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April 2nd, 2008
10:28 am - Live from work
Okay, so let's check in.
My boss decides to hold a meeting on Monday. Despite creating an itinerary the previous week, one she wanted us to review before the previous Friday... she didn't bother to tell us until Monday morning, and then bolted for meetings immediately after. The invitation e-mail she sent Monday morning even says to review the itinerary and give her feedback before Friday. This itself is eye-rolling typical. But we were getting along just fine in my not going to meetings, yet suddenly we need to meet for me to go over the new count sheets. Yes, I have to drop everything I'm doing in the afternoon and sit for an hour so we can talk about how I count incoming documents.
I immediately fire back and note the absurdity of the request, as diplomatically as you can do something like that, and note that more utility lies in me working during that time. She sends an ambiguous response, and hence the post on Monday hinting at termination. It looked like I was going to have to finally lay it all out there and drop the gauntlet (or in my case, my keycard). But I get to the meeting and she sends me off, so never mind. Or so it seemed.
Around 4:45 one of my cohorts tells me that my supervisor and the boss are ready to meet with me 'about the count sheets.' No, I'm not stupid. You don't hold a little meeting 1 hour after the fact, at the very end of the day, about fucking count sheets. It was never about count sheets. These two have a problem with me, and that's fine, only in the sense that I have a problem with them and everyone else here anyway.
So away we go. The two problems.
1) My boss thinks I'm lazy because she sees me checking my e-mail or surfing the intertubes when she walks by, and she's scared that her bosses will think I'm wasting money, which concerns her because the bosses are looking for people to lay off and she thinks it'll get the department axed. This goes back to the Layoff Postulate: if someone's looking for a reason to fire you, then they have already decided to fire you. There is no marginal utility in posturing to save your job.
2) Apparently, I'm an asshole that some consider unapproachable. Wow, it only took these geniuses 7 months to notice.
But seriously, my attitude is a) a reflection of the incompetence and tolerance of terrible mistakes that infects this office culture and b) a deterrent towards protocol violations by A/P, since that's when it usually rears its head. it's a Pavlovian approach to solving a problem that clearly hasn't been solved by the conventional nurturing techniques that weak-spine admin management likes to use.
That said, being 4:45, being on the usual short sleep and, despite my premonitions, being somewhat blindsided (clearly an effective result of a common management timing tactic, to hold such a little meeting out of context at the end of a day)... there was only so much coherence I could lend to all this. The main point, which I made sure to make off the bat, is that I hate this place, that I have hated this place, that I knew as soon as the interview for this job that this office culture had a problem, and that all everyone has done was prove my premonition correct over the last seven months, that my agency has all but abandoned me and I was sour on them anyway, and that I am done with them after this assignment is over. To their credit, when I asked them when my contract was up, my boss at least told me the actual day.
She then volunteered some curious info: when I'm gone, they're just going to replace me with someone else. There is no budget cut with my position: they're just corporately obligated not to keep a scab for longer than a certain period. To which I would ask, then why not just get the fuck rid of me and bring in someone else? But my boss beat me to the punch there and volunteered to expedite the arrival of a new scab that we could train and get up to speed before my end date. Now, given they want a month overlap, I already only had 2 months left, and their classic lag with just about anything (for example, I actually tried to back out of consideration for this position because they were taking too long to make a decision: they decided to hire me a day later)... I doubt this is more than just a ploy to try and make me more of a drone. I said I'd back off, more so because I was tapped out from the day, and the meeting ended.
Little has changed, other than I'm not reading the blogs as much (and I'm tapped out on them a bit anyway). But if i receive any more guff about my performance, or they try and add any more demands, i.e. tell me to attend meetings, I'm tossing my keycard on the table, posting my hours and I'm leaving for good. No warning, no exceptions. Keep in mind that, assuming my new agency could put me to work right now, I am giving up $4 an hour every day I come to work here. I make that sacrifice in exchange for workplace flexibility. If these guys aren't going to give me that, they lose their purpose.
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Comments:
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/54249116/541169) | | From: | ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) strand |
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| Date: | April 2nd, 2008 07:10 pm (UTC) |
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Oh gods, that sounds stupid.
I admit I'm not exactly sure what to think at this point.
i hope you can move on to something else soon. you just seem so miserable there and it really sucks to have to spend so much time at a place you really dont want to be. it does remind me how fortunate I am to have a job i like so much though, so um, thanks for that i guess? heh! :) better luck soon i hope.
Yeah, I've tried to lay low and let as much of the shit go as I can, and consider it fortunate I don't follow my first impulse most of the time, because it could be much uglier... but when they're actively getting on your shit and you have a contract, what can you reasonably do.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/47828074/822473) | | From: | mcfnord |
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| Date: | April 3rd, 2008 02:18 am (UTC) |
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i hated when my boss was on email or instant messenger. i never do these things at work but then again i rule.
i don't share much with my boss. what i do share goes through a long analysis process, not just for accuracy, but for strategy and prudence.
i believe i'm considered hardworking and approachable.
today i attended my first team meeting. up to now i was kinda Army o' One. there was a lot of stupid joking around and kvetching. i just kept quiet and focused on my notes. i inquired about a few things. i played the consummate professional. that's my whole schtick. often, no, nobody knows what i'm really thinking. that's how i roll. seeming like superman is worth a premium. but i did criticize the central problem i have with the organization, in the subtlist way. cuz in the end i attack stupidity just as viciously as you. i just seem cool for it. |
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