knows this is a terrible trait. She wanted to be involved in every decision, every design, every procedure that we did. Never mind if it was some sort of internal GIS process. Never mind if she literally had no idea what it did. She had to know when we were updating data and how. She had to be able to weigh in on our symbology choices and map designs. There was no such thing as "general guidance" - she had to be consulted for almost every decision we made as a team. She seemed incapable of delegation. As you can understand, this got real old, real quick, particularly once we started ramping up the volume of work. At one point, she demanded that I send her an email with every single decision I made during the day and everything she needed to follow up on. So I did. After flooding her inbox for about two weeks, she demanded that I change this to "only the information she needed to know about." So I stopped sending the emails altogether (see what I did there? :D ). She never said another word to me about it.

We had one staff member we hired that I'll call $GoodMike. He was phenomenal at the coding, scripting, and querying aspects of GIS. He crafted a ton of incredibly useful scripts for us. However, these were SCRIPTS, folks - all of you IT professionals know that coding takes time, requires specific parameters, and is crafted for a particular goal or use. It is only as flexible as its design, and adding more flexibility takes magnitudes more time and effort. $DragonLady couldn't comprehend that scripting needed to be maintained and was not a one-size-fits-all solution, especially in a research setting. She didn't understand that code gets screwed up by changes in parameters and data. Consequently, when these scripts were used for purposes for which they weren't designed, they failed. As a result, she thought $GoodMike was an idiot. And she decreed that no scripts could be used unless she checked and confirmed them first. By her - who had no coding skills whatsoever. WHAT?! Pretty sure you IT folks' heads would explode. Yeah, so we wound up using those scripts without telling her and troubleshot them as we could.

She was completely erratic in her project management approach, as if she couldn't focus on anything for more than a few minutes. This sucked so much. We'd get to the end of a project and be presenting the final version, and she'd wind up having half a million edits for us in the rollout! We'd get new projects right in the middle of old ones, be told to abandon things "for the time being," and then shift gears. Usually, what we stopped working on would be abandoned for good. We'd get in to the office and see emails she sent at 3 AM giving us a new directive to work on, and she'd complain at 8-9 AM that we hadn't formulated a plan of attack yet. Turnarounds of 1 hour were not uncommon. It was mentally exhausting having to shift work focus so d*mned much. Honestly, the constant disruption in our workflow probably cost us more productivity than any other single thing at $Agency.

She also seemed incredibly paranoid about letting us have time off. This was awful. It was as if she didn't think that $Agency would survive if one of us was not at work. And this may have actually been the case due to how chaotic she was in her project assignments. If a particular person was needed to fulfill a "spark of inspiration" she had off the cuff, and this person wasn't available, then her random project idea couldn't get completed. As a result, getting time off was like pulling teeth - h*ll, it was like ripping vertebrae out of your back. We would request time off months in advance only to have it denied the day before we were to be off. Have an industry event you want to attend? Nope. Have a family gathering you'd like to go to? Nope. Need to go to a doctor's appointment? NOPE. Jesus.

There was one incident I remember very well. We had hired someone I'll call $GoldPhD. She held a doctorate in her field, had years of experience, and was one of the premier researchers in the discipline. We were incredibly lucky to even have her at $Agency. After working here for about two years, she decided to take a two-week vacation. She had the time accrued, let $DragonLady know around a month in advance, and went ahead and paid for everything. I think she and her husband were going on a cruise. Around a week before she was to depart, $DragonLady came back and denied her vacation. The reason? "I cannot simply let you take this amount of time off when you have responsibilities here at $Agency." The screaming match afterwards was of epic proportions. $GoldPhD quit on the spot, forced $DragonLady to pay out all her accrued leave, still went on her vacation, and had another job with a competing agency at the university the SAME F\CKING DAY. \slowest of claps*

Another problem was $DragonLady's abject refusal to share credit on anything. Not a single paper or report had an analyst's name on it. It was as if she treated all the staff at $Agency as her own personal students. This extended even to professional events. She would invariably refuse to allow us time off to attend anything within the industry, stating that in anything we did, "we were representing $Agency and she needed to be in charge of cultivating that perception." As you can imagine, this is absolute bullsh*t. If we ever attend a professional event (especially on our own resources), we are representing OURSELVES, not who we work for. She would get incredibly angry if we even communicated with other GIS colleagues, admonishing us not to do that. After all, this meant that she wouldn't have complete control over our career development. As you can imagine, this generated an immense amount of resentment among the GIS staff. We NEEDED to keep on top of technology and industry changes. She seemed incapable of recognizing that we were not her graduate students - we were PROFESSIONALS, and we expected to be treated as such.

But probably her worst sin was how f*cking vague she was. She was a researcher and a professor, and invariably seemed to think that we should be "exploring the questions" rather than taking orders. The problem is - that's not how professional project management works. In many cases, it was as if we had to read her mind to figure out what we were supposed to f*cking do in the first place! I remember one specific instance where we were discussing a project, and I brought up a question about a particular directive she had demanded. I asked her what it meant - her response was "What do you think it means?" At the time, I responded with my best guess (which was invariably wrong, how surprising). But if I was in the same position today, without a second's hesitation my answer would be "I should never have to guess what my responsibilities are. Either tell me or don't expect anything." This crap irritated us all, but I remember $AwesomeBoss being particularly infuriated by it.

Christ, this was so frustrating. And it eventually broke $GoodMike. He was much like many of you, I'd expect. He was used to reasonably clear instructions, a development methodology, and a systematic approach. He was used to iterations, troubleshooting, and refinement. $DragonLady's chaos was simply impossible for him to adapt to. After only a few months at $Agency, he was actually demoted since $DragonLady couldn't comprehend how useful he could be and had no idea how to leverage his skills within our team. Eventually, thankfully, he found employment elsewhere - at a company that has a much better and more mature management style. As you can imagine, he is thriving there :)

There are honestly more things I could think about, but I'm getting sick of listing it all. Just know that as a manager, $DragonLady had a lot of severe problems, ones that I feel really hampered our ability to be a world-class GIS team. As for the name $DragonLady - I didn't make that up. That is her nickname at the state departments that have to deal with her. I'm sure she would be thrilled to know that, lol. When she doesn't get her way, she can be a nightmare.

It's ok, Moss, you can swear if you want to. PLOPPERS!

Man, I need a beer. I'll be right back.

And I'm back. As can be seen, there were a ton of structural issues plaguing $Agency. At the time, I continued to roll with it. But something was about to happen that was going to change my life forever. In early spring, roughly a year after $BadMike had been let go, my wife came into our bedroom holding a pregnancy test. She had a look that was equal parts excitement and terror in her eyes. She blurted out, "I'm pregnant!", squealed, and threw herself nervously on the bed.

I was going to be a father.

I did everything I could to get ready for it. I didn't tell $DragonLady until I could be 100% sure, though I did let $AwesomeBoss know (as I liked her and trusted her). Since we pretty much couldn't take time off, even for doctor's appointments, I made sure to "call in sick" on each of my wife's gynecology appointments. Y'all, I nearly fainted when I saw my little one's heartbeat for the first time!After each appointment, I called $AwesomeBoss to let her know what we'd found out, and she was so thrilled for us each time :)

Eventually, after a few months, we made the announcement. I told $DragonLady that I'd be taking five weeks off for paternity leave. She was remarkably ok with it. I would expect the FMLA regulations that I informed her of played no part in that >:D Anyways, we got to the end of the year and I started my leave so that I could be with my wife whenever she went into labor. In the delivery room, I was a little shell-shocked to see my daughter for the first time - I remember the nurse gave me my wife's phone and said, "You'd better take a picture or she's gonna kill you!" I nervously responded with yes ma'am :) Once things had settled down, I sent the pictures on to $AwesomeBoss. She texted me back shortly thereafter saying that every one of the ladies in the office were huddled around her phone, trying to get a peek at the new addition to our family!

That night, as I held my sweet little girl in my arms for the first time, I swore that I would do everything in my power to advance my career and provide for her as best as I could :*) I would work tirelessly to ensure that she could have a decent life and that I would be able to be part of it. And I would get started the moment I returned to work.

Tomorrow, you all will see how that panned out. Thanks for reading, everyone :)

Thanks for everything, folks! Here are the other parts to the Agency series: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 7 Part 8

Here are some of my other stories on TFTS if you're interested: A Symphony of Fail Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

[u/Gambatte]

But probably her worst sin was how f*cking vague she was.

My old CEO - about who I have written a plethora of TFTS posts - was terrible for vague directions. On one memorable incident, the Accountant asked how he wanted to charge a particular customer; were they getting standard charges? It was a simple yes or no question.
He started out his response with "yes', and hemmed and hawed and through more run-on sentences and conjunctions than should ever be produced by a healthy mind, he had come full circle to "no".

When the Accountant immediately asked for clarification, his response was "Well, I think I've been pretty clear," to which the Accountant retorted "You literally just answered a Yes or No question with both Yes AND No!" The CEO started to splutter something out but the Accountant was done, said "I'm leaving, email me what you want me to charge" and then actually walked out of the office and went home.

If only it had ended there...
The CEO sent a quarterly rate that was less than the normal monthly rate. The Accountant sent back an email to say "Are you sure? This is an extremely low quarterly rate!" and the CEO's response was "I have triple checked these figures personally, you have no authority to argue with me about it, so just do it!"
Well, they did. And they printed the email and stored it in that particular customer's file.

---

Two years later, the CEO was hosting the son of the biggest shareholder in our office, when the topic turned to that particular customer. The CEO mentioned that he'd HAD to take a low rate on that job, due to the competition sniffing about. Shareholder's son said "It's just business, right? If it was below cost, you should have walked away."
"Oh it's not below cost," says the CEO.
"Yes it is," says the Accountant.
"Well,' says the CEO, deciding to throw the Accountant under the bus, "if it is, then it must be because YOU screwed up the billing!"

I have never seen ANYONE so happy to slap the outgoing invoices on the table, showing EXACTLY how far below normal rates that customer was being charged, immediately followed by the CEO's email, showing that the Accountant had sought clarification, the CEO's "just do it!" response, and that the current rate being billed was EXACTLY what the CEO had demanded.

The Shareholder's son and I exchanged a look, that I interpreted as "Is the CEO actually a f$cking moron?" to which my return look was hopefully interpreted as "yes, this is the crap he does daily, welcome to my life".

Once again, the Accountant left early.

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/Gambatte]

What in the hell? Did this idiot ever get the ax? It does not sound like he was an asset to the company in any manner :(

If I had been the accountant, I'd have started turning my phone on to record any time I had to deal with this monstrosity. I'm in a one-party consent state, so once he was done speaking, I could immediately point out his inconsistencies to himself. Simply terrible, sorry :(

[u/Gambatte → u/Mr_Cartographer]

We're also one party consent, and there were several occasions when recordings were made for the purpose of CYA. I was the one who advised the Accountant to start getting his instructions in writing, and store them in the customer file.

It's been a while, but last I checked, the CEO was still there, taking the simplest jobs in the world and making them complicated.

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/Gambatte]

Lol, the perpetual remit of manglement. :p

[u/Gambatte → u/Mr_Cartographer]

The same CEO once suggested we make over 2000 manual changes - in a system that would not allow batching of such a bulk request, which was programmed by a man who would almost certainly make such a feature cause a complete meltdown of the production server - when we instead could have made two.

After I left, I happened to visit my previous employer's website, and saw a message that could only mean that the 2000+ manual changes had been started.
I believe I actually said aloud "Not my circus, not my monkeys - not any more."

[u/joppedi_72 → u/Gambatte]

Once worked at a place were the CEO was a complete empathic moron with little to no knowledge on how to run a busines. This busines was owned by a large corporation and the CEO would regularna drop in on the Teams meetings the corporation leadership abroad completely unprepaired and without a clue to the subjects of the meetings. The CFO was the one that actually run the busines and the meetings since the CEO was clueless.

[u/Gambatte → u/joppedi_72]

It was a pretty small business, the Accountant was really CFO in all but title (and, I assume, monetary compensation).

The CEO had final say on all hiring decisions. He never hired anyone but females in their mid-twenties - regardless of qualifications or suitability to the job description.

For example, after the Accountant finally quit, the CEO hired a completely unqualified young woman; when queried about her total lack of relevant skills or experience, his response was "the company will train her!" Why not hire one of the dozen qualified people that applied? We need the accounts to be right now, not six months from now when the new girl is finally finished the training courses! And what if she decides that, after all that, accounting just isn't for her?

Once I left, the CEO was the only male left in the entire company, and was about 2.5 times the age of the next oldest employee.

[u/joppedi_72 → u/Gambatte]

In other words he didn't hire competence, he hired eyecandy

The original owner and founder or the company before it was sold to big corp, used to hire young people as his assistant. Most of them were females, but a couple of guys did time as his assistant also, the thing was that this was the toughest position you could have. You were more or less a 24/7 paid slave, on pretty low pay. But he taught you every ins and outs of the industry and after about 18-24 months he urged you to try your own wings either within the company or at a client or business associate. Everyone of them actually worked their way to high positions within the company or in other similar industries.

The job as his assistant was hellhole of stress but the knowledge, experience an connections you gained were worth way more.

One of his things was that he was very straight you, if he felt you did something wrong or could have done it better he'd tell it to your face once you were alone. But he expected you to do the same to him when you felt he was wrong or something could have been done better.

One of his favorite lines to his assistants was "One of you jobs is to keep me in line when I get to excited or creative."

Sadly he sold the company and left.

[u/s-mores → u/Gambatte]

Wow.

If CYA had a face, it would be Accountant.

[u/ksam3]

I just read your series straight through. I can so relate to your experiences with many of the "characters". My BadMike was a MalignantMary and I, like you, was instrumental in the excision of a tumorous mass from the workplace and I know the joy, and relief, that you felt. I can't wait to read the next chapter!

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/ksam3]

Awesome! Glad you were able to get rid of a toxic element of your workplace - and yes, it is the most peaceful feeling ever :) Hope you like the rest!

[u/CA-CH]

What is Mr Scott's beloved ancient GIS software? ArcInfo Workstation?

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/CA-CH]

YES! The fact that you know this makes me sad :)

Seriously, we could not get him off of it. Even if we had a process that flat out could not run in the old software. 90% of the time he had ArcInfo up on his screen when I went in there. It was insanity. Ugh.

[u/CA-CH → u/Mr_Cartographer]

haha I knew it! Ive met some of the old guard being like "no UI can beat my command line GIS software"

[u/spaceraverdk → u/CA-CH]

To be fair.

I dabble in CAD on a hobby basis.

I had a 3 week course in AutoCAD at V12. I loved the command line because it made it so powerful to work with.

I like Solidworks, Fusion360 et al.

But I keep falling back to Rhino3d because it has a command line that is useful. You can drive a whole 3d model just out of command line.

Why all the high quality cad packages are so dependent on the mouse is a mystery to me.

It would take very little to include a command line where I could type the beginning of my wanted command or make an abbreviation list to be faster.

[u/BrewtusMaximus1 → u/spaceraverdk]

I work heavily with Creo. There's map key functionality in it, so you can in essence create your own keyboard shortcuts. Googling shows similar functionality in SolidWorks and Fusion360.

Can't quite drive a full model with them, but can do quite a lot.

[u/SwashbucklinChef]

My job offered 3 weeks of paid paternity leave and then I took advantage of FMLA to score another 5 week so I was off for about two months. I don't know if you experience this yourself but every single older male colleague gave me "you know, back in my day, men didn't take more than a couple days off for the kids".

Makes me mad just thinking about it. As someone who had been new fathers back in the day wouldn't they have wanted to spend MORE time with their recent addition? How can they begrudge me for wanted to do the same? >:O

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/SwashbucklinChef]

I know, my father-in-law complained to me saying he'd only taken 1 day off when his daughter (my wife) was born. He said that I didn't need to take all that time. I did anyway, since I could care less what he thinks. But yes, I don't get that.

And paternity leave was amazing; obviously, I had to do feedings and clean her up, but I also got to hold the little one while she slept and play Legend of Zelda with her on my stomach :) It was awesome!

[u/SwashbucklinChef → u/Mr_Cartographer]

I really feel you on that one. Some of my fondest memories of my daughter are her napping on me while playing games. There was something very special about pausing the game on occasion and feeding or soothing her when she woke up.

Speaking of, I made an amateur dad mistake and picked up Nioh 2 when she was born... For all you new fathers out there don't buy games that can't be paused!

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/SwashbucklinChef]

Lol, yes the pause button is your friend! Helps make those "accidents" a lot less catastrophic :)

[u/[deleted] → u/Mr_Cartographer]

Yeah, I definitely miss the feeling of my kid sleeping on me.

[u/[deleted] → u/SwashbucklinChef]

My old boss didn't understand why I wanted to keep working 4-day weeks. He also said almost exactly the same thing.

What he didn't think about is that he used to work exactly 8 hour days and commute maybe half an hour each way. So combined with an hour of lunch he'd be gone maybe 10 hours.
I was working 8.5 hour days and my commute was 1 1/4 hours each way. With half an hour of lunch that was 11.5 hours I'd be gone. That meant I'd leave well before my kid woke up and got home just in time to eat dinner as a family, tidy up their bedroom and tuck them in.

He still didn't seem to get it. Whatever.

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/[deleted]]

Very much understand this.

My previous boss at the existing job (the municipality) has two very young children. She also lived hell-and-gone from the office, easily spending an hour in traffic each way. And that on top of having to work late, come in early sometimes, etc. Almost the entirety of her day was spent at work, to the point where she basically just got her kids up to go to daycare each morning, and then ate dinner with them and put them to bed at night. For the entire week.

She wound up finding a great job right next to where she lived and took it. The big boss at the municipality was pretty disheartened by this, since he'd invested so much into her and was grooming her to be his successor. Yet I couldn't begrudge her at all. She had already missed all that time with her children, and you don't get that time back. She seemed adamant to not miss more.

Ultimately, if the boss folks don't understand, then that's really on them. If they'll let you work as you desire, then it doesn't really matter.

[u/dreaminginteal]

"using Google doesn't make you a doctor."

... but it does make you a software engineer!

(Source: Am software engineer.)

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/dreaminginteal]

Yup. I hated $MrScott's attitude towards anyone that had less education than him. It was so demeaning and insulting. Man.

[u/brotherenigma]

As someone who's just gotten a glimpse of what academia is like at the graduate and postgraduate level (my roommate for a year was a PhD student), I'm glad I went with an online micromasters that's directly applicable to real-world problems. I love research groups - in fact I follow several famous ones in quite a few different fields - but I imagine funding is political hell. And it takes a goddamn toll.

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/brotherenigma]

Yes, having education and training that is directly applicable to the real world is worth its weight in gold. I'm about to finish a masters program myself, now, and it is appalling to me just how far behind the courses are when it comes to GIS technology!

[u/RunRedHiFi]

A) you CAN be knowledgeable without qualifications,

AND

B) using Google, does fucking NOT make you a doctor. The moronic claim Is that...

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/RunRedHiFi]

Yeah, it was more about the attitude. He could not comprehend that expertise is comprised of more than just education.

And in the GIS field, it's even more pronounced within academia. Not only have I worked in academia, I've also worked in the private sector and in other public institutions. While all have their faults, the main issue I would see with academia was how obsolescent their application is and how far behind the curve they are (which is completely ironic for institutions that are supposedly on the "leading edge" of research within the discipline!) I've come to realize that academia does not handle the fast pace of technological change well at all. When I get new coworkers, mentees, or colleagues that speak to me who have come from an academic setting, I invariably let them know that what they had been doing was probably 5-10 years behind what's actually being done in the field. If they argue, I show them. Then they shut up :D Lol.

Anyways, it was more about the attitude than the actual statement. $MrScott just sort of sucked as a manager.

[u/Southy567]

This is my new daily read and i love every word of it. I would pay for a book of your stories man, you have a gift for storytelling

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/Southy567]

Lol, thank you :) Well you don't have to pay anything to read from TFTS, and I have a few more after this that I'd like to post up!

[u/JudgeMingus]

Exciting progression of events in your tale!

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/JudgeMingus]

Awesome! Glad you like it :)

[u/R3ix]

Your writing style is great. I wonder hot that influenced or was influenced by your GIS work.

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/R3ix]

I don't think my GIS work did anything for that - it was probably my love for tabletop RPGs, honestly :) I try to make my campaigns exciting and detailed. I guess that translates into my writing style as well!

[u/Railfan101]

I have been following this series of stories so far, and I am enjoying them a lot. But I am not an IT professional, nor any professional with computers. If I'm allowed to ask, could you or someone else please inform me what a GIS professional does? I am very confused and lost on what the job actually is.

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/Railfan101]

Sure, I can give you some insights.

So GIS professionals are usually tasked with some variation of the following:

1. Finding things on the earth's surface and then digitizing those things into a location-based database;
2. Using the stuff on the earth's surface to perform analyses that answer a specific location-based question (or series of questions).

Let me give you some examples.

When I first arrived at the city I now work for, I was tasked with finding and digitizing all of the city's assets into a GIS database - particularly utilities assets, such as hydrants, manholes, water valves, etc. You would think that the utility companies you purchase your water from would know where all the lines are in their system. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case. Most utilities were installed long before GIS became common. As a result, the information that shows those assets are located on physical paper maps, in AutoCAD drawings, or just in the minds of the people that originally installed them. Certain things could have been omitted or altered in the intervening years. Hydrants and manholes could have been buried, built over, damaged, or forgotten.

One of my first tasks was identifying all the fire hydrants in the city's inventory. The utilities department really had no idea how many hydrants they actually owned nor where they were. I proceeded to work with the field crews to GPS the locations of the hydrants throughout the system and did some of the work myself. We not only collected location, but also data about the hydrants, such as the flow rates, model and manufacturer, when the hydrant was installed, etc. When we were done, we had an excellent feature showing all the hydrants in the system.

You may be thinking, so what? Well, it's using the data that you create that is the most important. As an old mentor of mine said, "Creating the data takes 90% of the time and provides 10% of the benefits, but using the data takes 10% of the time and provides 90% of the benefits." Here are some examples of how we used the information:

• I was able to completely rebuild our hydrant maintenance routes using this information; the new routes take much less time for the crews to drive and actually incorporate all the hydrants in the system. Our system is better maintained now because of this.
• I was able to create new digitized forms for the crews where they can fill out their reports using a GIS-enabled app on their phones. Previously they filled out these forms on paper and we had a whole warehouse dedicated to storing them. Now they are filled out instantly, and if the regulatory agency ever needs to check something, they can access the records in seconds. This has saved us time and effort and even staved off some lawsuits!
  
• Most importantly, I was able to get this data to the fire department of the city. Since it has incredibly crucial things like flow rate, the firefighters now instantly know how much water they can put down on a fire incident and even know what types of equipment to bring! It's something they've never had before. It's made their firefighting far more accurate, but more importantly, it has saved lives and property damage.

The other type of thing that GIS professionals do is analysis. And there are so many ways in which this can be done that it staggers the mind. One example would be a suitability analysis. A transit authority may want to know where they need to add a new bus line. Using GIS, they can identify areas where there is a large percentage of the population that doesn't have a car. Combining that and other factors, a suitability analysis can be created that shows a graduated surface of the city with the areas best matching those criteria in hotter or more apparent colors (just like a heat map or temperature map). By using that data, the transit authority can make an informed decision on what areas would best benefit from adding a new bus line.

In terms of real-world use, GIS is everywhere. Anywhere a location-based question can be asked, GIS can be used to answer that question. And since almost everything that exists can be tied to location in some way, there is a GIS specialty that exists for almost anything. It's used for redistricting, service areas, population projections, park maintenance, and agricultural and environmental science. It's used every time you access Google Maps. It's used every time you get directions to somewhere when you are driving in your vehicle. Someone has to be behind all this technology to develop it, maintain it, and get it to work, and those people are GIS professionals. Like me :D

GIS is becoming more and more visible each passing day. The technology is not slowing down - it's speeding up faster and faster as time goes by. And the job growth is pretty hefty. I'm a little biased, but it's honestly a fantastic career if you'd like to get into it. You can learn more about it with the GIS community here on Reddit at r/GIS, or if you just want a little bit better introduction you can see the information that Esri has put together here - What is GIS?

Hope that helps! Sorry if I'm too long-winded :p

[u/SourcePrevious3095 → u/Mr_Cartographer]

This reply could be tagged with "epic" as well. You deserve your own sub right now.

[u/Railfan101 → u/Mr_Cartographer]

You don't need to apologize for being long winded. Thanks for the info. Very informative. As for your comment about if I want to get into it, I already have my dream job. As I hope my own username implies, I work on the railroad and have been for 9 years. I'm very happy where I am now and have no interest in changing jobs.

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/Railfan101]

No worries! Just want to share info where I can :) Glad you're happy at your job!

[u/Railfan101 → u/Mr_Cartographer]

Thanks. And congrats on being a parent. Hope your daughter is healthy and happy

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/Railfan101]

She is :) She's a little sweetheart and the best thing in my life right now!

[u/LeahInShade → u/Mr_Cartographer]

Freaking F.A.S.C.I.N.A.T.I.N.G!

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/LeahInShade]

Thanks, Leah, I appreciate it :)

[u/LeahInShade → u/Mr_Cartographer]

I think myself and many here appreciate your stories (and likely contributions to your community), so win-win all around!

[u/[deleted] → u/Mr_Cartographer]

As a volunteer FF: Thanks!
In Switzerland we generally never lack water and the hydrants are generally all comparable in output. But knowing if a series of hydrants are part of a ring or on separate lines is incredibly useful (and not something we know - except for the more experienced vFF).

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, there is so much variety in hydrants here that it boggles the mind sometimes. I envy those organizations where there is enough centralization to make sure that things are standardized.

Thank you for serving as a firefighter! I'm certain that more people appreciate you than you know :)

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/[deleted]]

Thank you! We still have a few more to go :)

[u/ascii4ever]

Reading this gives me PTSD flashbacks of various bosses I've had over the years. There's a reason that Dilbert is such a popular comic, almost everyone has had a "pointy haired boss" at one time or another. Sounds like you had more than your share.

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/ascii4ever]

Yes, very much so :(

[u/Eliminateur]

and on this episode we also learn that you're not only married but with child!, haha, i'm not sure if i rememebr correctly but in one of teh first chapters weren't you clearly super single in a small house?

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/Eliminateur]

I was single at the beginning of all this, but I actually lived with a friend. I wound up getting married during the course of my time at $Agency :)

[u/Eliminateur → u/Mr_Cartographer]

how did you find time to know someone AND date with the overwork and stress you had :D, amazing

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/Eliminateur]

It was not easy. For a long time, I actually dated her long-distance, going to see her at some hole-in-the-wall town she was employed at out in the middle of nowhere for several months. But eventually we got married, and we're still married today :)

[u/tuxcomputers]

So the three biggest problem people are acidemics with zero outside experience, did I get that right?

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/tuxcomputers]

Yep. Pretty much.

[u/nymalous]

"using Google doesn't make you a doctor."

... once I took one of my brothers to the hospital in the middle of the night with severe abdominal pain. He thought it might be appendicitis. After a bunch of tests and scans and examinations, a doctor came in to talk to us. I remember the doctor had the same last name as a professor I had in college, but that's not relevant.

What is relevant is the reason we spent so long for what should have been a simple diagnosis (appendicitis? Yes or no.) was the scans/tests contradicted each other in some very strange ways. This forced the doctor to... Google it. That's right, he looked it up on the internet (and he specifically said "Google," though there must also be some medical databases that he had access to).

He was to determine that my brother had appendicitis epiploicum, which is very painful, but not life-threatening. Any surgery performed would have a much higher risk than just leaving it alone, and it should resolve by itself after a few days. Pain meds were prescribed, and we went on our way.

One of the cool things about this particular doctor was that he treated us like we were colleagues. He told us all about what he learned and the various processes he had to go through in order to learn it. We talked to him for a good while.

Then we started on our way home. And hit a deer less than a hundred yards from our house. It could have been worse. There were suddenly about 20 deer bounding and running through the (very not rural) street. The deer wasn't killed, and I managed to slow down enough that the damage to my (mid '80s) car was minimal.

Still, it gave me an interesting story. (I haven't even finished OP's story yet, but I wanted to point out that even doctors don't know everything and often use the internet to supplement their knowledge.)

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/nymalous]

Absolutely. Thinking you are the ultimate authority in something that changes constantly, with a source of information immediately available, is only an invitation for you to be challenged by your own hubris. Crazy story! Hope everything was ok with everyone after that :)

[u/[deleted]]

Absolutely feel you. Holding that tiny baby and knowing that going forward most of its needs hang in my hands (due to what my wife and I as a couple decided - not social norms)...

I told my brother in law that he couldn't prepare himself for that (nephew was due a couple of months after my kid). You can prepare as best you can but when you hold the baby and touch it and feel it...yeah it's a paradigm shift alright.

[u/Mr_Cartographer → u/[deleted]]

Absolutely. I felt like I was ready when she was born, and in retrospect I still do. But the things that came after are unlike anything I ever could have conceived of before. Thanks for the response, this was very nice :)