Hello everyone. This message has nothing to do with fishing. I just want to say "sorry" for not being around for the past two months. I have been having some bad luck and I just haven't had the enthusiasm to read or write. Maybe writing about it will help...
Let me first say THANK YOU to everyone who has sent emails and pm's out of concern. It's great to see so many people care. The die-hard members here truly are an elite group of individuals.
As for me, nothing truly major has happened. I just got hit with a ton of small-to-medium size problems and situations. I've had to use all of my energy to try to roll with the punches.
I'm learning once again the meanings behind phrases like When it rains it pours and what it's like when the sh*t hits the fan.
The major thing thats been on my mind is that my son is going in for some minor sugery. It's not anything too serious. But he's only seven and our oldest. It's the first time one of our children needs to go under general anesthesia and It's killing our nerves. To make matters worse, the procedure keeps getting delayed because he also had pneumonia and it's taking a very long time for it to pass. On top of his health concerns, he, my wife and my other children have been taking turns passing around a virus that's causing fevers, coughs, sore throats etc... It seems like the whole house except me has been sick since October. It really sucks.
The second major thorn in my side was that at work I was passed over for a promotion due to reverse discrimination while at the same time I'm being forced into a demotion because my company needs my office for my new boss. Let me explain...
I run a local sales office for a large company. I am the manager of the office and I answer to a sales manager. A few months ago my company announced that they would be expanding and adding a new sales manager position to handle the expansion. The bad news was that they would be turning my local office into a large district office and after the change my current position would no longer exist.
Originally I never had any doubts that the new sales manager position would be mine. The company is a promote-from-within organization. Nobody from outside New York would want to move to Long Island with our high taxes and crazy cost of living. I've got seven solid years with this organization and I've been one of their top 5% producers each and every year. I've been in this same industry since 1986.
Locally there was only one other person with qualifications that could give me some competition. It was so obvious that one of us should have received the promotion that the rest of our peers didn't even bother to apply. However, we both soon found out that a ROOKIE applied for the promotion too. The rookie had less than three years experience in our industry and about a year with the company. It made no sense at all that that management would ever consider him as a contendor until... until I found out that he is an immigrant from South America AND
he's disabled!!!!
Well, I still wasn't worried because I never thought all my years of loyalty and great production would be overlooked just to meet some stupid employment quotas. They tested both myself and my friend who I thought was my only true competition. We took these very long psychological exams that concluded that we possessed great leadership, communication, and the other skills necessary to be a good manager.
When the phone call came that I didn't get the job, I wasn't that upset because I thought my friend with the qualifications got it instead. But when I found out that they gave it to the disabled immigrant for almost HALF the salary, it killed me. I waited seven years for that opportunity only to have it swept away from me on anything but merits. To make matters worse, I have to step down from my current position because it is being eliminated to make room for the new sales manager AND the HE WILL BE MY NEW BOSS!!!
As if I don't have enough on my plate with my son's surgery and the crap at work, there have been so many other bad luck situations in the past few months that I can't possibly remember all of them. For instance, my dad was diagnosed with diabetes. My mom is also very ill. I can go on and on but I think you've got the picture.
Anyway, sorry to use this forum to air out my problems. Thanks again for the concern. I should be back to normal once all of this stuff passes.
Take care...
Let me first say THANK YOU to everyone who has sent emails and pm's out of concern. It's great to see so many people care. The die-hard members here truly are an elite group of individuals.
As for me, nothing truly major has happened. I just got hit with a ton of small-to-medium size problems and situations. I've had to use all of my energy to try to roll with the punches.
I'm learning once again the meanings behind phrases like When it rains it pours and what it's like when the sh*t hits the fan.
The major thing thats been on my mind is that my son is going in for some minor sugery. It's not anything too serious. But he's only seven and our oldest. It's the first time one of our children needs to go under general anesthesia and It's killing our nerves. To make matters worse, the procedure keeps getting delayed because he also had pneumonia and it's taking a very long time for it to pass. On top of his health concerns, he, my wife and my other children have been taking turns passing around a virus that's causing fevers, coughs, sore throats etc... It seems like the whole house except me has been sick since October. It really sucks.
The second major thorn in my side was that at work I was passed over for a promotion due to reverse discrimination while at the same time I'm being forced into a demotion because my company needs my office for my new boss. Let me explain...
I run a local sales office for a large company. I am the manager of the office and I answer to a sales manager. A few months ago my company announced that they would be expanding and adding a new sales manager position to handle the expansion. The bad news was that they would be turning my local office into a large district office and after the change my current position would no longer exist.
Originally I never had any doubts that the new sales manager position would be mine. The company is a promote-from-within organization. Nobody from outside New York would want to move to Long Island with our high taxes and crazy cost of living. I've got seven solid years with this organization and I've been one of their top 5% producers each and every year. I've been in this same industry since 1986.
Locally there was only one other person with qualifications that could give me some competition. It was so obvious that one of us should have received the promotion that the rest of our peers didn't even bother to apply. However, we both soon found out that a ROOKIE applied for the promotion too. The rookie had less than three years experience in our industry and about a year with the company. It made no sense at all that that management would ever consider him as a contendor until... until I found out that he is an immigrant from South America AND
he's disabled!!!!
Well, I still wasn't worried because I never thought all my years of loyalty and great production would be overlooked just to meet some stupid employment quotas. They tested both myself and my friend who I thought was my only true competition. We took these very long psychological exams that concluded that we possessed great leadership, communication, and the other skills necessary to be a good manager.
When the phone call came that I didn't get the job, I wasn't that upset because I thought my friend with the qualifications got it instead. But when I found out that they gave it to the disabled immigrant for almost HALF the salary, it killed me. I waited seven years for that opportunity only to have it swept away from me on anything but merits. To make matters worse, I have to step down from my current position because it is being eliminated to make room for the new sales manager AND the HE WILL BE MY NEW BOSS!!!
As if I don't have enough on my plate with my son's surgery and the crap at work, there have been so many other bad luck situations in the past few months that I can't possibly remember all of them. For instance, my dad was diagnosed with diabetes. My mom is also very ill. I can go on and on but I think you've got the picture.
Anyway, sorry to use this forum to air out my problems. Thanks again for the concern. I should be back to normal once all of this stuff passes.
Take care...
