Change of tide

We have been seeing Decamouth still hanging around in the company after his "unofficial last day of service".

The Dark Side (Decamouth, HR, Azreal, Cockroach) didn't mention a word when we asked when would there be a farewell for Decamouth.

On Monday this week, the MD gathered myself, Mr. Experience, Ms England, Porche and Decamouth before the weekly staff meeting, under the witness of our HR, announced to us that Porche will be leaving us migrating to Australia, we will start reporting to Decamouth once Porche has left. There was no mention of any change of reponsibilities etc., instead both the MD and Porche turned to me and asked "Do you have any questions?"

Though I knew Porche would leave eventually, but I stoned out when I found out Decamouth would be my boss. I said "nothing" with an expressionless face. I was very disappointed at the decision for many reasons.

It was later announced over the weekly staff meeting that Decamouth would be the senior technical manager, it was an even larger joke to me -- Decamouth was promoted to even higher rank than Porche. There was still no mention of the responsibilities.

England, myself and Experience had lunch that afternoon, and we weren't having any appetite at all. They all asked if I am disappointed for not being promoted to Porche's position, and were doubtful of Decamouth's technical competence as a sr. technical manager.

I had been acknowledged by many colleagues in Malaysia and USA, even by Porche in front of me, to be the technical manager after he left the position, since long time ago. I stated the fact that Porche is a capable leader that I still have a long way to go to reach to that level. In fact, I don't think anyone in this office, including myself could fit his role well. May be if we combined all three of us (Experience, England and myself) as a unity, we could be on par with Porche.

I was disappointed not because of not being promoted. I understood the reason they promoted Decamouth -- this office is no longer needing any technical people, they need someone who has some sales knowledge, little technical understanding, some finance sights to help the MD.

Both myself and Decamouth has worked across departments before, I worked in sales, engineering and project at executive level; while he was in both project and sales as manager level. He has a head start as a manager and is really sly in making his way up the managements. So, it is not all together surprising that he got the promotion.

Over the entire week, he has been trying to exercise his power by coming to me to show off his limited knowledge on the products and general engineering understandings. He tried to lured me to manipulate the engineering data without any grounds. He failed.

He pushed me to go to Vietnam to do an equipment testing without any information given, that pushed my button. I couldn't reject, because I am the only person that could do the test now. He then further pushed me to have an ad-hoc training to Mr Ciggy, and have it conducted in the trainning room with the optional presence of himself and the MD, while I was busy preparing for the ever short noticed equipment test.

The session lasted 2 hours, as the case we took on was not well prepared by Ciggy, and we ended up making lots of clarification phone calls to the client to understand the selling situations, yet there was still no resolution, as the client needed some time to clarify some of the issues. I was utterly pissed for wasting my time during this crucial preparation stage.

I have been disatisfied with various things going on in this office for long, now that I need to report to a boss whose strength is to bully, take credits and feeling inferior towards me, I do not want to risk my hard-earned good name for this kind of person.

Myself and England went to spoke to the MD at separate times, that we do not want to report directly to Decamouth. I also brought out my constant request to work as a sales, but the MD said he does not have the luxury for me to sharpen my sales skills. I found that unfair, as it is more difficult for Decamouth to sharpen his technical skills than me sharpen my sales skills. Not to mention the phone calls I received from various reps. all these while that complained about his lack of sincerity in sales. But of course, Decamouth doesn't need to sharpen his technical skills, he just need to push all of them to me, England and Experience.

I said to the MD I would rather quit and hunt for jobs later, than reporting to Decamouth. The MD said he would like to talk to me in details and will schedule a meeting with me.

I waited the whole week, he didn't take any initiatives, instead instructing Decamouth to push me further. I have mentioned what I told the MD to my previous bosses in the US. I also discussed with Porche.

Porche asked me to build my case and put my own interests first, he also offered to write me a recommendation letter.

I feel very sad for leaving the company, as I really love those things that this company is doing -- not in this office. I also feel sorry for disappointing the expectations and efforts from all those respectable people that I worked with before. But I can't help to feel the stupidity that happens in this office is such a joke when I compare it with how the US headquarters are striving hard to achieve higher and have really mature and transparent operations.

Thinking of the offer the MD made a while ago -- he offered me to leave on my will, it was an easy exit for me, from serving those lack of challenge or so called technical requests. I didn't think I have a good reason to take the offer then, I guess I have now.