The Colorless Dragon Thread (Page 9 of 15)

You had a routine? I'm jealous.

As close to a routine as I can manage.

My manager is actually pretty fantastic, and my boss above him IS a techie. I don't mind working late at all (in fact, I'll be back on the late schedule once every 6 weeks), but it's nice to be working at the same time as all the other techs and not by myself.

Don't get me started after the week I just had. My opinion of managers, which I already thought pretty low, dropped even lower - at this rate, they're approaching the elevation of my opinion for HR and IT if not risking overtaking those two who really put in extraordinary effort to get me to think more of a rock than their capabilities i.e. instead of asking them to their job, it's just easier to do it yourself.

Over the last 3 weeks, things happened and I realised that my current boss is a lying control freak of epic proportions. Just because she doesn't trust anyone else and had to cover her arse, she directly caused one of my projects to slip with more than a week (it would've been a month if it wasn't for the project manager and the team, me included, that put in massive amounts of overtime to come up with ways and implementing them to minimise the overall impact - so no writing happening).

She hates me at the moment because I got tired of her f#cking empty promises that never realised (and all the while, she tells everyone else she has the info when she didn't) because she's too busy with everything else apart from what she's supposed to be doing - so Thursday, after 3 weeks of begging her to take the 5 minutes she needed to do her f#cking job and being told it WILL happen that week, I send out an email with a "status update" - and copied a few other people (I held back and kept it to her pay-grade, I was sorely tempted to take it one level up, but decided to leave that for the Friday update if needed). Funniest thing - got the info that afternoon! More funnier - the guy doing the work was done Monday already ... If I had known who was working on it, we would've been able to make this whole thing go away actually. But I didn't, because my f#cking boss is a control freak (which is a nice way of saying she doesn't trust me ...)

If she doesn't move soon, I'll have to. I can't work with people like that and keep my mouth shut. I have zero respect for her anymore. And like I said, she's not impressed with me at the moment. But she can go f#ck herself for all I care - if she can't manage and delegate, I'll do that for her too. And if she doesn't like it, well, she can stop involving herself in all kinds of other sh#t she has zero reason to, and start doing it herself. I'll go back to being an engineer (and relatively happier) then too.

There's no way she can get rid of me - there's only one other person in the department that can take on 2x $40-50 million projects at once - and he's already working on a $200+ million and a $5-10 million project - he got the second project because the guy that does all the 'small' projects couldn't cope with his workload (but it was more he couldn't cope with a $5-10 million project or knows what to do with projects once they have a clue what needs to be done). She advertised recently for more positions because we're understaffed at the moment (one of the reasons why they moved people from other parts in the world to here - I also now understand much better why they can't keep people), and got 3 replies with, combined for all of them, less process design experience than what I have in my small toe (what they need to learn, I have forgotten already, and I'm not even one of the best, they have that much). So yeah, she can ask me to go back to Aus (and the company can pay for the privilege) and then have to find 2-3 people from somewhere else to take on my workload (more if they don't have experience and need to be trained). Or she can dish it out to the others in the department and let the whole project portfolio go to hell. Tough choices, but hey, that's why they get paid the big bucks, right? Have to love it when you can't blame the engineers too! *I'm a bad person, I'm working on it!*

From my experience, bosses hate not being in control, and she's really bad, so I can just imagine that my work environment is going to be great (\sarc). Once I've done my time and met the conditions of my contract (7-8 months to go), I'll feel no guilt to start looking for other opportunities (except for the project teams, but by that time, me leaving shouldn't be too bad).

/rant

Seriously, that looks like a reason to bring someone in from overseeas.  Once you go back, you'll be a buried body on this side of the divide, and back home it will be your word against management's.

Hmm.  Write what you know.  I wonder if I can use your misfortune in my story somewhere.  (Your lemon, my lemonade.  Sorry.)

Not all of us IT folk are bad. You must have some really bad experiences with managers, HR, and IT. I've had a few bad managers here and there, but I've never had HR problems. Of course, I AM the IT department, so maybe everyone just doesn't want to piss me off....

I know not of what you speak...

Let me mull the question. What does the bond entail?  Who owns whom?  What does each bring to the bond?  What does each have to learn to trust the other in?  What role did the people/dragon pairings play in the past?

Thanks for clarifying. That's actually a major point that I've been struggling with the past few chapters.

As far as the bond goes, it's very equal both directions. Dragons have the upper hand physically, but their partners have the upper hand magically.

(Slight spoilers here...) Dragons are much stronger telepathy-wise, but they cannot communicate with any Human except the one they are bonded with. Through the knowledge of their bond-partner, they understand Human speech, but cannot answer since Humans are not naturally capable of telepathy.

(Bigger spoilers here...) Dragons are a Source of Arcane energy while their bond-partners are Arcanists capable of using said energy. I could simply call them Arcanists, but a Dragon-bonded Arcanist is far stronger than the average Arcanist or wizard. Dragon-bonded Arcanists also have the added responsibility of caring for their Dragons. Since Dragons are a Source, they are constantly producing Arcane energy. If they have too much, they will go insane (hence the Dragon attacking Viyebar the past few chapters). However, the energy is also intrinsically tied to the Dragon's own life. If the Dragon-bonded Arcanist uses too much of the Dragon's Arcane energy, they could hurt or even kill their Dragon (and subsequently themselves).

As far as Dragon history goes, I'm still figuring that out. I think explaining this bit will have to wait until the second or third book, but that could change.

..and I was so hoping to just fly past this little bump in the road. Tomorrow's project: clearing all my other projects off the dining table and buying myself some flash cards to organize this crap.

I really appreciate the help, NJC. Eventually, I'll wriggle out of this novice writer stage.

"This is Dea, my Other."  (As in other half) "We are Others."
"This is Dea, my Well." (as in a storage  medium for water.)
Partner.
Sister/ Brother.
Family/ Familial
Basin
Source

Bond has been used. (as in, This is Dea, my Bond.")
Rider is too much like the dragon riders of Pern.

Sorry about the manager, Janet. Take a deep breath since you aren't concerned about getting the boot and hatch nefarious plots to help make the work situation tolerable. This just moves up my plan to visit sooner. Can't let you leave the States without sharing a bottle of Aussie wine with you.

No apology necessary. That might actually be exactly what I needed.

My thoughts exactly. There's also the Inheritance Cycle and many others, I'm sure, that use "Rider".

What about Warden, at least for the human half of the partnership? It is their responsibility to care for their dragon, so the definition fits, but isn't necessarily obvious. The general populace could assume that Wardens care for them instead, keeping the intrinsic nature of the dragon-human bond a secret. The only problem then is finding a name for the dragons that are partnered this way.