For the past year and a half, I've been working two jobs for the same company.  To oversimply a few things, my "official" job is tedious, unchallengnig, not very respected within the company, and worst of all, have to put up with multiple power-tripping shift managers.  By virtue of being a senior member of that team, I was probably best paid, but that wasn't saying much given how lowly regarded the function is within the company.

I was suckered into taking this job because the VP made some promises about the team's expansion that never materialized.  In hindsight I'm a bad fit for that group - think of it as using a Porsche to deliver pizzas kind of bad fit.  (I'll leave it up to you to figure out if I'm the Porsche or the pizza in this analogy)

My "unofficial" job, which is under a completely different division, is to develop pioneering software using our technologies, and quickly putting them into the market.  The projects for this very small team involve architecting solutions that have never been done before - pushing the envelop till the ass-end hangs off of the razor edge.  All this next-generation stuff is very high profile within the company, so my real job VP just turns a blind eye on me spending time on it.

I've been squeezing those two jobs into 9-hour days, with the pay, title, and recognition of the lesser one.  Since October, I've been trying to get transfered out of the "real" job to the pioneer team.  It's been a frustrating experience to say the least.  First the real job VP has to agree to my transfer, then the process got delayed by personnel changes at the executive level, then my family issues got in the way.  When I finally had a verbal agreement from the pioneer team, they couldn't get the CFO to open the vault for my salary (har har).

Well, I have some good news to share: after 8 months of (a lot of) begging and (very little) negotiating, I was finally officially promoted to be the Architect for the pioneer team.

With the transfer comes some perks too - a quieter cube in the corporation's posher building, and a new laptop.  I was hoping I'd make a nice entrance to the new role.  Well, HR neglected to tell me that the CFO (damn him!) still has the laptop purchase order buried in red tape, hence I'm stuck with my existing clunker desktop, AND, since we don't have a corporate mover, I have to move the computer and all of my own shit to the new office by myself.  The IT guy didn't even offer to move the desktop for me.  He must be in a union or something.

Yesterday was my first day in the new office, reporting to duty for a job I've been working on for a year.  You should see the entrance that I made - dragging a dolley loaded up with my shit.  Talk about ghetto style promotion.  The receptionist actually sent me to the freight elevator, saying she's never seen a vending machine supplies guy dresses so nicely.

It took me a couple of hours to settle in (the phone and network didn't work on first try, surprise surprise), and the people here are puzzled at my desktop.  I'm just glad that I am finally out of the sweatshop; I can finally say with pride that I'm a Pizza, I mean Porsche.