seven ay em

7 A.M.

Ay Em.

It almost looks like "Amen!"

Which is what I really want to say because I decided last week that I'm definitely going to leave this job.

AMEN!

It might be in three months. It might be in six months. But I am going to leave and when I leave, I plan to kick up a trail of dust so thick noone will know which direction I'm headed.

What does 7 am have to do with anything?

Every morning for the next three months, I have a meeting at 7:30 in the morning. So, to gather my wits about me before hand - as if said wits were toddlers preparing for storytime - 7 AY EM is the time I have to arrive at work. Every morning for the next three months. While honestly that doesn't bother me too much because I'm a morning person and it means I can leave at 4 pm, it is a bad sign for the company.

Several months ago, a senior VP told us that they planned for the majority of developers to be based in India. This is a sign of that plan in action: 7:30 am to us is 7 pm to them.

In other words, it is more important to let them go home at a reasonable hour than it is to let the majority of us stay in bed until a reasonable hour.

First of all, can you imagine staying at an office job until 7, 8, or 9 at night? It would suck massively right? But imagine getting up at 5 or 6 am to get to work in time for a 7:30 meeting ...

I know you.

You're not a morning person.

(I know I'm a freak. I already get up at 5 am. )

You're horrified. Now imagine that has to happen every day for the next three months. Your blood is already running cold, isn't it? A sickly pallor has washed over your visage as you stumble toward the coffee pot ...

But coffee won't do anymore ...

You want brains! The brains of the senior executive team who has decided that India is more important than you.

Honestly, I have sympathy for those folks in India. It really would suck to have to stay at work until 9 pm.

But c'mon.

At least they're awake at 9 pm. Who, besides me, is awake at 5 or 6 am? You should see my bleary eyed teammates as we huddle over the speaker phone in that cramped meeting room. Worst of all, the phone connection is so poor that we can't even understand what the India folks are saying. They actually have to email their information to us BEFORE the meeting but they must still stay at work until 7 pm so we can strain our brains, necks, and ear drums craning across the two square inches of speaker on the phone in hopes of catching a comprehensible syllable.

We can't exactly give up on the possibility of understanding them, can we? We might have received a written transcript of what they're going to say, but if we're going to crowd around that phone at 7:30 am every work day for three months, can we really accept the futility of dialing in to an inscrutable conference call? Can we actually train ourselves to sit in that room and pretend to listen to garbled static just to justify our presence there at that hour of the morning?

I doubt it.

Well, I shouldn't speak for the rest of the team. I, for one, have already checked out. It is easy for me to pretend to listen because I don't give a shit anymore. I'm leaving!

Nota Bene: If you're my boss, I'm not really leaving. I just like to bitch.