Should I be worried...

...about the fact that I've found myself behind this car twice in the last week?

Small Victories - I'll Take 'Em

This was one of those rainy Fall days...the kind with a constant cold drizzle that eventually seeps into your bones and makes the urge to stay in bed so strong that you end up having to go to work with unwashed hair and wrinkled slacks...and even then you can't make it on time unless you're willing to give up stopping for coffee.

I opted for the coffee stop this morning, and I don't regret it.

This afternoon our supervising attorney thanked me for following up on something and being so thorough, and she said I was a pleasure to work with. I had emailed both her and my boss with a question, and she had given me a direct and simple, helpful answer. She copied my boss when she sent this bit of praise, and it made me very happy as she is the boss's boss.

A bit later I emailed both of them again with a question about something the supervising attorney had written in one of our intakes. This time, my boss replied--only to me--with "these questions come to me."

Mind you, she didn't answer the question...nor did she even pretend to talk around it. She just flat out disregarded it. But she damn sure asserted her authority!

Also today, the supervising attorney (who is officially my hero) emailed us to say she'd called the guy who chewed me out yesterday (and who subsequently chewed out my boss) and told him our firm will no longer be assisting him, as he has been abusive to our staff members.

In all, it was a pretty good day in spite of the boss's antics. I do feel trouble brewing, though. Even though I'm thorough and a pleasure to work with, our numbers aren't good enough and the boss is trying to figure out what needs to change. I made a couple of suggestions, which she pretty much dismissed, saying "I know what works."

But she mainly attributed our less-than-excellent scores to "absences" with a pointed look at my coworker....my coworker who has three kids--one with a rare neurological disease and another who's three months old and spent the first week of her life in ICU--and who missed work Friday for two of the kids' doctor appointments.

Never mind that lately there's simply more work coming in...more than we can easily handle within a restricted number of hours. We can make it work, but my boss's instructions to start "showing her everything before I send it" won't help any.*

Anyway, the complement seems to have lit a spark in me, and I really feel like fighting the boss's nonsense. She'll win...but I'll be right and we'll all know it. And one day, maybe my coworker and I will be given the respect we work so hard for.

*Yeah, I know that's poor use of quotation marks. I just don't care.

The Adventures of a Lukewarm Blogger

I've been waiting to write my 100th post until I could think of something special to do, but that eventually became just one of the many things I was putting off. So I've decided to just get it over with and start working on the next 100 posts.

Effective this Friday I'm getting hired "permanently" at my job. Part of me thinks my boss is only doing this because she can't be bothered to keep approving my time card every week for the temp agency. I have, you see, had to remind her every single fucking Monday since the week she forgot to pay me, and that's usually after two other courtesy reminders on Friday!

Maybe it's the weather...the recent cooling-off and the unusual amount of rain for this time of year...maybe it's the chaotic work environment with a boss who openly avoids having to talk to us whenever she can get away with it and talks gibberish when she does bother to communicate...maybe it's the fact that I'm making just enough money to tread water but can't ever quite get my head above the surface and keep it there. Whatever it is, I'm more stressed out than ever, and I'm feeling pretty down about it.

Work today felt like what I imagine it's like to be buried alive. I started out in a hole, and every time I tried to climb out, someone threw another shovel full of dirt on me. And before I could dig my way out of that dirt, another load fell in on me. By the end of the day, somehow I had more stuff piled up than when I started, even though I'd been working nonstop all day. I hate that feeling.

Eh...it's just a gloomy day. And I'm coming down off a "customer service week" high, during which my boss had to pretend she appreciated us but ended up using all the "fun" activities as an excuse to avoid communicating with us. And I had a client chew me out today for something that was totally not my fault. I wasn't expecting that, so I had my guard down. Hell, I always have my guard down when it comes to being yelled at for things I can't control, because I just don't understand that mentality.

I absolutely hate people who think the only way to get what they want is by bullying others. And that is why customer service is NOT the field for me!

So there's a little slice of what my life's been like lately: I don't like my job, and I detest my boss. I'm bitter and cynical and pissed off, and recently I've had to edit myself because more and more I find I'm becoming that negative person in the office who makes everyone else feel hopeless. I usually catch it and try to come up with something positive in its place, but it's totally empty. I don't believe a damn word I'm saying.

I guess that's why, paragraph after paragraph, I keep telling myself pretty soon this post will take on a positive tone. And I just keep bitching. I'm an endless fountain of bitching.

Well, there are some things to be happy about...for example, I'm halfway through Season 1 of "Lost," and I'm enjoying the early episodes more than ever this time around. My goal is to watch all of the first five seasons before Season 6 starts in early 2010.

Lying around watching TV for hours on end and then more hours on end? It won't be easy, but I think I'm up for the challenge.

And, now that Post #100 is done, I can come back for #101 very soon to daydream, tell a funny story, or just bitch and moan some more...whatever the hell I feel like doing!

please pass the Valium

I've been thinking about my job a lot this weekend...some of the time intentionally, but most of the time not. And my thoughts keep circling back to the same two contradicting conclusions:

1. I cannot thrive in that environment. I need to work for someone who wants to see me develop, in a general career path or at the very least in the job I'm doing. I need a boss who will let me earn respect and trust, who will use my mistakes as opportunities to help me get better at my job, and who will make time to talk when I have important questions or concerns. These things aren't going to happen as long as I'm working for this woman.

2. I need to stick with this job for the benefits and the experience and the steady paycheck....for now. I can look for something better, but I can't quit until that something comes along. In other words, I'm sort of stuck. Just like I didn't want to be.

Time for a TV Guide check: nope, still not sorry I left. But that job set expectations for management and teamwork that I'm afraid no one will ever meet again. And that kinda frightens me.

Now that I'm in this for the long(er) term, I should start digging in and doing what comes naturally to me...organizing things, getting stuff done and generally kicking ass. I was getting there, but last week's setbacks completely zapped my motivation, and I need some sort of attitude adjustment. I think I need to remove my focus from criticizing my boss's management skills and concentrate on proving myself. Duh.

I don't have to bend over backwards or perform miracles; I just need to be myself and do it well. And quit letting this shit follow me home.

And keep looking for better opportunities...


p.s. That woman didn't approve my time card Friday afternoon, as she insisted she'd be doing from now on. She didn't even stick to her plan for one week. So I have to remind her to do it in the morning, when she supposedly won't have time.

...and still chaos reigns

When my boss fired the Crazy Bitch, I decided to wipe the slate clean and give the whole place a fresh start. And it went really well for a while...but I think we all knew it wouldn't last forever.

Because my boss is still bat shit crazy.

Things started to deteriorate last week when she forgot to approve my time card. She wasn't nearly apologetic enough, and then she decided to "crack down" on us temps as if it was our fault. She's moved up our deadline for submitting time cards, because if she doesn't do them on Fridays she just won't have time to go back and do them Monday mornings. Reasonable request, but shitty timing and lousy delivery.

And then this week she just went and lost her mind. Things have been great with my coworkers and me, and she even noticed we look happier and commended us for great teamwork. But then she started back up with the passive-aggressive emails, sending out commands but not wanting to answer follow-up questions or discuss things any further.

Yesterday, out of the blue, she decided my coworker and I should switch responsibilities...even though we've worked out a great system and are super comfortable with our roles. I tried to find out if I'd made some sort of mistake, but she insisted I was doing fine and she just wanted to put us back in "familiar territory" for a while. We tried to explain that it wasn't familiar or comfortable and that we were much happier the way things were. I expressed again that I'd be happy to revisit my notes and correct anything I might be doing wrong, but she wouldn't budge.

All this happened in the midst of the busiest day EVER...absurdly busy. Of course, we weren't as efficient as we could have been if she'd just left us alone, and the work was piling up three times faster than we could get it done.

Then she decided we needed to start doing certain tasks differently. This involved new procedures we weren't quite sure about, so I asked her to spend a few minutes with us to make sure we knew how to properly do things the way she wanted.

Her response was an email that said she's too busy to come over and teach us anything new, and that we're just going to have to keep on doing what we know until she has some time to work with us. She pointed out that she's already told both of us this. In other words, she just wants to make uninformed and poorly thought-out decisions, but she doesn't want us to bother her about the details.

This shit went on for two days before I learned the real reason for the upheaval. It was all because I asked her a fucking question. She felt I should know better by now and told my coworker so, but she didn't discuss anything with me. Thankfully, my coworker set her straight and pointed out that she didn't know the answer either, which was why I had to ask the boss in the first place.

In the end, she spent an hour going over new procedures with my coworker (not me) and then turned her loose with three pages of incoherent notes. She came by later to show me how to do something the new way, but she didn't teach me one damn thing I didn't already know!

She finally relented and gave us back our old roles, but with her new poorly-thought out procedures, things take twice as long as before and I'm more confused than ever because she just doesn't have the time or the patience to work with me.

So my boss apparently still thinks I'm an idiot, even after all my efforts to prove otherwise in light of Crazy Bitch's lies. And apparently when I make mistakes, there's no correcting and learning from them--she just stops talking to me and takes away responsibilities and generally acts like she's quit taking her Ritalin.

If I were reading this and I didn't know me, I'd surely think the problem was with the author. I'd think I had a bad attitude and blamed everyone else for my own problems. But I swear to you, it's NOT ME. That woman is impossible.

Don't even get me started on how she assumed I'd love to keep working there as a permanent employee without her even going through the formality of offering me a job...or how she just never bothered to answer my email asking her what the starting pay would be when I was no longer a temp. And again, who fucking forgets to pay her employees and then somehow acts like it's their fault instead of apologizing profusely?

I'm not saying the Crazy Bitch wasn't the problem before...just that apparently she wasn't the only problem.

p.s. I miss you more than ever, Jefe.

My Luck (if that's what you call it)

I think this week might make history as one of the three most traumatic weeks of my life.

Yesterday (my weekly pay day), my boss nonchalantly informed me in an email that she forgot to approve my time card and I wasn't going to get paid. Fortunately, the temp agency fronted a percentage of my pay in advance, so I got something today.

However, the advance was a normal paper check, and my check is normally direct deposited. So I spent my lunch hour driving across town to the credit union to try and head off the charges that were already coming in to my empty bank account.

I was a little late getting back, and I guess that's why I rear-ended someone a few blocks away from the office. It was a horrible, smarmy couple and their son from Michigan. They were driving a rental car, but by the way the son reacted, you'd think it was a brand new car he'd just bought with his life savings. Asshole.

They insisted on calling the police, so I waited on the sidewalk, trying not to cry while my Arby's sandwich got lukewarm and my Hershey bar melted in its wrapper. At one point my temper almost got away from me, and I found myself on the verge of telling that fucking kid what an inconsiderate, hateful little prick I thought he was. Fortunately I didn't, and I think Karma might have rewarded me.

The policeman was very nice and even apologized when he gave me a ticket. Then he helped me jump start my car, which had gone dead just sitting with the hazard lights on. While his partner connected the jumper cables, I finally got up the nerve to drop my dad's name. In a surprising turn of luck, the police officer called up my dad and then took my ticket away apologetically. What a nice fella!

That saved me the trouble of having to beg for mercy from one of the attorneys at work, which was convenient because the afternoon was chaotic as all hell. The rest of the day flew by, and then I came home and crawled right into bed. I woke up a couple of hours later with a yucky headache.

Did I mention I've been sick for nearly a week with some gross bug that's going around? Whenever I laugh, my lungs actually rattle. Were it not for the similar rattles heard around the office, I'd have to wonder if I'd contracted some sort of grave illness.

Anyway, my insurance premium will probably go up, but I didn't get a ticket and my car didn't get enough damage to speak of. Hopefully I can get through the rest of this week without having a nervous breakdown.

Now, I'm sure at least one of you three readers is wondering about the other two most traumatic weeks of my life. This one falls in at number three, and second place would go to the week back in college when I broke my pinky toe.

Actually, it started when I was bitten on the neck by a brown recluse (also known as a fiddleback) spider. I went to bed with an itchy neck and woke the next morning with a sore whelp as big in diameter as a baseball.

I don't know if it was the spider bite, the Dial body wash my doctor recommended, or the stress of house-sitting with an itchy, highly annoying dog that week...but something caused me to break out in hives. Terrible, terrible hives.

After three doctor visits and a round of steroids, I did what I should have done first and took some benadryl. Then I went to my closet to put on my shoes and go feed that damn dog one last time. That was when, dopey from the medicine, I ran into the door frame of the closet and broke my pinky toe.

You know, I never even noticed that little toe until I broke it. Apparently it's just as important as the other toes for walking, and there's really no good way to put a splint on the pudgy little thing.

But that was nothing compared to the week after my darling cat Sunshine had emergency butt surgery...and then another butt surgery to fix the previous one. It wasn't just that I had to clean her butt stitches morning and night...it was the way she screamed at me every time, like I was trying to kill her...and the way she started foaming at the mouth every time I tried to give her the antibiotics, and the way the slobber collected inside that stupid e-collar...

I hated everyone that week, passionately and without exception.

When the weekend came, I had to board Sunshine at the vet for a few days, as I was going home for Christmas and she still needed medication twice a day. When they took her back to the treatment room and I could hear her screaming all the way up front (as per the usual), for once I didn't cringe and cover my ears.

No, I leaned back in my chair and laughed, thinking "she's their problem now."

And then I got the hell out of town...which sounds like a pretty good idea now, actually. I haven't seen Ryan in nearly two weeks, and after the week I've had, nothing can cheer me up like heading to OKC for a quiet weekend with my awesome boyfriend and his little orange tabbies.

Not Your Year

Scattered shadows on a wall, you watch the long light fall
Some impressions stay and some will fade
Tattered shoes outside your door, clothes all on the floor
Your life feels like the morning after all year long.

Every day it starts again
You cannot say if you’re happy
You keep trying to be
Try harder, maybe this is not your year.

Movies, TV screens reflect just what you expected
There’s a world of shiny people somewhere else
Out there following their bliss
living easy, getting kissed
while you wonder what else you’re doing wrong

Breathe through it, write a list of desires
Make a toast, make a wish, slash some tires
Paint a heart repeating, beating “don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up.”

©2006 Deb Talan & Steve Tannen (ASCAP/BMI). All rights reserved

It's my pretty paper now, bitch.

This week I'm still getting settled into my new cubicle, and into a much more peaceful work environment. My recently returned coworker has been refreshingly direct with anyone previously hoodwinked by the Crazy Bitch, explaining that the Crazy Bitch had to go, as she was a cancer in the office. She also makes a point to clarify I'm doing just fine and that she has no problem with me, professionally or personally.

Friday morning I got my second hang-up call, almost certainly from the Crazy Bitch. I'm told when she finally got in touch with my coworker Thursday night, she ranted for quite a while and even made some threats against our boss.

"...and that bitch Katy was at my desk within fifteen minutes after I left!"

My co-worker's reply will ring in my memory for a long time to come:

"It's Katy's desk now."

We received emails warning about "a disgruntled former employee" calling people within the firm trying to obtain proprietary information, and some passwords were changed. I looked over my shoulder a bit last week, but this week memories of the legendary bitchiness are already starting to fade.

Crazy Bitch left behind a few personal effects, including some cutesy polka-dot paper, some fancy paisley paperclips and a box of plain envelopes. I haven't decided what to do with these items...I hear she complained about wanting them back, but she certainly won't be allowed to set foot in the building to retrieve them. I'll probably just throw them away--I don't want any of her crap--but I amused myself today thinking how mad she'd be if she ever saw me using them.

Yeah, I'm vindictive. I'm going to shake off the nastiness leave it behind soon, I promise. But at the moment I'm still riding the high from last week's victory.

Prozac Girl wins!

When I got to work this rainy, gloomy morning, the Crazy Bitch was sitting at her desk--totally silent for once--with a box of her things beside her. As I walked by, she called my name and asked if I knew what was going on and then informed me HR was on the way over to talk with her.

I told her I knew nothing, and then I went to my desk to wait for the drama to unfold. But things remained eerily quiet. I don't know how they did it, but somehow they got her out of there without any kind of disruption in our work area, and shortly thereafter I moved into her cubicle.

(Any suggestions on how to banish cubicle-demons?)

I later learned that more than one of my coworkers had gotten fed up and complained about her. Also, one of them confirmed my suspicions that the Crazy Bitch has been bad-mouthing me all this time, telling people I'm terrible at my job and implying that all I do is make more work for her. I think she's been telling my boss the same thing, but fortunately that's all cleared up now.

I hereby officially retract anything bad I said about my boss, my coworkers and the general "they." I'm starting to see just how much turmoil and confusion the Crazy Bitch was causing, and I think it was doing even more damage than I realized. Our boss was frustrated and certainly had her hands full trying to keep the Crazy Bitch in line and make sense of the lies she was telling. And I think somehow the Bitch had the rest of us thinking maybe each of us was alone in despising her, which affected our relationships with each other--not to mention with our boss.

Anyway, my boss apologized for letting this go on so long and said she's amazed I've done as well as I have. Also, as soon as I've put in the hours required by the temp agency, she's going to hire me permanently.

Hello, health benefits!!!

I feel like I've woken up in the twighlight zone, or maybe that's where I've been all along and now I'm back.

I started this work week back in the file room, where I wrangled thousands of dusty files and tried to fight back the feeling that somehow I'd lost a major battle. I almost quit that day; I actually tried to call my person at the temp agency, but she was out for the day.

Compounding my frustration was the fact that the Crazy Bitch was in a worse mood than ever and was was not speaking to me---or maybe I wasn't speaking to her. Either way, the battle line was drawn. Her nasty, furtive glares didn't bother me nearly as much as the loud, pointed comments to others about how terrible things were while our coworker was on maternity leave. I just kept my head down, and in some ways the file room felt like a safe haven. But I missed my job.

Yesterday I emerged from the file room to help with document processing, which was even worse than filing but allowed me to work at my (new and very crappy) desk. That's what I was doing when one of my coworkers got fed up with the Crazy Bitch and called her on how hateful she was. It was an awesome moment, but I didn't realize at the time it was also a major turning point.

Since then, my boss has suddenly learned how awful this girl is to everyone else and has begun telling me how glad she is that I stuck around as long as I did. "We're not like that," she declared to me passionately, adding that we work together as a team, and that kind of bullying is not going to be tolerated.

I was a little surprised to learn she wasn't aware of the above-mentioned bullying before---I guess I thought any number of other people had cause to bring this to her attention long before I did. But she said she thought it was just a problem between her and the Crazy Bitch and talked about how she'd found herself becoming the kind of boss she doesn't want to be. I think I can understand where she's coming from, because people as manipulative and hateful as the Crazy Bitch can usually convince everyone else they're the crazy ones.

I certainly know the type!

Anyway, long story short: I'm staying on with the firm after this week. I think my boss totally loves me, and she's assured me things will be much better going forward. What this means specifically I can't quite say, but I think the writing is on the wall.

(I wonder if I can work in one more cliche before I finish this post...)

Crazy Bitch called out sick today, and I got to do my old work again. It was nice and peaceful, but I felt like a dog that's been kicked around so long it doesn't know how to do anything but flinch.

Is this what it feels like to be vindicated? I feel more disoriented than relieved or triumphant, but we'll see what the rest of the week brings and how I feel when it's over.