F this...

I just got back from work. It's about 8:40pm. At this time I should have been arriving in Regensburg about an hour out of Munich at my friend Doris' with my friend from Mexico enjoying a nice evening of catching up and prepping for Oktoberfest tomorrow. Of course at about 2:30 I got a call about a car with an issue that was similar to one we saw before. I got down there, assessed the vehicle knew what was wrong with it and proceeded to call my friends and let them know I would be absent tonight. What a shocker, when trying to get ahold of the home base for support nobody was answering. They were discussing the previous meeting in which, once again, I was singled out as being useless because there's an issue that nobody wants to assist me on solving and I can't do it myself. I'll quote my boss from the meeting on this one, 'yeah, whatever,' which got a good rise out of the customer.

I finally get the failed part out of the vehicle for analysis and now the plant manager on down is getting involved. People started getting called back from holiday etc. to discuss this issue... blah blah blah... I find the root cause and the solution. One person from the customer recognizes me for it, cool... 'You're the man,' he said. Finally the rest of my home base shows up as I'm dismantling another vehicle to demonstrate that my solution is correct. It is. I pull apart two more vehicles, A ok. Now there's a big round table discussion going on in German. The last direction I received was we need to put the cars back together. So I begin that process while another person walks away with one of the parts meaning I have to walk about 2 miles round trip to get a replacement. The asshat wouldn't even let me look at the part before he walked away so I could make sure I grabbed the correct replacement. Regardless, I go back to work, a few minutes later I look up and everyone is gone. Swell says I, leave the guy who figured this all out to do grunt work. Although had I followed I would have understood about 50% of what was said, until I tuned out for not being included in the discussion. In addition I would have had to go back and repair the vehicles afterwards and it might be 11 pm instead of almost 9.

I had just finished putting cars back together when one colleague came into the test area and acted all proud when he said he was going to take apart 2 more cars and pull the latches for him to investigate at home tomorrow. Thinking, 'wow that is stupid,' I recommended he just pull 10 latches from the production stock, check them, and take the 1 or 2 that failed home instead of spending another hour opening doors. He ignored me much like everybody else here. I then walked away to get some food thinking it was a good time to eat in case things would take longer. On my way back to my desk I ran into one of the customers who mentioned a meeting Sunday at 11 am. I got to my desk as my customer counterpart was leaving and he said nothing of the meeting, just asked if I was leaving yet. Now the question becomes, I know about the meeting, but was not invited by my company and I know it'll be in deutsch. So do I back out again on my friends for the Sunday reschedule to attend or do I say F it since nobody from my company cared to include me on anything today and tempt the fates with a firing? Keep my luck in mind on this one... My weekend is pretty much shot since Sunday would not be that exciting outside of an opportunity for human contact outside of work that will speak English with me. Decisions, decisions... I've been reading about all the economic mess in the states and it might be mildly difficult to find a good job upon returning, but at the same time I find it very hard to care...

What does this all mean? Livonia Brown is a sad panda... I will be actively seeking gainful employment elsewhere when I get back. The only question now is if I'll be doing my search from the unemployment line... Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of Livonia Brown hates Deutschland!