Did you ever have that feeling?

This week at work, but especially today, I got the feeling that I've just about outlived my usefulness at my present employer. The weird thing is that I'm not entirely sure what I've done to earn this. I've never felt as uncomfortable on the job since I started working there in August, 2004 as I have this week.

I can just sense that I'm on someone's shit list and again I have no idea why. Nor do I know (for sure) whose shit list I am on, and that bugs me. Very much.

How did I arrive at this conclusion?

Well, several people at work have made innocent sounding comments which, when put together, give me this eerie feeling that I'm on the outs.

Late in the day today I asked my boss if I could speak with him. He was kind of busy, having just finished a conference call with L and some client or someone of importance. So he agreed that we'd talk in the morning after our company wide morning meeting.

My boss, R, is also my friend. He's the one who recommended me to L. Otherwise I never would have considered working in this industry, because up until last year I had no clue it existed, let alone that I wasn't qualified for it. Not that I'm qualified for it now, just that I have over a year of experience in my corner, which is qualification enough, I guess. Because R is my friend, I feel confident he won't bullshit me or throw me under the bus. Let's hope I'm just being paranoid for no reason.

So my conversation with R will include the following: (Innocent beginning) I have a suggestion for an improvement on some of the paperwork we fill out regulary- which I honestly do- a change that I think he'll agree makes sense and therefore is a good idea. Then I'll ask him about my wages, and if he thinks L would raise me up to industry standard. R knows that when I was hired I wasn't familiar with the pay scale for the injection molding industry, so I unwittingly lowballed myself to a payscale that I thought was good, since it was more than I'd ever made per hour in any job I'd ever had. Hindsight: bad move on my part, but what can I do? No matter what his response, I'll finally ask him if I'm in danger of losing my job and if he knows whose shit list I'm featured on and reasons why? Finally I'll ask him how I can get off of this list, because I don't think it's deserved.

BTW, I'm still working on other projects (much to my dismay) and we still haven't made any of the slice of hell piece, so nothing to update there.