A quick picture of Bandit and me.
Today I took one small step for J, one giant leap for J�s employability.
It all started earlier this morning when I was working on Carsim in AC, the coworker�s place. She was busy compressing video on the other computer. We had both received an email about a new position on the bumper to perform tests on. When we went over to our boss to ask him about the position he offhandedly mentioned something:
�At 2:00, I would like to meet with you in the Buckle conference room.�
Say what?
I was a bit chilled. Our boss always talks in a tone the comes off as condescending, but combine this with a private meeting between just him and us (the interns) and we have a veritable catastrophe.
AC and I sat down at our desks and looked at each other.
�Why would he want to meet with us?� I said at the same time she said, �I�m getting scared.�
We went down to the lab to talk with the third intern to ask if he�d gotten any more information. In actuality, the third intern had no knowledge of the meeting. AC sighed and I looked around at anyone else who may actually know what the hell was going on.
No one was in sight.
Over the next couple hours, AC and I analytically considered every possibility. Was he updating us on the project? Was he going to yell at us for the problems with testing? Was he angry that we had done work for other people the previous week?
I also kept the possibility of some kind of internet infraction in the back of my mind. One of the people who worked in the building was fired for surfing the internet. Granted he had been looking at porn, but there were rumors flying all around the building about the computer police cracking down.
AC and I went to lunch; she was still jittery as we sat down to eat with her father.
He mentioned that our boss was slightly miffed that he, being the site manager, had issued that all interns had to do presentations by the end of the summer. Our boss was mad that AC�s dad (the site manager) had gone above his head without consulting him. Apparently our boss thought that we would have no time to do these presentations.
No time.
He was joking right?
Well we continued on with lunch and AC and I were still not feeling any less uneasy. The other engineers had come down to eat lunch and kept asking us exactly what we were afraid of.
�He�s probably going to yell at us,� AC offered.
�So?� one of them said dismissively.
I thought about this. It�s not like we haven�t been yelled at before, but it just wasn�t something that you get used to. No one likes to hear that they�re wrong every single day, especially when the problem was never their fault.
�You should yell back,� one of the lab technicians offered.
This wasn�t the first time I had heard this before either, but the consequences seemed too volatile. What if it only escalated the situation? I knew that if we started a screaming match at each other, I would most certainly end up being fired or quitting.
AC and I went back upstairs and went back to work. As the time wore on, we only got more uneasy, chatting about what the meeting could be about. Finally, 2:00 rolled around and we went to the conference room only to find out that it was being used. We sat out in the hallway and joked about how we were all being fired, but we all knew there could possibly be truth to it.
After enough waiting we retrieved our boss and he took us to another conference room.
�This meeting is not about any large announcements, but I feel that we would be more efficient if we started meeting every two weeks.�
I let out the breath that I�d been holding.
�There are rumors going around that you three don�t have enough to do��
Rumors? There were no rumors�just plain, unadulterated fact.
�If you do not have enough to do, please feel free to talk to me and I will think of more things��
Meaning what? Meaning we can�t work with other engineers and get more experience? The problem wasn�t actually having enough to do, it was more that he gave us impossible tasks to do.
�Now I�d like to go around the table and discuss what each of you has been doing.�
Oh hell, how do I make �nothing� sound appealing?
Well, when it came to me, I started firing off questions. Since the Range Rover isn�t going to be ready for a couple weeks could we help? When I suggested helping out in the lab, he looked uncomfortable. He almost gave me a disgusted look.
What the fuck?
It�s not like the third intern, the younger, non-engineering boy doesn�t get lab experience, so what the hell was wrong with the experienced, electrical engineering senior learning a bit about soldering circuits?
Eventually, he relented and said that AC and I �may� be able to work in the lab.
Whatever, I�m not settling for �no� in this case. I�m not going to have my boss sabotage my future because he either thinks that I�m too incompetent to physically work or that lab work is beneath actual engineers.
