Although I still fill a tinge of guilt for dropping one of my classes, it looks like it was good timing as I caught a full-blown cold in the middle of spring no less. Last Monday I was sucking down cough drops like there was no tomorrow. I also attended that induction ceremony into the honors society that day so I can officially put that tidbit in to sweeten my resume. As soon as I got home from the ceremony I took off my suit (yes, I still looked like the bomb even though I was sick as a dog) hit the sheets and must have slept for 11 hours straight.

If I didn�t drop my class I�d would have been struggling to stay awake in class instead of resting. It�s a couple of days later and I have another class tonight. Although I haven�t quite shaken the sickness off yet, I�ll probably attend tonight�s class. I�m not sure how much stress is factoring into my sickness, but it is certainly a relief having one less thing to worry about. I shudder to think of having to deal with that tough class in my diminished physical state. I�d either fail the class or make myself even sicker just trying to keep up and I had problems doing that in full health.

Anyway, sickness aside, I feel kind of bad but in a different way. A new co-worker of mine was dropped after his six month review because he couldn�t catch on fast enough. In truth I didn�t think he was the best match to begin with. My first impression of him was that I found him a bit annoying. He just did those little things that would get to me like randomly making a farting noise by blowing air through his cheek and gums. I could only sit there and go �what the fuck?� to myself. There were other less discrete but equally pet peevish things I found about him, but for the most part I let it slide, figuring as a professional I have to be able work with people I don�t outwardly like.

As time progressed through his brief tenure in our company however, he started to rely on me more and more when it came to technical advice. It turns out that despite my pet peeves, in my group I was the one who was most patient in dealing with him, so in a roundabout sort of way I kind of felt like his mentor. He had a bit of an accent, which didn�t help matters much because a large part of our job is providing technical support over the phone. There were times when the person on the other line couldn�t understand him and vice-versa and our lead was too busy to help him. There were times he was just frustrated so he simply transferred the call to me, which was another pet peeve because he could at least verbally prompt me before transferring the call over.

I�m not going to go into how my boss treated him, but if anyone ever pulled that kind of crap with me, I would have been putting in my 2 week�s notice. I believe that it was the very thing she was trying to accomplish however; he just didn�t have the means or the wherewithal to pull it off. Worse still, we were each was brought aside by our manager to �assess� the new guy�s performance prior to his 6 month review. I tried to be as nice as possible because I knew what this "assessment" was all about. She was ready to pull the trigger and just needed some extra ammo. I stated that he appeared to be trying very hard and he seemed to easily pick up all of the technical things that I went over with him. Although I was reluctant to say anything bad about him especially with his job on the line, my manager wanted my honest assessment of his �negatives�, so I went over his difficulty talking on the phone and his inability to take initiative and troubleshoot on his own.

Part of me felt bad not going to bat for him, but overall it didn�t seem like a good fit and I didn�t feel he was someone to go to bat for. Also there was no sense in me prolonging a position where his boss doesn�t respect him and where he was not quite able to excel in. I had jobs that I had absolutely no business being in, like my brief stint as waiter. They practically did me a favor by firing me. I can only hope that he will be able to bounce back from this sooner than later.

On a semi-related note, my boss was worried (that I might have been going on an interview) when I came in wearing suit last Monday, which was kind of weird because I remember a time when I was being scrutinized for chronically coming in 5-10 minutes late and there was at least one occasion where I was chastised for taking initiative over a senior member of the group. Hey I�m not trying to show anyone up, I�m just doing what I do best. But then a couple members of our group left for greener pastures and then there was the whole incident with the new guy. She also knows that I�m not too far off from graduating my Master�s. Now I and the two others that are left are the �golden children� and not just the senior member. I guess it�s good to feel needed around here. ;)