At power-play in the fields of the lord

I was going for a raise next Monday, you know?
I mean, that was the initial plan: Sort of corner my boss at first then wait for his customary slick move to revert the situation and not give me the raise, then only then I’d open the A-bomb bay. Kind of like Rocky in the movies, you know?

But then something happened yesterday that got me thinking:

A raise in pay is always plan B, as odd as it sounds. Money alone doesn’t really get you far in life. This is what I’d end up doing with a raise anyhow: I’d probably double the amount of books and comics and DVDs I’ve been buying, and find myself a nice, little cozy mutual stock fund for the rest of it at the bank.

Now plan A is where we should all be aiming at: Plan A is power, plan A is clout, and all those things. There’s a line from this comic book I read about a couple of years ago and it says that villains like Luthor and Grodd do it for power. That’s so beautiful, you know?
It’s in having the President of the company knowing who you are and greeting you on a first-name basis in front of the entire office whenever he drops by for a visit. That “Hola, M****” is power you can’t really buy, you know?

So whenever I’m a little lost or wandering aimlessly I let the instincts take over. My grandfather never had proper education yet his gut feeling for business was nothing short of amazing.
So I pretty much let the instincts take over and came up with this e-mail for A****, who is P****’s boss in Chile and also the worldwide coordinator for the Project. In it I told A**** I was a little frustrated with our local performance and requested a conference with him. Oddly enough I was being honest about the whole thing, I really was.
My boss, head of the national management, is on vacations and would only return on Monday.

So then A**** sends over some pretty cool material regarding comparative performances and stuff and we end up talking for an hour. The following words were mentioned more than once by him: Trampoline and opportunity and in-company career development.
Boy I was pumped.
I mean, this guy A**** is one hell of a professional himself and... picture this: I was amazed when I trained under P**** last year, and to think that P**** was actually trained by A****… wow.

And here’s where the story gets better:

After the conference I went to the bathroom, had to take a leak, etc. While I was at the urinal these two guys came in: One of them is the guy who handled I.T. with us until a month ago and was just transferred to HQs. Since we worked close together on the Project we get along very well, especially on a professional level. He sort of recommended my name to HQs when they were looking for someone crazy enough to tackle the monster, even though this girl whom he used to date worked with me in the beginning and actually trained me, but downright hated me because I ended up stealing her job. But she was pretty dumb, so what. No room for dumb people on Earth, you know.
Anyway, the guy gets to introduce me to his friend, whom I’d never seen before but sort of looks like a younger Dan Aykroyd, while I was all telling him about my conference with A**** and the changes we’d end up needing with the telephone structure. I joked I didn’t want to shake hands with the new guy because I hadn’t washed them yet, etc, and then it turned out the new guy is the new Customer Service manager from HQs, also from Chile, and he’s saying he (obviously) works with A**** and he’s heard about me and would like to talk in the near-future about some specific bits of the Projects which actually involve us and his HQs… et. al.
“Sure,” I said doing my Patrick Bateman-bit. “E-mail me and we’ll schedule something.”


Jesus, to hell about asking for a raise next Monday, you know? I’ve never had to ask for a raise before and will not start doing so now: I’m skilled, I’m self-motivated and I’m resourceful. Leave the others to panhandle, you know?
If I got a raise now I would sort of owe it to my boss, like, morally, and it would sure hinder any shots I might have at… getting my ass transferred to HQs, maybe?


Let’s see how the ballet turns out and let’s make the most of it, because all my mistakes must ultimately be my own.
That’s the most anyone could ever expect from life.