This is practically my job description ~~ I especially like to bit at the end, about shirking.
When I was first hired, it was important to me to do a good job for the personal satisfaction of doing a good job. But now I'm fed up, and I no longer see the point of going above and beyond the call of duty.
Our business is set up to screw over customers for the company's benefit; clients call up to complain about being treated unethically, and there's nothing I can do.
It's a bit how I imagine it must have felt like to have been a civil servant in British Empire India ~~ you're ostensibly there to serve the people, but your hands are tied by policy; and you can see the policies are clearly unfair, but at best you'll be fired and at worst you'll be in front of a firing squad should you betray your orders.
Thank heavens our company is not a country, and I only have be in denial about being a cog in a machine that shafts over clients, not citizens, who need our help.
So far, I've been able to handle that; it only reaches the just~grit~your~teeth~and~live~with~it level of guilt that seems to be the plimsoll mark of corporate culture...
Boss has threatened bust me down to just answering phones.
What, and take away all the paperwork that you give me grief about? say it isn't so!
Had to bite my tongue to stop from saying, Please. Please do.
You see, I'd received instructions from Boss. So I FYI'd the relevant co-workers by email about what those instructions were.
It made sense at the time; but then, I function from a philosophy of Transparency.
Boss now thinks I was insinuating things in my emails.
"Why are you telling everybody these things? You don't have to tell everybody I told you to do that! Just do it! It's nobody's business what I told you you to do. I don't like what you are insinuating. You are being a pain! I will take your work away from you and you will only answer the phones!"
I think other people, people who have more experience playing the Corporate Political Darwinism game, would tutt-tutt me on having had such a heinous lack of discretion.
And that's the only reason I feel bad. Not that I feel like I did anything intrinsically wrong, but I feel guilty for being incompetent at office politics. Because I'm sure that if I just put in a little effort, I could improve...
Some people have a little angel & devil on their shoulders trying to guide them one way or another; I've got this little corporate suit on my shoulder, saying,
Listen, if you really wanted to, you could think the doublethink & speak the doublespeak. Hell, if it's possible for every human being to sink into the morass of questionable ethics, then why the hell can't you? What the hell is your problem that you can't connect with your basic humanity? Who do you think you are? Mother Theresa? You're just being lazy. This is the reality of life in the 21st century, and you'd better get with the program.
{changes to a wheedling tone}
"Why can't you just tell them what they want to hear? You don't have to mean it. They just want to be happy, just like you. What can't you just go through the motions and make them happy?
Up there with the age-old questions of "Why are we here?" and "How did Life begin?" and "Who is this God person, anyway?" should be included this one, because I've heard enough people ask it:
"Isn't there some way of making a living that doesn't slowly crush the spirit out of you?"
I know these jobs exist.
I'm going to go find them.
AGAIN with the Classic Boss Behaviour today.
Yesterday, there was a situation with a client. So something had to be done.
In theory, the thing we were to do was "contrary to company policy" * ~~ but it was the kind of thing we do occasionally do, given such extenuating circumstances. And Boss is well aware of that.
Now, I understand & accept that Boss has the right of veto in any situation. That's fine.
What I can't understand & accept is that Boss seems to believe that I flout company policy just because I think I can get away with it.
Apparently, I am the sole instigator of this; and I did it, not because it's been approved by a departmental supervisor due to our company having messed up, but because I just enjoy being a smartass.
So Boss has threatened me with a written warning.
And then Boss delegated someone else to write that warning.
That Someone has not written me a warning.
I'm not sure whether to take that as a good sign or not.
~ ~ ~
* Theoretical because, unfortunately, none of this "company policy" is actually written down anywhere; so in practical terms, company policy is whatever Boss makes it out to be, whenever Boss wants to invoke it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Addendum: Have received no official word of any kind re: head on or off chopping block. But That Someone has implied that it is out from under the axe:
What's the name of our company? That Someone says to me, says he. And I tell him.
You wouldn't like to call a friend? That Someone says to me, says he.
That's my final answer, I says to him, says I.
You win, says That Someone. You get to work here another day.
Oh, says I. That's good to know.
{Still, thinks I, I'd prefer that in writing...}
Grrr.
Boss.
Grrr.
Ok. Background:
Boss has access to everyone's email accounts, and reviews them occasionally.
This is bad.
English is not Boss' first language, but Paranoia is; so Boss is apt ~ nay, inevitably bound ~ to misinterpret information in the worst possible way... I'd say, the worst possible way conceiveable, but in fact it is inconceiveable. Of course we always try to anticipate & prevent trouble by making sure that the wording we use in our email is non-inflammatory; but Boss still comes up with the most inane accusations that broadside you from out of nowhere.
It boggles the mind and beggars belief, it truly does.
So.
There was an email which initiated a chain of discussion. It focused on steps to be taken in the future regarding a customer issue; thus, the subject heading of the email began with the word Future.
This email got forwarded back and forth, & it eventually got to me when the time came for the issue to be dealt with, whereupon the issue was resolved. Two months later (i.e., now} another related issue came up, and the email was recirculated. And all through both email chains, the heading remained the same:
Re: Future blah blah blah.
This morning I got a phone call asking me why I was doing paperwork for problems that hadn't happened yet.
"You're pretty smart, to know when things are going to go wrong before they happen, eh?"
Boss claimed to have six {and, oddly, was quite adamant about that number, too} emails from me to other people with the incriminating word "Future" in the subject heading.
Boss was convinced that each email indicated six separate incidents of me doing paperwork before the problems occured; thus I was accused on six separate counts of willfully & wastefully providing a client with services which they neither required nor deserved ~~ the implication being, this amounted to insurrection and blatant theft on my part.
This is a classic example of how Boss gets a paranoid impulse, and then all incoming information becomes distorted in Boss' perception to support that paranoia.
In fact, I only sent four emails with that subject heading: two recently, when the second issue came up ~~ and a couple others two months ago, one of which was addressed to Boss who at the time did not see fit to reply.
Evidently, the word "future" did not set off alarm bells two months ago; but for some inexplicable reason, this week it did.
That, and the fact that the most recent email chain contains six emails altogether, inclines me to think that Boss is actually referring only to the most recent chain.
How Boss jumps to such conclusions yet evades me; and that makes it difficult to explain the obvious.
I did make an effort to point out & explain the concept of the prefix "Re:".
Didn't bother to attempt to explain the concept of time passing, as I thought that was beyond my skills.
I think I got through, as I am still currently employed {fingers crossed}
However, the person who originated the second email chain ~~ not the same person who started the original chain ~~ has since been sacked.
Don't know if the word "future" had anything to do with it.
Side gripe: Boss obsessively checks emails for incriminating evidence of malfeasance by employees; yet ignores urgent emails addressed to Boss directly!
Grrr.
Boss.
Grrr.
Never took time off before
Never took time off before
Never took time off before
Never took time off before
Boyfriend can't come with me, I'm left with lonesome rails to roam
Boyfriend can't come with me, I'm left with lonesome rails to roam
Won't enjoy my vacation
'til I'm back with him at home
Let me propose An Hypothetical Situation:
You receive a form to fill out.
At the top of this form, It Is Written:
This form will be returned to you with a number assigned.
At the bottom of this same form is a box within which It Is Written:
#XXXX
Let me ask you this:
Would you then conclude that "XXXX" is the number that you have been assigned?
So.
Some clients have assumed that their number is "XXXX" and have proceeded accordingly. This causes all sorts of pretty little paperwork problems.
Thus, I've been singsonging to myself sotto voce all morning:
The letter "X" is not a number!!! "X" is a mathematical constant which represents a numerical value which is Yet To Be Determined!!!
...like a refrain, over and over and over, occasionally punctuated by such phrases as,
Did you not watch Sesame Street as a child? Were you deprived of PBS? Did your parents forbid educational TV in the household?
A co~worker, who is more forgiving than I, astutely observed that the clients may have mistaken the "X"s for roman numerals; which then left me chanting* all afternoon:
Latin is a dead language! Latin Is A Dead Language!!!
What on earth would possess anybody to think for a moment that we would correspond with our clients in Latin? Vacca Foeda!
Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur.
Oh! Was I speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out...
Man. Maybe if I cut down on the coffee, I'd be a little less testy.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
We are working on a holiday.
So here I am.
Working.
& trying to think of something to post on such a slow day.
{Further to this post.}
It requires self-conviction for One of Noble Birth to sit One's Regal Self without looking behind Oneself for The Chair; self-conviction, and utter faith that the world will revolve around you in order to put a chair there.
It is that same self-conviction & utter faith which enables Boss to pull out of a parking spot without looking in The Rear View Mirror.
So clearly, the accident was the Other Person's fault*; after all, they must have seen Boss getting into the car, and they must have understood that Boss was going to pull out, and they must have known that if they were to pull up & park behind behind Boss' car that they would be hit. Why would they do that? says Boss, They must have wanted to have this accident.**
What makes this so very, very, very exasperating is that Boss had, just that very morning, bought off yet another fender~bender victim with a rather substantial cheque firmly affixed to a quit~claim form.
Given Boss' hell~for~leather driving style, it is a miracle ~ nay, it is incontrovertable proof of the existence of god ~ that no~one has yet been injured despite countless accidents; may such good luck (?) continue.
Should Boss happen to pass away, I said to Boyfriend, I hope that we aren't forced just to say only nice things in memoriam. I hope that in addition to a Wake, we have a Roast in which we tell all the stories about all the crazy things Boss has done; and I think if we're allowed to laugh, then we'll be able to cry, and mourn the loss of such a unique & strong~willed person.
Boss is late in to work this morning {later, that is, than usual}.
Hope everything is OK...
~ ~ ~
* The Other Person has threatened to sue ~~ not for money, but to have Boss' License to Drive revoked. I'm sure Boss would rather incur a massive financial haemorrhage than relinquish A License to Drive.
** And in the Land of Office there was a Great Din of Eye~Rolling & Forehead~Slapping, followed by a Great Buzz of Chin~Wagging.
There is a drive on the network that is "mine"; I can keep files there, in addition to the local hard drive.
Since The Incident, I don't use it much; instead, I keep most files on the local drive or on my desktop ~ not that it makes any actual difference whatsoever, mind, but it's symbolically proactive.
Today I tried to access the drive; it was not there.
}*erk*{
Called our SysAdmin to clarify whether this was now the new normal or just an accident; SysAdmin told me to log back on, and it would appear.
And so it did.
There is Someone with whom I have Unfinished Business.
It haunts me; it comes and goes from my uppermost thoughts, restlessly wandering from the forefront to the back of my mind and through all the chambers in~between; it hovers in the entranceways and exits, never fully manifesting in the physical world, never entirely forgotten for good.
My office has just hired That Someone's Doppelganger.
Curiously enough, the doppelganger is from a different ethnic background, yet there's an uncannily strong resemblance nonetheless... as if Synchronicity is reminding me that It has a whimsical sense of humour {as opposed to Its cousin, Fate, Who favours irony}.
More like as not, it's just my imagination playing tricks on me.*
But it still feels weird, in all senses of the word.
I find myself fooled into holding eye contact for just a wee bit too long than is proper with a stranger, expecting to see something there that I recognise, expecting to be returned a look of recognition.
While I am resigned that my unfinished business will remain unresolved, there are rare moments when I imagine that if it is not resolved in my lifetime then I myself may as a shade similarly continue to wander, seeking closure.**
Sigh. I'm just an old pack rat that can't let go of anything, including the emotional baggage leftover from relationships that have broken beyond repair.
Hope it doesn't ruin things between me & this new acquaintance.
~ ~ ~
* Have since submitted question of resemblance to independant experts for authentication; authentication failed, debunking doppleganger theory; received instead a diagnosis of post~traumatic stress syndrome.
** yes, a shade looking for closure, like those horrible old spring-loaded roll-down blinds which never stay put, especially in the dead of night; always the sufferers of startled contractions ending in a heart~stopping flapflapflap~banging, keenest yearnings for closure constantly thwarted by their own inner tensions. ;)
{Yes, but how would you word it on a resume?}
A tornado has ripped through an industrial park here. Mercifully, no~one was killed; but there was a great deal of damage done to the buildings.
Imagine, I said to my boyfriend, imagine sitting in a job interview, being asked to explain why you left your last place of employment, and having to say to your prospective employer "it was destroyed by tornado." Would that not be regarded as a cataclysm of convenience?
Boyfriend said, you save all the newspaper clippings, present them at the interview, look your prospective employer squarely in the eye and say: "I survived a tornado; what can I do for you?"
The problem with having a large dog in the office is their propensity for greeting strangers with a firm Doggie Handshake, i.e., snout in your crotch.
Whereas the tiny dog I was introduced to this morning only had enough altitude to reach me because I was friendly/unwitting enough to bend down to say hello, thus enabling him to stick his tongue firmly up my nose.
High~Brow Man! pretentious superhero, says:
Must maintain dignity... maintain, maintain, maintain...
I'm not sure what's a reward and what's a punishment anymore.
There was once a phylum of paperwork which, though not strictly of my kingdom, at one point fell to me to do.
But the person who once delegated such paperwork to me now has an assistant; and that assistant has reposessed all the relevant files.
That paperwork was hellish. And {occasionally, it can get so that} I'm really too busy {justifying why I ought not bother} to do it.
So I'm thrilled at the prospect of no longer having that responsibility.
Really. And I get extra file cabinet space out of the deal, too.
It is entirely appropriate, right, just and good that the assistant take over said work. It's {finally!} a step in the direction of a well~run office.
But I can't help but feel in that same step I've gotten a step further from Indispensible, and a step closer to Easily Replaceable, Like a Mass~Produced Spare Part.
*argh*
*grrr*
*whuf*
*snarf*
Good things happen & I can't be happy about them.
How can I manage to live happily~ever~after with an attitude like that?
I'm being stalked by a fax machine.
Stop calling me!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
There's a company that wants to do business with us. Our company has not been returning their calls.
Tell me if this is not a rather badly~disguised & painfully ill~advised threat:
I can call every hour. I have a team of sales staff, and they can call you all day.
It's the kind of poorly thought~out provocative statement that elicits the kind of response in which every word is thought about and measured carefully as it is being said:
I can't imagine how that would endear you to anyone.
{No, not terribly witty on my part; but he clearly did not have his wits about him either, so it was a fair match.}
At that point I got an indignant micro~lecture on how they are responsible for North American national security, the overall implication being: "If you're not with us then you're against us" and not returning calls could only be interpreted in one way.
The company claims to be working on behalf of the US Gov't, which indeed it may very well be; but still, having a gov't contract hardly gives you the right to threaten to harass companies into giving you their business.
Until martial law has is declared and you comandeer our business, until then, please be civilized and kindly permit us the priviledge of not returning your calls.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Now every time I get called by a fax machine, I'll have to wonder whether it's one of theirs.
But... they're harassing us because they care, so... so I guess that makes it okay.
Call me paranoid, but working around here will to that to a person. I may very well be unconsciously succumbing to the temptation to exaggerate for effect.
But this little weirdness just started today; I only caught it by fluke.
I happened to open the printer status window, and noticed that extra copies of things are being printed when I send a print job. Two extra copies. Consistently.
When I go to the printer, only the copies I printed are there.
Later today, the Boss, in passing, made a comment on the paperwork I'd been working on.
Now, I do email copies of that paperwork when it's done; and since Boss is {apparently} BCC'd on everything, Boss could easily have seen the paperwork as an attached file. Easily. And the extra copies showing up in the printer status window could be some weird glitch. So I can't really jump to any conclusions from the premises I have so far.
Unless we accept the basic premise of Boss tightening the noose of control as a mathematical constant, represented by the symbol "noose"...
We had another birthday in the office; and for once we managed to get the cakes snuck in without the victim's knowledge, and ~ bonus ~ got everybody into the kitchen at more or less the same time.
And then we couldn't light the candles.
Out of the several dozens of people who work here, nobody had matches or lighters. All the smokers were either out sick, out on vacation, or had ~ gasp ~ recently quit (smoking, that is).
We ran like mad around the building, asking each other for possible whereabouts of firelighting devices, scrabbling amongst the forgotten oddments in culs-de-sac of desk drawers, and collaring & shaking down suspected smokers, to no avail.
It was proposed the engineers use the tools and knowledge at their disposal to come up with a prototype. I cast an eye over the bits & bobs strewn around the eng'g dep't & thought, all this technology, and we can't make fire.
Someone finally remembered they had matches in the emergency kit of their car. Candles were lit, and, three seconds and a birthday wish later, blown out.
If only we had an old-fasioned "In Case Of Fire..." glass case which contained an extinguisher*... I would now gladly pay the money to create next to it a smaller glass case containing a dog-eared matchbook, with a sign that read "In Case Of Birthday Cake..."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
* The word for "extinguisher" in French is extincteur which I took to mean "exterminator" the first time I heard it.
So now extincteur always puts the same image and phrase running over & over in my head. Framed in a doorway: a bearded man wearing dark glasses and a nondescript (yet significantly bulky) tweed coat with the collar turned up, carrying two battered briefcases. Je suis Victor, he says, l'extincteur.
Well, that's free-association for you.
At the office I have a portable phone that permits me to take calls when I'm away from my desk. Usually the phone itself is left tucked in my pocket, and I speak and listen via an earpiece with a mike attached.
It was, in hindsight, inevitable that this day should have come to pass:
~ I told Boss, so&so wants to speak to you on line one;
~ Boss took the earpiece from me;
~ started talking;
~ turned around;
~ and walked away, while I trailed behind like a kite tail, still connected by the earpiece cord.
~ { & } ~ { & } ~ { & } ~
I'd like to say Boss was oblivious to me trailing along behind; but to be honest, I'd have to describe it as a conscious exercise of Boss' perogative to have me follow in tow {if you've ever seen the movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead ~ the scene where R&G meet King Claudius and his royal retinue ~ then you've seen what this looks like}.
It put me in mind of behaviour at the court of Versailles {you know, Dangerous Liasons, Louis the Sun King, "let them eat cake" and all that} ~
If Oneself was of sufficiently noble birth {or "aspired" to it} then Oneself would retain a chair-carrying servant whose job was to ensure said chair was always convenient for the seating of Oneself. Etiquette dictated Oneself never glanced for the chair; Oneself simply sat. And the chair was Expected To Be There. Looking for reassurance beforehand betrayed self-doubt about Oneself's Regal Position {literally and figuratively} ~ and if Oneself had doubts, then what was everyone else to think?
~ { & } ~ { & } ~ { & } ~
They must have had a name for their position, these chair servants. I'll send my Footman, Oneself might say, just leave it with my Valet; the Butler will see you to the door. And mind you don't stumble over my Chair-Lackey on the way out.
~ { & } ~ { & } ~ { & } ~
I can't help but think that nobles who survived the revolution had to unlearn the lessons of a lifetime, and spent quite a few weeks with bruised bottoms from plopping down on non-existent chairs, and then spent a few more weeks with pillows strapped to their behinds.
A little-known short-lived cottage industry, commoners teaching nobles how to seat themselves; I can just hear them, like training dogs the Barbara Wodehouse Way, enunciating the "T": Sit!
~ { & } ~ { & } ~ { & } ~
SitComedy of Manners. Will somebody, please ~ my writing skills are not up to snuff ~ please write this reversal of Pygmalion?
It must include {1} a scene wherein Oneself is subjected to a difficult lesson in chair management & attitude re-adjustment, and {2} a scene wherein Oneself, amongst commoners for a test run after the first set of lessons, must sit down several times; in some instances Oneself overcompensates, and in other instances Oneself remembers only half-way down to look for the chair which upon occasion is there, or isn't there, or isn't quite where expected; and Oneself must pretend accordingly that Oneself meant to do so...
{Many ex~nobles masquerading as citizens in post~revolutionary France were caught out because they sucked at Musical Chairs. Not a lot of people know that.}
Please also include scenes wherein Oneself must acclimatize to life without {1} the farthingale ~ and so tries to sweep impressively through rooms though feeling practically naked, and goes through doors sideways for no apparent reason ~ {2} the fan ~ and so substitutes any item at hand as a psycological crutch, as a smoker would for cigarettes ~ & {3} the wig ~ and so... well... I don't know how that would be funny... like I said, not up to snuff.
As Eliza was rewarded with chocolates, so Oneself would be rewarded with Oneself's head remaining on Oneself's shoulders... and constantly reminded of same, by some Madame DeFarge-derivitive dropping sharp~edged hints like: ooo, where did I put my knitting, I'll lose my own head next ~ oh! dearie me ~ did I say that out loud? titter titter.
~ { & } ~ { & } ~ { & } ~
There ought to be potential for moments of tender & touching vulnerability when one is stripped of one's social & personal affectations, and for moments of broad farce when one must cope with a new physical situation. And for lots of dignified~people~falling~on~their~butts humour.
I'm not making any promises: no gift have I for writing dialogue, comedic or otherwise; nor have I the skill for sketching characters or plot. The impetus is slipping away already, and I haven't the discipline to write when I've lost interest in the idea.
But who knows what may happen. We shall see what we shall see.
My headspace at work and my headspace at home divide me into two such totally different entities that trying to send reminders from one self to the other is like trying to pass communiques through the veil of the dead.
At home I tell myself, when I am at work I should do such&such; at work I tell myself, when I get home I should do such&such. These intentions evaporate like a volatile spirit from the body at the point of crossing over.
It's a bit like forgetting why you came into a room, and then forgetting that you've forgotten but suddenly being conscious of a total lack of purpose; and then, eventually remembering that you've forgotten and unable to remember why you came into the room, having to return to the other room to jog your memory. And then going back and forth between the two rooms unable to remember anything from the other side.
Except in this case the two rooms are my home and my office, and it happens every day.
There is new sign posted over the sink in the kitchen on the first floor. It reads:
Be Careful With Knives.
They Are Sharp.
I think that's half a Haiku.
The building in which we conduct our daily business was built by us, for us. It has aesthetically pleasing proportions, and is very tastefully appointed.
But, having expected that an architect would follow function over form, I was surprised to discover that this building has a few unexpected behavioural quirks.
My work area has a two-story high ceiling, a large window that runs the length and breadth of one wall, and expensive marble floor tiles. Visually, it's quite impressive.
But it also has no heating on floor level (instead, there are vents in the ceiling), there have been no provisions made for shading the window, and the marble is as slick as zamboni-resurfaced black ice.
Over the course of our first winter here, I've discovered that in practical terms this translates into:
1} a room temperature that hovers just below the Goldilocks zone.
Bonus: Though it is uncomfortable, suffering this daily cryotherapy will preserve my good looks better than Botox and extend my natural lifespan to that of a Galapagos turtle.
2} a brightness that makes all reflective surfaces potential resonators for eye-blinding laser beams.
As the sun now creeps higher towards its summer path, it becomes increasingly apparent that the greater part of my day will be spent under the magnifying glass of a young god who is intent on burning out my retinas like a juvenile delinquint incinerates ants.
Bonus: I will have to acquire a pair of sleek, dark, faintly intimidating and fairly expensive UV-rated sunglasses, and write them off as a work-related expense. Does anybody know where the feds get theirs?
3} a treacherous-when-wet floor, which is just a lawsuit waiting to happen.
It has been impossible to prevent snow from being tracked in, and we have had to lay a narrow runner of carpet to allow people to traverse in safety. Thankfully, in the summer we will only have to fear a broken sacroiliac when it rains outside, when the floor has been freshly mopped, or when beverages have been spilled.
Bonus: My desk is protected by The Millimetre Moat of Doom(TM) ~ Just Add Water!
Eternal youth, expensive sunglasses and an inaccessible lair... this could be the start of something villainous...
Started off on the wrong foot by getting to work late this morning, and was out of sync all day.
I never take a lunch, and I always stay late; still, my tardiness pissed off my superiors. VP Minions was kind enough to fill me in on how upset my absence made them, and what they said about me...
It is helpful to know when bad things are being said about oneself...
but it does fuel paranoia.
And so the hamster running in the wheel on the rational side of my brain has had to run much harder & faster than the hamster in the wheel in the emotional side of my brain in order to maintain mental equilibrium.
Both hamsters must finally be knackered, because I'm not nearly as anxious about my job security now as I was this morning. It's also possible that they've tagged out and were replaced by their partners, Denial and Distraction.
If the superiors do see fit to axe me, then in addition to severance pay I'd also receive the six weeks of extra pay I've accumulated by not taking any vacation in the last three years. And the HR Dep't likes me, so I do hope that means they'd manage to arrange it so I'd be eligible for Employment Insurance.
The only pain in the butt would be having to admit I'd failed in balancing an honest day's work with astutely judged amounts of slacking off.
I don't know whether VP Minions thought this up all on his/her own, or if this is actually an urban legend s/he ripped off just to give me a laugh.
And now that I am considering it, it does strike a distant chord of memory that niggles my nether brain. I've definitely read this somewhere before... If anybody can point me to a link that proves this is part of our urban mythdom, please post it.
But, at the time, it was presented to me as a fact; and, at that very moment, it gave me a good hearty laugh -- probably because I don't use the upstairs kitchen. :)
I am still relishing the afterglow of the chuckle that it gave me, so I am very much disinclined at the moment to verify for myself whether this is true:
~ {&} ~ {&} ~ {&} ~
After posting unmissable signs, dropping pointed hints every day in conversation, and, finally, sending a company-wide email, VP Minions has gotten fed up with being the only person who washes the dirty dishes left in the sink.
S/he told me today, I have posted a new sign over the sink. It says:
Fine.
You WIN.
I will wash your dishes.
I will wash your forks.
I will wash your coffee cups.
I will wash your spoons.
And then I will lick them,
and put them away.
My characters took on a life of their own, writers have been known to claim, they wouldn't do what I told them to do; the story took an unexpected turn and started writing itself without me.
I'd originally meant to explore the philosophy of trash in this blogsite, but have instead habitually trashed my Boss.
*shrug*
They say, you write what you know...
So for the sake of making it a wee bit more official, here is a smattering of some work-related links. Anything I decide to keep, I'll make available later on a sidebar. In no particular order:
First, be forwarned if you are surfing from work.
On the other hand, forwarned is forarmed. (It's a shame my Boss is not even remotely associated with Australia.)
The Commission des normes du travaile is always a good place to start your investigations if you ever need to verify your rights and obligations as an employee.
CBC Radio's Workology is no longer broadcasting; but their webpage allows you to download all the old shows. Its sister site, The Clockwatcher, is also a source of edutainment.
Since most jobs are no longer guaranteed for life, Human Resources Development Canada will probably come in handy some day. There's also Monster, Jobstar, and JobBoom.
If you think you've got what it takes to be your own boss, then you might benefit from SEDI; they help young entrepreneurs get off the ground. No-one will loan you money if you are without some sort of business plan; and Infoentrepreneurs is a damn good place to start. Industry Canada may even be of interest to you.
Microcredit is a money-lending model worth exploring, if cash-flow is a problem. The BBC article on microcredit has a the added value of a link to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Heaven forbid your workplace is that bad... but if it is, maybe the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety could help?
Under the heading Fire Your Boss is a slightly more anarchistic perpective to employment.
PlayPen Office is no longer being updated; but I had fun reading through the archives, maybe you will too.
You might peruse the Escape Artist if you are looking to work in another country.
If you're not allowed to leave the country, you can always telecommute. Also, the About.com site has a section for Working from Home under Small Business: Canada.
That's enough work for a Friday. Enjoy your weekend, go out and play.
Job applicants have been coming to the office for the last few days, dropping in every half-hour.
I play the guessing game of, who will they hire?
The first applicant of this morning was a very nattily dressed man. His body language and manners were the equivalent of Received Pronunciation.
If he was of a type, then I would describe that type as The Understated Yet Über-Sophisticated Cosmopolitan European, the kind sometimes found in commercials for the inaccessibly expensives.
When I handed him a brochure to inform him about who we were, he accepted it as befitted a gentleman; but as he did so, he looked me in the eye and said, thank you, but it won't be neccessary; I've already researched your company.
Then, unlike other job applicants who waited patiently in their seats, this man stood. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, and took the opportunity to peruse everything that could be seen out our front window.
He had a quiet, unassuming air; and yet he looked for all the world like a man standing at the window of a penthouse office gazing over his empire, having taken the moment to reflect on his baby son playing with their new puppy.
And I caught myself thinking, he'll never work here. He'll never be demoralized enough.
I'm hoping he gets hired if only so I can watch how the human events will transpire and cascade.
Boss' Assistant dropped by later in the day to inform me of his/her new title; s/he is now self-crowned VP of Minions. I asked our new VP who was the front-runner so far.
They like the Über-Sophisticate the best, said the VP of Minions. But they don't think they can hire him; they know his personality won't gel with Boss' personality.
It reminded me of an anecdote; I think it's a well-known one in some circles. I'll attempt to repeat it from memory. It begins with a CEO:
This CEO convened a board meeting, and presented each member his board of directors with a gift-wrapped box.
Inside each box was nested a set of Russian dolls. The CEO encouraged everbody to open the doll, and then the doll within the doll, etc.
Inside the final hollow doll, there was a note which read, if we persist on hiring people smaller than us, we shall become a company of midgets. But if we persist in hiring people bigger than ourselves, we shall become a company of giants.
Mind you, politically somewhat-less-than-perfectly-correct midget reference aside, the image of a company full of hollow people, each one snug inside the next one up, isn't a pleasant metaphor no matter in which direction it is interpreted.
But I'm hoping, vainly hoping but hoping nevertheless, hoping for their sake and for my entertainment, that they hire the Über-Sophisticate.
Other people have such admirably insightful, honestly touching, and intrinsically useful things to say.
I don't really have anything to say.
Unfortunately, I feel that something ought to be said.
That is never a good starting point.
~ {&} ~ {&} ~ {&}~
Eeyore stood by the side of the stream, and looked at himself in the water.
"Pathetic," he said. "That's what it is. Pathetic."
He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at himself in the water again.
"As I thought," he said. "No better from this side."
~ {&} ~ {&} ~ {&}~
It's a perceptual thing; I'm keenly aware of how hard it is to separate what's being seen from the person doing the seeing of it.
When I hear someone making generalizations about another person / a group of people / world events, I think to myself: no person has the absolute grasp on truth. This statement reveals to me more about this person and their thought process than it does about the subject at hand.
So, when I try to grasp at the truth of things, it's difficult for me to separate my assessment of world events from meta-thinking those assessments; and I'm uncomfortably conscious that any "analysis" I might proffer would really be more about me.
I might try pretend I am not part of the equation, and attempt to assess the motivations behind every scrap of news/information/propaganda/opinion put forth by everybody else. But then there are so many possible aspects to consider that I reach a point where my brain shuts down like a sci-fi robot foiled by paradoxical logic. I can't possibly comprehend it all.
Some part of my ego eggs me on, saying, now is the time to try to organize your thoughts, make sense of this incoherent situation, have the guts to impose a narrative thread, find your voice no matter how embarrassing it may sound to your own ears, and to hell with whether or not it comes back to bite you on the butt.
Like I said upstairs, I can't help but feel that it is important to try to say something, anything, to acknowledge this day. Even though it is going to be self-centered, even though it's just going to be about how I feel, I don't want pretend this is just another day.
But, now that I've come down to it, the honest, ugly truth is: I do want to pretend that this is just another day, and that there is no need to say anything at all.
No need to get my thoughts straight, or my affairs in order. No need to think about the future or lack thereof. No need to be considerate of others who are already suffering. No need to assume any reponsibility for anything.
No need to worry about whether I should buy duct tape and stay, or buy survival gear and run. No need to bewail the fact that I haven't the money to afford either.
Frankly, I'd love to totally ignore what's going on in the world right now.
It helps that I do not have fingertips that thrum with the political pulse of world events; that I do not have a heart that instinctively empathizes with others; that I do not have eyes that are perceptive enough to see through the eyes of others, nor skin sensitive enough to feel under the layer of another's skin. It helps that I am perfectly capable of walling off the world.
I know bloody well that I oughtn't.
But it's what I crave.
And the frightening thing is, I think that I could manage it.
We'll see if I don't. I'm not laying any odds.
~ {&} ~ {&} ~ {&}~
It's not like any of that needed to be said, or read; the world's hardly a changed place for me having posted it, and certainly not an improved place.
But I have marked this day.
I hope there are a great many people out there with better things to say today.
If anybody sees anything well-said about this day, about this whole turn of events, please let me know.
Meanwhile, Eeyore's going back to his gloomy place. TTFN.
Tee Hee. :)
Boss just accidentally reprimanded a client by email.
*strangled snort*
Yes, it's evil of me to take joy in Boss' mishap. Yes, it shows what a petty, impotent, small-minded and small-hearted person I am to find so much glee in another's humiliation.
But I console myself by thinking, I'm not really laughing at Boss; I'm chortling with Fate, slapping the back of Poetic Justice, and drinking a toast to Hubris & Hamartia. Because it was SO apropos.
Over a year ago, Boss had our SysAdmin set up the network so Boss could personally access all of our email. This means that not only can Boss electronically look over our shoulders all the time, Boss can also electronically breathe down our necks by firing off micromanaging emails about our emails.
Now of course companies monitor email; this isn't a gripe about that. I don't even mind micromanaging. But...
...but it's a question of Boss' kneejerk mental reflexes. Boss thinks fast... far, far too fast for safety. Boss' mind races at such a reckless breakneck pace that hasty conclusions often supply the grounds for hot-blooded and intransigent injunctions.
It's as if Boss is imbued with so much life force, so much kinetic energy, that it would be a scientific impossibility for Boss to even momentarily hesitate. To expect Boss to prudently take a minute and actually read every word of the email and mull things over before making a decision would be like expecting a waterfall to willfully resolve itself into a tranquil pond in mid-air.
Mind you, I suppose one could argue frames of reference; from the waterfall's point of view, it's being absolutely still while everything goes whipping by or comes crashing up to meet it.
At any rate, Boss is the only human being I have met whose personality could in all fairness be poetically likened to a primal force of nature.
If humans are a watery incarnation of the Stream of Time & Gravity, then Boss is a seething cataract plunging headlong at terminal velocity into future towards that State of Final Inertia, while the rest of us drift aimlessly down like snowflakes.
By that reckoning, I suppose Reincarnation could be thought of as a sort of Evaporation Cycle of the Soul...
But as usual I get carried away by my own verbosity as I wax rhapsodic about Boss. All that purple prose was meant to set up the background for this:
A client had emailed some questions, the email was forwarded to me, I answered the questions and CC'd it to a few other people to whom the information was relevant.
When I got the consequent email from Boss, it took me about fifteen minutes to figure out what it really meant. Boss had done a "Reply All" and, addressing the comments to the client, delivered a brief and significant yet rather puzzling knuckle-rapping.
Boss has given hell to clients before, so I presumed it was intentional; but in the context, the text didn't make any logical sense. I think it took me as long as it did to understand it because I'm resigned to Boss not making sense.
I finally twigged that the client had the same first name as one of the employees here; and it was the knuckles of that employee Boss had clearly meant to rap.
With a blind presumption that is vexatingly typical, Boss had paid no heed to the fact that the client's email suffix is not even remotely close to our company email suffix; and neither, too, are the surnames at all alike.
Fortunately, the employee was vindicated at closing time. Boss, while rushing out the front door, asked in passing about said employee's involvement in the matter; and I, with as much nonchalance as I could muster, pointed out emails and surnames.
An abashed look nearly passed across Boss' face, but lost all nerve and fled. Boss promptly found fault with the client over something else, and left with dignity intact.
And that's the story of the mis-sent email.
Yes, I could have written this entire post in plainer language, and with less extraneous matter. At its practical essence, it is just about an email mis-sent. But that wouldn't do justice to Boss, nor to how Boss makes me feel.
I appreciate that Boss is no more or less fallible than average; it's just that Boss' status and power magnify these ordinary flaws into tragic flaws. By Boss' very nature, a normally insignificant event becomes epic.
And, frankly, I'm going overboard with words because this is my first blogsite and it's the first opportunity I've had to really, really play (and cavort & frolic!) with writing.
(Who was it who wrote, of a lovelorn youth: "He threw himself upon thorns of purple prose and bled"?)
For the sake of brevity, though, I ought to experiment with limiting myself to haiku for the next few posts...
To: Err is Human
Send! Boss lectures @client
not @employee.
"The more things change, the more things stay the same." The more things start looking like Orwell's 1984, the more that phrase gives me a chill...
I know, that's probably just my own personal pessimism; I've just enough optimism to hope that's what it is. I'm hoping that, after having aged well past the adolescent phase of self-centered brooding without actually having grown out of it, I've simply learned to project my melancholy onto the world around me.
But even considering everything reported ("reported"?) in the news ("news"?), I think working here at Yellapalooza has been pivotal in terms of my paradigm shift towards "we're all going to hell in a handbasket."
Up until now, I had never personally experienced trying to interact with someone who wields power the way Boss does, nor have I ever had to try to survive the group dynamic of people under such a yoke.
It is still incomprehensible to me that someone could acheive status and power without also having the ability to grasp the obvious. It baffles me as to why someone in this day and age would choose to motivate via intimidation and shame when it only engenders more problems than it solves... but then, that returns us to the inability to grasp the obvious.
It has given me a hint of a wisp of an inkling of how bad things must be outside my sheltered life; if my boss can be this bad, what must people who wield real power be like? If Boss is this bad, what must Bush be like? :) Yas'm, I. Am. Canadian. ;)
I can only suppose instilling fear and guilt in others is a way of trying to divest yourself of similar emotions; and so I'm running with the theory that the more guilt and fear Boss tries to inflict, the more you can bet that Boss is feeling really frightened and peccable.
And as a motivational technique, I can only suppose it fulfills Boss' need for instant self-gratification, repercussions be damned... which brings me to the other side of the Boss Coin.
To Boss' credit, Boss lives very much in the moment; it is a childlike state of grace that other people meditate or pray or take therapy for years to achieve. Boss is kind of like a zen master without the enlightement: lightning fast reactions and immense force of chi, yet peculiarly eluded by satori.
So. Back to the point. The whole point of blogging today was to discuss an email which I was asked to disseminate. It came from a VP who suffers the brunt of Boss and typically acts as a civilizing buffer/translator between Boss' raw emotions and employees' raw nerves.
For years, VP Suffer-Brunt has worked for impulsive and idiosyncratic entrepreneurs. One of the survival skills garned from such experience is the ability to rephrase and reissue Boss' commands in such a way that they appear more or less reasonable - it comes off like corporate jargon that has had a British private school education. For our purposes, let's call it Yellapalooza Doublespeak.
When I receive a directive from VP Suffer-Brunt, I usually play this mental game: an adaption of Broken-Telephone/Website-Translation where phrases are re-translated until they are unrecognisable, it is called What On Earth Does That Really Mean (and How Does It Affect Me)?
The email which I was asked to disseminate states that "to better serve our customers" yadda yadda blah blah, we are moving to a forty hour work week, hours will be 8AM to 5PM with 1/2 hour flex time to be arranged with your supervisor beforehand.
And I forgot to play the mental game. My first, kneejerk, thought was: oh, goodie! It sucks to have to be in earlier, but then I'll be paid more.
So I investigated my paystub to calculate the difference, and discovered that I am already paid for a forty hour work week. So far, everyone else I've talked to has confirmed they also are currently being paid for forty hours, even though they generally work more.
It's my guess that the email was VP Suffer-Brunt's Yellapalooza Doublespeak for:
1) your lunch and your breaks will no longer be paid time, and
2) you can consider yourself officially warned that lateness will no longer be tolerated.
It reminds me of the chocolate rations which were always being "raised" to lower levels... which reminds me I have to go order some boxes of hot chocolate packets for the office beverage stash...
Up until a few week ago it was my custom to hand off all the morning mail to Boss' Assistant who works on the floor where most of the mail ends up delivered...
That is, up until Boss received an envelope which had already been opened by one of Boss' Progeny to whom it had been accidentally addressed. Boss immediately called me to ask why I'd opened the mail.
I explained that I had nothing to do with the mail, I only give it to the Assistant who carries it upstairs. Later that day the Assistant came over to thank me for passing the buck, and informed me that from now on I could bloody well deal with the mail myself.
I'm told that yesterday Boss had a mysterious yelling fit behind closed doors (such fits henceforth to be known as Yellapaloozas) and now the mail policy has reversed.
Contrary to the former orders which specifically forbade Assistant from opening the mail, Assistant is now obliged to open all the mail and date-stamp it as received. (Assistant has sworn to begin keeping a mail tracking log, so as not be be accused of having lost mail that was never delivered.)
The new rules seem inexplicably perverse when one considers Boss' drive to control things; and the control of information, in particular, has a very high priority. For example, staff members of certain departments are forbidden to speak with those in certain other departments, even socially outside work (and before you say that's an unenforceable edict, you should know that Assistant has found documentation that Boss has paid private eyes to follow up on certain employees and to collect their personal data).
So, allowing someone access to all mail, even if only to stamp it, seems... well, inexplicably perverse!
***amendment*** March 3rd, 2003
Assistant tells me today that it is only the mail that goes to Accounting Dep't (i.e., only cheques & bills, not all the mail) that is to be opened & date-stamped. So it's not a total reversal of the mail policy, as the Assistant still is keeping well away from Boss' mail. But, still... to allow someone a glimpse into the company finances...
...I can't tell you how difficult it was for our computer guru, at Boss' command, to tweak our accounting program so that the shipping department can't access invoice information for the orders they package. (Normally, it is the shipping dep't who generates the invoice as soon as something is shipped, so the client is not billed for something that never sent. Now, we invoice the client right away, whether their order ships or not! Am I right in thinking this is not a normal accounting procedure?) I suppose the idea was to prevent them from knowing the precise value of what they handle... but for heaven's sake, it's all valuable, and everybody knows that...
Has it really been a month since I last blogged? Egad. How easily time slips by when you're trying to kill it...
I promised nice words about Boss... and I do have them tucked away, I'm working on them; but words conceived in the throes of emotion have much more oopmh to get themselves born into the world than words that I feel I grudgingly owe someone out of an ethical sense of balance; those words feel as if they are a breach birth, unable to get out without being turned around the right way and then extracted with foreceps.
Told Boyfriend yesterday that things have been relatively calm on the work front lately. We exchanged the ritual jokes about finally getting the dosage right on the medication being slipped into food & drink; and Boyfriend quite aptly quipped that we must have Boss on Anti-Curmudgeons. :)
or, There but for the Grace of God...
Be forewarned: there's a lot of bile in this post again. I'm aware of how totally unconvincing it sounds, and thus it's unlikely to be entertaining even if you do have a taste for bile. There are good things to say about Boss; but without the aggravating things, the good things have no context. I've positive remarks planned for the next post.
So.
Boss would have done very well in an era of valets and handmaidens; for ingrained in Boss' psycological infrastructure is a biological imperative to issue orders and delegate tasks at the drop of a whim.
Upon being hired, it became my role to be the footservant for Boss. The previous whipping boy had managed to escape that status by ducking into a vacant job position; and I was eventually emancipated by the hiring of a personal assistant. It is the Whipping Boy of the Nonce whom Boss calls upon in time of need.
So then.
It so happened that Whipping Boy of the Nonce was out for lunch one day last week when Boss wanted to delegate something; Nonce is now forbidden from leaving the building during work hours. The relevant conversation, synopsised, went something to the effect of:
"You can't leave for lunch whenever you please; in fact, you are not allowed leave the building at all. I needed you and you weren't there." This was rephrased and repeated several times; all statements were in the tone of remarks on a purely emotional level, as if there were deeper control issues about being personally abandoned.
"I am here now. What is it that was so important? I am here now. What can I do for you? I am here right now. Please tell me, and I'll do it, right now."
Huffy, exasperated, and dismissive: "Get me a coffee."
And so then.
Whipping Boy of the Nonce came home last weekend to find the the voice of Boss on the answering machine: "Call me at home, it is urgent "
It transpired that a VP needed a ticket for a sudden business trip overseas. And somebody had to book that plane ticket. Nonce explained that for overseas one needs a real paper ticket, so it can't be done over the internet, and why don't you call our travel agent for this in the first place, you have his number, why did you even bother to call me on the weekend? Nonce was given the VP's number, and told to relay that information. The VP called back to ask,
"Who will pay for the ticket? I don't want to put it on my card. Do you have a credit card number?"
"What on earth makes you think I know my boss' credit card number?"
"You book these trips all the time on the boss' credit card."
"Why in the name of everything good and holy would I take my boss' credit card information home with me for the weekend?"
And when Boss was called for the credit card information, Nonce was reprimanded and told, "you should carry my credit card number with you at all times."
This is particularly ridiculous considering that Boss has already had a credit card ripped off at least once that I know of; and if Nonce had preserved the information for future reference, then there could just as easily have been a dismissal on suspicion of credit card fraud on Friday instead of a reprimand on Saturday.
Nonce Whipping Boy has vowed to no longer answer the phone on weekends...
... and I had to point out, not answering the phone will solve nothing; you will walk in on Monday to hear: where were you? why didn't you answer the phone? why didn't you return my call? I needed you, why weren't you there? You are not to leave your house. You will be given a cell phone so I can reach you at all times.
And so then again...
This morning's phone conversation 'twixt Boss and Nonce ran something to this effect:
"I need these papers, where are they?"
"I don't touch your papers; if they're anywhere, they're with all the other papers on your desk."
"Well you will have to go dig for them. Don't look at anything."
"I have to look at all your papers to find your papers."
"Well only look at that one."
So, Please.
Like I said at the beginning, I don't want this to turn into a bile-fest; I do have positive thoughts to share about Boss for the next post.
So, please, do stay tuned.
In the 30 months I've worked here, 31 people have left the company; of those, only 14 were actual firings. People get very intimidated by Boss' behaviour, and get rattled enough to quit. There are also others that have been under the crosshairs who have refused to quit; they've managed to survive and are still with us. There have been at least 3 people that were fired and then rehired; 2 out of that 3 were rehired several times before getting the final boot! So it cheers me somewhat to think the odds are probably good that if I just hang in here and refuse to quit, then this steady paycheque just may continue.
I suspect I was fired once, and brought back, all in the space of an hour; it was hard to be sure, as I was out of the room for the pivotal part. It happened as part of a huge office kerfluffle, which derived from (as they usually do) a long, unspoken, simmering-under-the-skin argument between Boss and one of Boss's Progeny... an argument which one might say is really a life-long state of affairs.
There was a point at which Boss and Progeny were sort of time-sharing the office; Progeny would come early in the morning and then leave just before Boss would arrive at noon to begin the workday with lunch. When Boss left on a business trip, Progeny started to make a few changes in the way things were done -- changes for the good, as Progeny is quite a reasonable person, as are all of Boss' progeny.
Happy though I was to comply with the new & improved world order, I also knew that upon Boss' return the reaction to this would fall between three extremes: either Boss would not notice any changes at all (unlikely); Boss would notice, burst into a berserker's rage at being usurped, and change everything back (more likely); or, Boss would not notice the changes on a conscious level, but, reacting to some sixth sense, would scythe through the office like a Fury run amuck and wreak vengeance for faults deliberately found where none existed, making random changes to everything (which is in fact what happened).
Ultimately, I do admit fault in that I obeyed a lesser VP in the absence of the CEO, knowing full well that the CEO demands utter and abject fealty; and then I made the ethical and tactical error of trying to pretend it didn't happen. Because VP Progeny backed me up, Boss was not able to nail me on the facts; but I was raked over the coals over nonexistent mistakes.
Have you ever had someone tear strips off you, up one side and down the other, using a perfectly innocent piece of paper that they claim contains greivous errors? At the end of my flaying, I was told to "go home, get out of my sight, I don't want to see you for the rest of the day." It was a dismissal, ostensibly temporary; but I didn't fancy my chances of being able to return again, and started clearing my desk of personal items.
And just before I was about to leave, I was summoned back to Boss. I was told the new process for doing things, and I was made to do it over and over again, until it was perceived to be right. In a most farcical bit of business, Boss manually counted entries that had been automatically numbered by the computer, claiming I had mis-numbered them... counting with a finger on each entry, out loud, over and over, and, somehow -- quite beyond my ability to understand and quite seriously challenging my ability to suspend disbelief -- counting wrong, every time.
To Boss' credit, it was eventually acknowleged that I hadn't made a mistake; I was smiled at, and told "Sorry. But you know how I am. I'm tempermental." To which I honestly replied, "yes, and we wouldn't have you any other way." Though a fearsome thing to behold, the sheer force of Boss' personality is truly awe-inspiring ...though usually in a natural disaster sort of way... my fascination for understanding it must be akin to the same thrill tornado chasers seek.
Having recently re-read Robertson Davies' Fifth Business, I'd like to beleive this qualifies me for being Twice-Born. ;) Give it a read, tell me what you think.
...that was a very angry title, but sometimes I can't believe the stuff Boss pulls.
Boss has had an entire electronic file folder removed from my network drive. Without asking me, or more importantly, without telling me.
When I asked our network administrator where my file folder had disappeared to, he confided that Boss had told him to remove it and deny all knowledge of doing so.
SysAdmin tells me it's not gone, it can be restored; but he can't do it unless Boss tells him to.
So I have to pretend that I think my file folder has evaporated.
However, I haven't been asked to stop doing the aspect of my job which pertains to that folder.
Which means I have to, naturally, try to reconstitute those files with whatever little information I can dredge up from other sources.
It's ultimately a huge waste of my time and therefore Boss' money -- money, which is dear to Boss' heart, and which is probably the motivating factor for "disappearing" the information held by that file in the first place. Because I'm sure Boss thinks this information pertains to money. It doesn't. Even if it did, this behaviour is closing the barn door after the cows are gone.
My quandry is, am I supposed to go and inform Boss that my file is missing? And will it be considered a breach of working ethics, i.e., a firing offense, from Boss' perspective, if I do not do so?
And when asked, are you sure you didn't delete it? I will have to suffer through the farce of saying, I haven't touched it; it's not in my trash can; I don't know where it is. I will have to suffer the indignity of keeping my mouth shut when Boss looks me in the eye, feigns inculpability, and implies that it's my fault.
For heaven's sakes -- the computer always doublechecks before deleting files both into, and out of, the trash can; how could I not notice? I would have had to voluntarily delete it four times for it to be actually gone.
Which is what I suppose Boss will try to claim that I have done.
I don't want to do the nonsense work of re-creating existing documents. I don't want to have a no-win argument with Boss. So I've decided my official line of dissembling is: it's there. But I can't see it. It's an invisible file.
I'll have to play the waiting game, as that is the only thing in my power to do. I am hoping the file will be re-established when the emotional wind shifts.
This kind of thing makes me angry, less because of what was done -- because, it can be argued, Boss owns everything in this business down to the brass tacks, including my electronic files, and can therefore dispose of it as Boss sees fit -- but because of what it does to me.
I want to take satisfaction in having accomplished something valuable every day; but every time Boss exerts more control, I actually end up with less work to do; and in my bitterness, I'll quite happily write it off as, "Oh well, less work for me, more time to goof off. If Boss wants to pay me to do less, then so be it."
I want to do a good job, but having the definition of that change arbitrarily from day-to-day inclines me to leave work incomplete, as I am left at a complete loss for the "right" way to do it.
I'd be happy to devote myself to putting in an honest day's work; but behaviour like this makes me feel quite justified in spending all bloody day wasting time composing this bloody post.
Boss is the subject of many hard-to-fathom-yet-it-'s-completely-true-I-can't-make-this-shit-up kind of anecdotes; my friends were inspired to get me blogging in the first place because of the stories I told about Boss. Like I mentioned in previous posts, it's amusing, in a schadenfreude kind of way, from a distance; it's unbelievable until you've worked here; and it's terribly intimidating if one ends up in the line of fire.
So please forgive me for griping about work. I'm happy to be employed. I like some aspects of Boss; or at least I'm determined to keep finding things that I like about Boss even though it gets incredible challenging some days... that's probably the martyr aspect of my Catholic indoctrination - uh, sorry, I mean, education - rearing its ugly head again.
Stalked by Death
It reminds me of those "you've-escaped-Death-and-now-Death-is-hunting-you-down" movies. I'm living life completely innocently, and all the while something insidious from another dimension is invisibly bearing down on me with malicious intent; and suddenly something quite unexpectedly horrible happens which I'm powerless to prevent; and it seems the only thing in my power to do is panic.
I should have seen it coming, but I've become so used to finding the computer that I turned off before I left turned on, and things on my desk moved. This morning I found a whack of paper files (the paper versions of the now-missing virtual file) which normally live in my cabinets, piled on my desk - the same files which Boss had sent a peon to collect from me several days ago, and which a high ranking VP had conspired to get back to me because... because...
...well, because Boss' fascinating psycology is both very complicated, and yet simple in a very animalistic way... but I suspect that's a theme to be explored in another post... assuming I still hold this post.... :)
...used to have a ringside seat for all the yelling & screaming that went on behind the closed doors of upper management... my desk was a sort of an opera-box right outside the CEO's office... quite entertaining, actually, if one wasn't directly involved...
...former location of the company was a one-floor rented office suite, very cramped... new location is an entire two-floor building... almost every VIP has their office on the upper floor, so now "upper management" is a literal expression...
...consequently am, as a first-floor peon, completely out-of-touch with the day-to-day emotional hyperbole, having been posited in a narrow, cold, cathedral-like space, two storeys high, with very messy acoustics... soundscape resembles that of an indoor pool, but without the lapping water... can't understand anybody speaking ten feet away... voices from beyond are completely baffled into a white noisy silence...
...last night before leaving, there fell a upon my now complacent ears the almost forgotten sound of one half of a phone conversation gone horribly wrong... an unholy shrieking, from the far end of the edifice, passed through two sets of closed doors and crossed over the anteroom balcony to hang just beyond the grasp of comprehension...
... wasn't sure whether that made me feel unsettled or wistful...
...did I mention? We are having the ISO people by again, to certify us to the new standard. We are supposed to have audited ourselves using the new standard before they arrive...
...unfortunately, though we have many people certified as auditors in our office, I am the only person in the office who has been certified as an auditor to the new standard; and I'm too bloody busy faking new paperwork, and marking old fake paperwork obsolete, to do any audits. :) And blogging has been right out.
...on the bright side, we are having our grand opening soon afterwards; and the invitation specifically states that there will be cocktails served. I'd been joking since moving day to anyone who would listen that my new desk lacks only a sink, some stools in front of it, and some coasters & shot glasses with our logo on them, and then we'd have a fantastic wet bar for guests... I do hope that means I'm bartending; I can't imagine anywhere else in the building where serving drinks would be appropriate.
You'd think I'd've written more about the pangs of ISO while I was in caught in its throes -- like how a chain reaction of paperwork gets set off every time something is instigated/amended; or how, after being submerged in ISO headspace for weeks, I saw shmutz on my shirt as a non-conformance; or how the momentum of organization would compel me -- me, pack rat and queen slattern of frowzy splendour -- to tidy up where the comfy anarchy of my omnium-gatherum normally reigns supreme.
At the very least you'd think that I'd've griped about how all that paperwork, while necessary, is also now utterly obsolete because ISO has changed its system and we must comply, which means brand new paperwork and more shredding.
But no, for some reason all I wrote about in that huge constipation of a backlog/backblog (which still has yet to be completely expressed) was: money.
Probably because my S/O thought that during ISO hell week would be a good time to bring up the subject. Surely he thought that offering to have the two of us live on his salary while I sock away all my salary into my student loan would take some pressure off me... but it doesn't.
I don't want to simply change indebtedness from one source to another. And while in theory it would save having to pay off scads of interest, it will still cost me.
I have made it quite clear that I have no intention of marrying; and I will not share a joint account, which has been another heated and tearful source of argument.
I am normally malleable to the point of spinelessness; but there are a few stands I will make, and this is one of them: If one is not willing to marry someone, then it is absolutely verboten to merge finances.
They say the thing couples argue about most often is money; oddly enough, I think at its essence, this argument is less about financial security and more about the emotional security of having somebody to depend on (or depend on you) financially.
Frankly, I'd rather be paying through my nose to my government (think brain being drawn out for mummification so I may join my money in its afterlife; see below) than be financially obligated to a current or ex-S/O. Nothing personal. :)
So. There we are then. Comprende?
At the office we are already being approached regarding our company Christmas cards.
Actually, we were first approached in July; but now the traffic of travelling XmasCard salespeople is accelerating, and the deadline is barrelling down on us to get our cards chosen & signed & addressed & enveloped & stamped, and gifts selected & wrapped & boxed & consigned and finally all of it posted & couriered before the December impasse/mailing rush, and we are as usual staring into the headlights of the oncoming Season until it's too late.
Everybody has their own traditions. Ours is the annual game of chicken with Fathers Claus & Time.
Sadly, this year the sample cards look distinctly as if they have been culled from stock image CDs. I'd rather we delivered our clients something bloody original, even if it's only our company dog in a Santa hat & a smile... perhaps he could be situated within a Winterlude-themed swath of office destruction the likes of which he was wont to wreak in Christmasses past.
'Twould ideogrammatically explain its own delay, too.
