Analog Devices

My experience with this company was a fine example of how unfriendly and downright nasty the people in this state truly are.

Back in 2000, I was a newly minted designer struggling to find work and paying my bills by going from one temporary gig to another (I barely had a portfolio and only two years of anything resembling design on my resume). TCG placed me here for a temporary gig that consisted of recreating diagrams from scratch in a program called Canvas; there was a “to do” box that up until the end was consistently full of printouts of diagrams needing to be recreated this way. After a few weeks, TCG did their typical check-in with their client to see how things were going with the temp they sent them. The feedback they passed along to me was that I was doing awesome work and “keep it up!”

There are several things that stand out in my memory about this place. One was the Mac I had to use which crashed an average eight times per day (this contributed to my failure to fall in love with anything made by Apple – the biggest reason being my observation that Apple products turn normal people into jerks, but that’s a post for another day). The second and bigger thing was that the people here were the most god-unfriendly people I’ve ever met. My “boss” was some nasty guy named Paul; he was about my age, and not once did I see him smile in my time there. Then there was their full-time “designer” who always carried a nasty scowl on her face; I’d pass her walking back to my cubicle and say “hi” and she’d say nothing but would just glare at me. Okay, I’m not going to make friends in this place, I said to myself on more than one occasion. But, hey, I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to prove that I’m a good worker ant and that I know what I’m doing. Maybe this job will go permanent (ha!) or they’ll need someone down the road (again, ha!).

One day (can’t really recall how much time went by after the initial positive feedback from TCG, maybe a month) I went to retrieve work in the “to do” box only to find it empty. And, over the course of the next week, this became the norm, i.e., there was no work to do. I figured things were just slowing down and would pick up again. Then one Friday I came home to a message on my answering machine from TCG telling me to not go in to work on Monday. I called them and was told that “the HR rep said she’s had reports of a lot of eye-rolling with you and hence don’t want you back.” I said WTF? What on earth are they talking about? Firstly, I went through my average day in virtual isolation -- I’d retrieve a printout from the “to do” box, return to my cubicle, complete the diagram, and repeat the procedure. I pretty much didn’t interact with anybody and, as I already pointed out, nobody in this place wanted to interact with me. Where specifically did I piss someone off here? I then pointed out that they had nothing but good things to say about me only a month back, so what exactly happened to make them change their opinion of me? “I know!” my rep said, “I don’t understand this, either! But this is all they’d tell me!”

That this group of unfriendly unsociable shitheads would dismiss me or anyone for being “unsociable” is nothing short of hilarious. I told my TCG rep that I demanded to know the reason I was let go; I also told her about how there was nothing to work on as of late. She said she’d try to find out more, but I never did get any further feedback and, since I found another gig almost immediately, I let the whole thing go.

The nicest memory I have was going in the next day after being “fired” (a Saturday) to retrieve my things from my desk. They voided my security badge and dumped all my things in a box and left it with the security guard.

I often think about this experience, and sixteen years on I still wonder just what the hell happened here. My best guess is that they probably overestimated to TCG their need for a designer, they no longer needed me and didn’t have the guts to admit it, so the easiest way to get rid of me was to just make me the bad guy. And, where I initially concluded that encountering such a rotten bunch of degenerates was an isolated incident, I now know better. The people in this state suck.