Yes, I am running off to get married. Well, Jacob and I are going on a vacation to Hawaii the middle of next month, and we have decided to get married in Chicago a few days before we fly to Hawaii.

We’re really going to keep it low-key. We don’t want a whole lot of people to know. He and I just got tired of waiting to get married. We’re ready. We’ve been ready. We’re only having a few of our friends come, but I am really excited about it.

… you have one mouth but two ears? Girls get it. Girls can listen to a story, sit there and agree, relate, then leave it (the person, the situation, the whole damn thing) alone. Guys have a fundamental “fix-it” problem; and sadly, as much as they complain about how much we talk, they have a problem with stating their opinion on a situation without having a full or even moderate understanding of said situation. If humans are born with two ears, why do men only use half of ONE?

Now, I use the term men because I am not having this problem with only one man. If only it were that simple. The Bumbler has this constant issue of thinking that he knows what someone is saying and then “addressing the issue.” Unfortunately, more often than not, he is wrong regarding the issue the person is talking about, and he makes himself look like an idiot. Oops. It is this, along with that “fix-it” problem that has really gotten him into trouble lately. The two ladies that we have been working with nicknamed the Nose-whistler and Buckteeth) have recently gone to their boss and expressed that they feel that the majority of the problem that have occurred lately were due to the fact that the Bumbler has not completed his work in a timely manner. I partially agree. Some of the things they accused him of have been true, but there were specific situations that they caused then exacerbated that they are currently pinning on him.

The whole thing feels like a cross between a turf war and a girl’s high school locker room. A majority of these problems began when we had demonstrated Adobe Connect to “the client Big Wigs” that happened to contain a remote training solution partnered with a learning management solution (LMS). This was developed due to the fact that Buckteeth had briefly mentioned to my project manager that they were thinking of pitching a new approach to training. To rebut that, the project manager suggested that we take our current training approach, revamp it, find a good remote training solution, and see if we can come up with something. What I found was Adobe Connect. It is mainly a meeting tool that I have (in my presentation) manipulated into the perfect remote training solution with an additional add-on that acts as a light-weight LMS. When the Nose-whistler saw this presentation, she blew (not through her nose). She went stomping to her bucktoothed boss. Buckteeth then came back to my project manager with something along the lines of, “How dare you come up with an LMS when we had pitched something to the Big Wigs and they had already turned it down a few weeks ago? Why weren’t we informed of this?”

I believe my PM responded that it was suppose to be the same approach to training with minor tweaks and the LMS was something that happened to be a happy coincidence (which it was - God’s honest truth). Along with that, we had no knowledge that they had actually pitched something to the Big Wigs and that the Tall One had turned them down. (The Big Wigs are much like the Three Little Pigs… the tall one, the fat one, and the woman.)

Since then, much friction has come from the Nose-whistler specifically. Buckteeth seemed rather cordial all-in-all. They have, however, raised complaints regarding the Bumbler to the Tall One who has passed the information along to the Woman. She has now demanded that my PM have the Bumbler “rolled-off” the project. It is a way of firing someone from a project but not the company (AO).

Quite honestly, I feel kind of bad about this. Part of me would not be too disappointed if the Bumbler finds a job elsewhere. I feel as though he may not be well-suited to the FW environment. I had informed my PM a few times regarding things that had not gone quite as smoothly with the Bumbler. I had afterward informed the Bumbler that I had spoken with the PM specifically to those topics. I have been forward with him. I’m not entirely sure if his acts warranted running around and back-stabbing him during a fairly big project. I think that was rather excessive and something that should have been handled more privately.

Still, R and Lockout (our managers) are trying to pull together some proof that the Boings (the two ladies - the Nose-whistler and Buckteeth) are making things bigger than they were and are putting blame on him when it should be turned to them instead.

So, (this is the part where I tell you that this is only half the story and you groan because it’s already so long) this is only the half of it!

I found all of the information out regarding the Bumbler yesterday. I had wanted to tell Jacob , but I knew I wouldn’t be able to right then and there because I had a meeting I needed to go to and there were people around me at the moment that I was talking to him. All I told him was that the Bumbler might be rolling off the project. That was it.

When I called Jacob to talk to him this morning, I was hoping that he and I might be able to actually talk. He and I had been having some communication issues the night before as he was grumpy about work. I’m sure you all know how it is. Once guys get to a certain point, it’s just better to leave them the hell alone!

I had told him that the Bumbler was getting rolled off, and that I had felt as though it was excessive, possibly unnecessary. I mentioned that I felt bad about having had to talk to the PM about the issues I was having with him before. Jacob said, “Don’t.” When I asked why he said something about how I have to look out for myself. I figured that looking out for myself doesn’t have to mean trampling over people; and he said that if you looked at the numbers in regards to the expenses that we incur as well as the number of years of experience the Bumbler has compared to me, he clearly comes out on top. This is where I had gotten a little confused. I’m not entirely sure what that had to do with the situation or the conversation we were having. I told him that wasn’t the reason why the Bumbler was in trouble anyway. He said that he knew. I think that made me even more confused. If he know that wasn’t what it was… why would it get brought up?

Well, I figured I could try to run with this. So, I explained that even if part of it was a numbers thing, I still couldn’t get fired purely because of the numbers. The Big Wigs have too much of their hands in training and the addition and removal of people for that to be that.

I tried to explain to him that I wasn’t entirely sure he knew what I was talking about, he said that he understood perfectly. I just wasn’t understanding him.

At this point - I’m wondering if it’s even worth trying to get him to understand. Why do I even bother talking to him about things if he’s not going to listen anyway? Apparently, he has psychic abilities to just know what is going on and why they are that way. I’m thinking that I should just let him psychically figure it out from now on.