Jeff Russell

I’m sitting here laughing as I read this. You, sir, are the real thing. I deliberately provided no information beyond asking the question, not wanting to influence the outcome. So there is no way you could have known…

First, your dadgum runes must be in cahoots with my i-ching. The time is not right, it says. The way is not ready. Not what I wanted to hear, obviously. Wanted to hear that I was justified in quitting etc etc etc

I suppose it is possible that I am misunderstanding the situation. It seems to me that I have caught the 2nd in command of the company taking some shortcuts that are potentially deadly (literally: we deal with hospitals). I sure hope I’m misunderstanding anyway.

But as for timing and talking it over, I brought it up with one of the other employees who I usually don’t confide in just this morning and while he agreed he had seen the same thing I had seen, he said forthrightly he couldn’t afford to go on attack. He needs this job. We talked some more, and I learned he has additional concerns about the way we (as a company) do some other things too. Anyhow, there is a conference next week, at which we will both be doing presentations. He said he is presenting his concerns as a sales pitch, and had some useful suggestions that calmed me down a bit (not easy to do: I’ve been keeping my mouth shut about this guy for a couple years and seething at this most recent, potentially deadly transgression, for almost 3 weeks). His advice (perfectly reasonable now that I’ve calmed enough to hear it) present it as a class on how to handle a situation such as I had witnessed (as if it were a theoretical situation) and let the discussion unfold from there. I can always quit later if things don’t improve. I agreed and promised in any case I’d do my best to limit collateral damage (ie NOT get him in trouble too).

Oh, and the career change I’m considering? Serving an ancestral god: I had already (two months ago) begun the process of application to holy orders, which if I am accepted would mean leaving here and going off to seminary in 2024. (Wtf? a potential christian priest asking a heathen for a divination? Yep. Sometimes I don’t hear so good and my god has to ask one of the other guys to do him the favor of shouting at me a bit).