blog that bitch right out of my hair

Things got pretty awful at work last week...not "you're fired" or "I quit" awful...not throwing office equipment or stabbing people with scissors awful...just sick-feeling-in-the-stomach every morning, tossing-and-turning every night awful. I don't remember when my boss really went psychotic on us, but I do remember that my irritation turned to rage last Monday after a sequence of repeated proverbial slaps in the face.

We recently had a "customer service week" during which the bosses had to pretend to be nice, and they placated us with food, games and hollow praise. One of the games involved picking up pieces of paper from the floor, and some of them had notes granting one free hour off. I didn't get one, but the boss asked if everyone had found one and indicated she wanted everyone to get an hour off.

I answered her email in the simplest language I could, indicating that I did not get one of the special pieces of paper, and a few minutes later I heard her say "Yep, everybody got one."

Well, I thought it would be nice to take off an hour early the Friday before my one year anniversary with Ryan, so I emailed her a few days later to ask if I was supposed to get an hour off and, if so, could I use it on that date. No reply.

I emailed her again a couple of days later with the same questions. No reply.

I finally went to her office to ask about it, because I also needed a long lunch for a doctor visit and she hadn't responded to that request either.

"I don't care if you leave early," she said grudgingly, "but my referrals have to be in good shape."

That Friday was a slow day, and things were in pretty good shape when I left about 40 minutes early. She was out of the office for a conference, as were several of our attorneys, and a lot of people blatantly took advantage of the lack of supervision.

But who do you think she went after first thing Monday morning? She went to my coworker and said "I hope Katy didn't leave early Friday because I told her not to if the numbers aren't low. And the numbers aren't low." I don't even know what that means, but one of my coworkers came in several hours late and the other one snuck out early without permission, and we still managed to get things under control to a point that I felt comfortable leaving "with permission."

With the boss and all the attorneys back that Monday and working furiously to catch up, we got absolutely slammed. Of course, our boss had changed some of our procedures again, so in addition to being extremely busy we were also floundering a little with the new work flow.

And I was mad as balls that one little hour off had turned out to be such a hassle.

She's been hounding us like crazy since then, micromanaging us obsessively and trying to figure out how to get better "numbers" out of us. She sent several of her obnoxious, tyrannical emails on Tuesday, reminding us of this and that and basically complaining about what we hadn't been able to finish the day before, and that was when I reached my limit.

I replied to one of her emails and, very reasonably and professionally, explained that I'd been working my ass off, that we were behind due to an epic number of incoming referrals the day before, not because we were slacking off. And then I added, also very professionally, that her changing the rules on us slowed us down as well, that I didn't disagree with her decision, but that she has to understand that every time there's a change it's going to take some time for us to adjust and get back to our maximum efficiency.

It was all out war for the rest of the week.

She sent emails saying she's the boss and she knows what she's talking about, and we are to expect emails from her regarding our work and shouldn't take them personally. She started checking up on my work and sending me emails questioning minute details. She cornered me by the printer and asked if I was following the new guidelines, then said "Huh..." and shook her head like she didn't believe me when I said yes.

She nagged me for information that she no doubt thought I was refusing to send out of spite, when in fact there was just a lag in the email system. She called me into her office, furious, and informed me that "if we're going to start getting defensive out there, we're going to have a problem."

And then, Friday afternoon, she called me into her office to sit down and have an actual conversation about what her bosses look for, how she measures it, and what she wants from me...all shit she should have done BEFORE she started stalking me like a rabid dog!

She was still racking her brain for reasons my "numbers" aren't as good as my coworkers', and I tried to explain that the numbers don't reflect all the work I do, especially when I follow her guidelines. I walked her through this three times, and she still didn't understand. But she offered to change my work hours, something I've been wanting to ask for but figured she'd refuse just because it was my idea.

I really, really tried to adjust my attitude over the weekend. I put work completely out of my mind until Sunday, when I returned to dwelling on the things that piss me off. For example:

• The bitch refuses to listen to or consider any input from me, and she probably never even looked at my resume long enough to see that I'm actually pretty good at developing more efficient ways of getting things done.
• The bitch swears that she knows what works and that no one else knows better than her, and she completely disregards the fact that what works for her doesn't necessarily work for everyone.
• The bitch behaves like she doesn't trust me or have any confidence in me, and she constantly implies that I'm slacking off or don't know what I'm doing, when in fact I'm at least as focused and conscientious as my coworkers...if not more so.
• The bitch seems to actually think nagging us constantly is an appropriate way to motivate us, when in fact she's just bullying us into to meeting a very narrow set of standards that don't actually have much at all to do with the quality of our work.

I eventually did some meditation/hypnosis with Ryan in hopes of taking a Serenity Prayer approach to the whole mess. And that was when I got to the core the matter. It's not that I don't think I'm good enough, or that I'm as self righteous and arrogant as I probably sound, or that I give a damn what she thinks of me.

It's simply that I'm angry, and frustrated, and I have good reasons to be.

However, I shouldn't be letting this anger bleed into every area of my life to the point where I'm glaring at other Wal-Mart shoppers, flipping people off in traffic, lying awake at night and feeling generally mad at the world. And I shouldn't ever hang too much hope on seeing things change for the better there--outside of my own attitude, of course.

I think I just need to acknowledge my anger, give it a place and then use it.

So I'm not sure if the attitude adjustment actually worked, but things were a little better today. I worked frantically and relentlessly, and I wrote down every damn thing I worked on so I could defend myself if the boss asked why I wasn't getting enough done. And I only referred to her as "that bitch" two or three times--at least, before I sat down and started blogging!

Part of the whole accepting my anger thing is what led to this horridly long blog post. I have been avoiding the blog, and therefore depriving myself of a great way to vent frustrations, because I'm afraid of being that girl who complains about her job all the time.

But I think I just need to be that girl in my blog so I can work through things and maybe even track my progress. Yeah, some day I'll go back and read it and say "Wow, I was one bitter, sarcastic bitch back then!" But it won't be the first time...