I feel like quitting!

So yesterday morning after WL conveyed to me the gist of a phone conversation with our boss, I was ready to get in my car, drive to the office and quit my job. Instead, I called my best friend - vented to him, then called my husband and cried to him. They managed to convince me to first talk to our boss and only then I'll have enough weapons to quit my job.

To give you a quick idea of what I was willing to quit over. I've been asked (via WL) to step back to the 20th century and quit pushing our company forward to technological progress. Typically, most people wouldn't mind it and say, "Fine, you want me to go back to pen and paper and waste secretary time to type my chicken scratch, not a problem." But I have an ethical problem with this waste of company time, money and resources.

In my job interview almost seven years ago, I was asked (surprisingly enough), "What would you like to do?" This question caught me off guard (it was my first job interview). All this time I prepared to be told what to do. But because this job interview was during the same week when I attended a conference called "Computers in Construction," I was absolutely convinced that this is the future of the construction industry, so I answered, "I'd like to use advanced technology in Construction." I actually dreamt of becoming an Information Systems Manager for a company in the construction industry (as a result of one particular class I took for my Masters degree). Within a month on a new project, I was given a 3 day course in MS Access, and upon completion was requested to develop a database. I will remind everyone at this point - I had never taken a computer class prior to this. The only computer experience I had was chatting on Compuserve (now owned by AOL), and a couple of AutoCAD courses during my Architecture degree.

Within a couple of years, I've become the company's Database Programmer and Information Systems Manager. Dream accomplished. Next.

I love databases, I love computers. I've developed numerous databases for our clients and our own company. Everyone loves my databases (eventually. Once they get over the learning curve). And here I was in this trailer on a government job, trying to improve the way we do things - so I developed a database. It saves tremendous amount of time and aggravation when searching for anything, in comparison to MS Word files for each report.

So WL gets a call from our boss (God forbid he actually calls me directly!!!), who tells him - "what's up with this report? It's not the way we do things in this company [read: 30 years ago when I was hired we didn't do it this way]. The words are all cut off, it's not professional. Tell her to stop doing this. The secretary in the main office can type it all up in our company's format."

I was furious! What a load of crap! I'm being asked to stop using a tool that helps us do our job better? I'm being asked to stop using a tool which the client finds extremely useful? I'm being asked to go back to pen and paper in the 21st century???!!! Fuck this! I'm not going to continue working with a company that insists on stepping in place and refuses to go forward and embrace technology for all it's worth.

So after some good amount of tears and frustration over wanting to quit, I was finally talked into handling this like an adult (damn these people who make sense!). So I asked WL to accompany me to the main office so I can talk this over with our boss (I needed a witness).

In the afternoon we descended upon the office and spoke to the boss.

Me: "I understand you have an issue with the report I sent out, and some words are cut off?"
Boss: "Well, yeah, all those words in the report were cut off."
Me: "May I see it, so I can possibly find out why you had a problem with this?"
Boss: "No, I threw it away."
Me: "Well, okay, here's what I printed from my printer and what the client received. Nothing is cut off, and everything is fine. It could very well be that your Adobe Acrobat is not updated or your printer doesn't have the correct driver and it's cutting off the margins."
Boss: "Oh, well if the client likes it, that's fine then."

WHAT AN ASSHOLE!!! This is NOT what he discussed with WL on the phone. (WL refers to this event as a mental workout). All of a sudden he backs down because this boss is afraid of his own shaddow and any confrontation. And 'oh, my, god, I have to speak to a woman working for me. I don't think I can handle it. I'll just communicate through WL.'

So back to my database it is. He ought to be glad I didn't use my big guns on him, telling him that his boss's boss (vice president of our company) is the one who requested this database for another client, and I just modified it for our client.

I didn't quit. But I swear to dog, if this happens again, I'm going to step into my previous boss's office and give him a one day notice (eventhough I owe them a 30 days notice if I quit).

Note: This morning I heard on my favourite radio station: "Other radio stations boast that they have the best music; the most music in an hour; the most popular morning show. Our station's motto is - The longer you listen to us, the later it gets!"