New Mexico Sunshine Portal

It burns me up to see the $ amount some of the pigs in my division are getting paid! http://www.sunshineportalnm.com/
This sunshine portal shows the salaries of all state employees. When I drill down to my division (Local Government Division LGD), I can recognize some of the particular employees by their hire dates and titles and compare them with my title, financial coordinator O. The financial coordinator O next door to me makes more than some of the higher ranking financial coordinator A's. (The A stands for Ass since they think they are big shits because of their higher pay). But it also shows what they have paid heed to in their hiring biases. Information technologists (IT's) are given reverence and paid $60,000 plus per year. Next it helps if you are of Hispanic origin. Everyone in my bureau, the budget and finance bureau, a bureau of the Local Government Division, is Hispanic, except myself. These IT people are not Hispanic but I am raging that they put me up to the web camera enterprise and had to self teach and the IT guy here dragged his feet every step of the way when I asked him for help. He even admitted that he knows nothing about web cameras. He gave me an inadequate laptop that ended up freezing in front of an audience and embarassing me. I am wondering how I can ask for at least the midrange of the salary for my position without them saying they don't have the money. They found money to hire the guy across the hall from me one month after the former governor's hiring freeze in 2008, and pay him more than me! I would see a lawyer but for the cost and the biblical principle involved. (Remember the vinyard story in the bible where the later arriving workers were paid more than the early birds?) Let me know what you think of this outrageous story. And please visit New Mexico's sunshine portal at the link above.

Management comments inflammatory

Yesterday, Tuesday February 22, my boss calls all of the bureau into his office for a 'quick' meeting. He starts the meeting by announcing that somebody had been fired last Friday because they weren't working out. In his next breath he starts talking about a reserve requirement that he had discussed without any of us present at a meeting with some other officials in the department. He didn't indicate that it was legislation that was in play during New Mexico's 60day session, only that he had brought it up. After forty minutes his 'quick' meeting was adjourned and I was left thinking how unproductive it was. Nothing will come about because of his talking about a reserve requirement. He only wanted to raise our anxiety levels about the employee who had been fired. She was on probation so they could and it was self serving since we have a tight budget. (He announced that we now have $5,000 to travel with until June 30th because of her dismissal and the money saved). Talk about self serving. The state does nothing to develop leadership in its managers. What a disgusting waste of my valuable time. I was interrupted from my continuing education 2 hours of credit to listen to this crap. He uses e-mail for everything else but for this he had to call an in person meeting. What a loser! He is a double dipping loser.He told us to not talk with the fired employee about her dismissal. I don't even know who he was talking about so why is he telling me this. The guy is oblivious to his employees. He's a frigging former used car salesman! Its great to have freedom of speech but I hate that he's not giving me any duties to perform while on the taxpayer's dime. My attitude has become, if they want to pay me $40,000 dollars a year to be a clerk instead of an analyst, that's fine with me. beliieve me folks, I have tried asking for additional duties on more than one occasion and it falls on deaf ears. Any comments on my comments? Outraged? Let me know.

Thursday February 17th and I'm Confused

I am confused because my bureau chief was civil toward me today without the snobbery and other exclusive attitudes that have served so well to leave me isolated. He actually gave me a work assignment to do! At about 10:30 he called me to his office by intercom. I thought to myself what now in the land of the easily offended. Then he gave me the assignment which was to filter the list of legislative bill analysis assignments so he could see only the bills that were assigned to us. I am left wondering if he got a bit paranoid about my comments about somebody being at war with me and it was him. Why so nice I wanted to ask him. You are actually collaborating and talking with me and showing a little bit of leadership. But instead I took the paperwork and quickly got it done. He thought it would take me all day and it took 20 minutes. He had gone to lunch when I brought the completed work back to him. It was a clerical assignment so he basically used a cannon, (me) to kill a sparrow. I am hoping that writing this daily blog will take some of my feelings of resentment and victim mentality and get them out of my system. I read an e-mail from my wife today that advises to make a list of all the negative relationships and positive relationships in one's life and sees what can be done about pruning the negative ones from ones life, (as much as possible in the work world).  I feel that this blog is helping me to become a more positive person who can stay away from the poisonous personalities longer when writing. It also helps my confusion by maintaining a healthy skepticism about my kind boss and why he is being kind, while still being able to function in a do nothing workplace where people make much ado over nothing most of the time and waste taxpayer's money. I sometimes question to myself whether my entire division even needs to exist. It bugs me that government is not transparent and there is so much secrecy. There are so many people who are so full of themselves with an overinflated sense of self importance. I have always felt that these self important ego types are the most average amongst us. What are your thoughts on my comments? What do I have to get better at in my own attitudes and thinking process? I gotta tell you the one part of this job that I love is that I have so little to do when  people aren't bugging me over stuff like I described earlier this week. It allows me to collect a check and do other things like this blog. If they don't see the waste of it then I'm not going to say anything because they have not been intellectually honest with me by any stretch. Comments please. Let me hear your work horror stories.

Wednesday February 16th at the State Tyranny of the Easily Offended, Part II

Today I drove the 43 miles into Santa Fe instead of taking the train. What a relief as I saw the train parked on the tracks for some unknown emergency. Unfortunately gas is too expensive to do this every day but it was nice today. I am leaving early for a dentist appointment and I was able to sleep in my car during an early lunch that my boss granted. Not to belabor yesterday with the lady we'll call Joan but she just happened to be walking by my office and I flagged her down and invited her in, asking her to close the door. Joan balked at my request for 30 seconds of her valuable time but being the macho supervisor who is afraid of no one she had to relent and came in and closed the door. I asked Joan if there was something more to yesterday other than my walking by the conference room that I could apologize for since I thought it was much ado over nothing. Joan bristled at my line of questioning and said that this was not the first time I have done this. I said done what?
Joan: walk in on somebody's meeting.
Me: I didn't walk into your lunch. I only needed to assess if I was able to use the microwave in there and....
Joan: Look, I am a supervisor and I haven't got time for this.
Me: Well if you ever want to talk to me directly about it, feel free to stop by and....
Joan: I'm a supervisor, I follow protocol and go through the proper channels.
Me: I get the feeling that somebody is at war with me....
Joan: I'm not at war with you...
Me: Did I say you were?......
Joan: I've got a meeting to go to and your 30 seconds are up.
My boss saw us talking as he walked by but let us talk and kept going. I felt it important to talk with him about my attempts at reconciliation and to end this endless war. He understood when I said I would have to give her a few days to cool down over whatever sent Joan to general quarters. We both agreed that I am not the enemy and you can't take this stuff personally because it's never about you, even when they say its about you. In any event this was a better day since I put her on notice that I know that "somebody is at war with me". I can go to the dentist now and have my teeth cleaned and enjoy the rest of my day. I am already laughing at Joan. She was turned down for deputy director several months ago and has never gotten over it. Too bad too sad. I hope to write some more tomorrow as this is very therapeutic. The life forms one has to deal with as a state worker. Lets hear your stories folks. Do you agree or not that this is a tyranny of the easily offended story? Have a good day.

The highlight of my day

I hope I can laugh at this a year from now. This is an example of the tyranny of the easily offended. Yesterday at lunch hour I was walking my cold tea to the microwave in our conference room. A group of people from the fiscal services bureau of my division had occupied the room to eat their lunches. I needed a second to look to see what the situation was and quickly saw that I was not welcome. This was reinforced by the main lady walking up to the door and slamming it shut as I walked away. Message delivered and understood. I could use another microwave oven to heat my tea as the other lunch eaters would not hear of me using the microwave in their presence. I brushed off the hostility. I heated my tea and walked around their precious lunch in their conference room that I wasn't welcome at. There are three doors to enter and exit this conference room and I had to walk by the second door to get some copies. Not fully comprehending the sensitivity on the first door slamming, I walked up to the second door to see if something more important was going on that would have warranted the first door slamming shut. When I saw that it was just the ladies having lunch, I walked away, both times without saying a word.
 Today, my boss calls me into his office about a half hour before the end of the day and wants my story on what happened yesterday. Apparently the main bureau chief was so offended by my approaching their lunch without saying anything that she went to the trouble of meeting with my bureau chief, and telling him her side of the story. Her side said I was standing at the door acting like I wanted some of their lunch without saying a word. She said they closed the door in my face but did not slam it. I told him they slammed it. I get that they don't respect me very much but I said this looks like somebody is at war with me for reasons I don't understand. I also said its not my place to administer justice but when somebody slams a door on you it does pique your curiosity as to whether anything more important than a lunch is going on. And finally, it appears that this ladies source of power is in being easily offended. What I am wondering is what is your impression of my story here. This is my first attempt at blogging.