Resume of Career Catastrophes

Dear Deluded Co-Worker,

It has come to my attention recently that you do not understand some very basic principles. First and foremost, let me make it crystal clear that YOU are not my boss. You may think it’s macho to try to bark orders at me. I will even admit that, in the culture of your homeland, it may be expected that you bark orders at a “lowly” female. However, doing so only makes me resent you and will not make your requests get fulfilled any faster.

Secondly, a lack of planning on your part does not create an emergency for me. There are things that take time and you hounding me does not speed things up. In fact, being interrupted to answer your inane questions actually slows things down.

Lastly, on a day I am busy, I may or may not get to your request the same day. Asking me if I have completed your request 10 minutes after you made it when it’s an hour long task and you’ve asked at 4:40 in the afternoon when I am scheduled to leave at 5:00 and have several very high priority lengthy tasks from my actual boss in queue ahead of your requests means you will only be disappointed. I’m doing the best I can, I have a task given to me by my boss on Monday that I haven’t even started yet. Frown at me all you want, it isn’t going to change my priorities.

Not your slave, so dream on,
MsCleanslate

Greetings Clueless Employer,

As you may recall, my friend is attending a family function connected with the death of a family member. My friend is not on “vacation”. As such, it would be proper and respectful for you to NOT CALL and ask, again, when my friend will be back to work when my friend CLEARLY stated in the last phone conversation that you had that s/he’d return on Monday. (I am being inclusive here).

Seriously, what sort of person calls someone attending a FUNERAL to whine about how hard they are working whilst you are away having a gay ol’ time burying your deceased family member? I knew before this that you were a self-centered asshat but, honestly, this really takes the cake.

My friend told you they’d be back at work on Monday. No, they will not take “on call” the second they touch down at the airport. Let’s recall, shall we, how my friend stepped in and took YOUR on-call weekend when you had a family emergency. How soon we forget.

Before you write your next review dinging someone for not being a “team player” and not “realizing we’re all in the same boat”, I would like to bring to your attention that sitting on your ass, at a desk, barking orders and issuing missives is not “working hard” and you are fooling no one. Or at least no one at the local office. I will not go into how your superior “oral skills” may be benefitting you at the corporate level.

You didn’t call in anyone to help when my friend’s co-worker went on vacation, you didn’t call in anyone to help during your little family emergency (when my friend’s co-worker called at 7:30 in the morning in hysterics and needed to be “talked down” from quitting right then and there), so just because you have to, perhaps pitch in and work for a change doesn’t make this a crisis worthy of you calling my friend during their time of bereavement.

Hate & Pinches,
Ms. Cleanslate

Dear CodeMonkeys,

Hi… It’s your Scullery Maid. The one who washes your coffee cups because even though you are all allegedly grown people who allegedly don’t live in your mother’s basements, you cannot seem to wash a coffee cup before there is some sort of science experiment growing in it.

Did you all know I have, in my contract, a restriction on lifting? It’s not because I’m disabled, it’s because the company I work for doesn’t want me getting a friggin’ hernia or throwing out my back. That’s why I usually let you young, strong, male people put the new water bottle on the water cooler. I was hoping one of you would see how EMPTY it was and, ya know, put the new bottle on the cooler. Alas, you seem to be, I don’t know, “punishing” me for something, I guess, because it was bone dry this morning. I broke the rules of my contract and put the new bottle on the cooler because I know I am nothing more than a Scullery Maid and you are all so goddamned important and college-educated that you can’t do one little thing that isn’t in your job description.

Also, I need to talk to you about the mini-fridge in the breakroom. I buy the soda that goes in it. I have a “setup” for how many of which kind of soda gets put in the fridge and make sure that there are always cold sodas available. It is not helpful, then, when one of you yahoos comes along and stuffs all of YOUR favored flavour into the fridge leaving no room for the other flavours. I KNOW you like your Pepsi Max. But, guess what? Only 2 of you drink it. I KNOW you like your Dew but you don’t need to fill the whole fridge with Dew you selfish bastards! And don’t look at me like I just shit on your desk when I actually walk back to my desk with one of your Beloved Mt. Dew’s. I work here, too, ya know! We have two 24 packs of Dew, my having ONE isn’t going to mean you are going to go without! So, don’t act like I’m some sort of marauder pillaging your village!

Finally, don’t think it escapes me that you often all go out to lunch together and don’t invite me. To this I say “GROW THE FUCK UP!” This isn’t High School, ok? Don’t all be coming down the hallway, gabbing away and then get quiet when you pass my office cuz you don’t want me to know you’re going. Have some balls and tell me to my face. I know I am not a high and mighty CodeMonkey like you are. I know I am but a lowly coffeepot scrubbing, waterbottle hefting scullery maid. I’m not asking to be treated as an EQUAL… I AM asking to be treated like a real person with real feelings, though. Or does that not compute?

No Love,
The Scullery Maid

I do some freelance work. I have one pretty long-term client who is generally pretty easy to work with but who occasionally asks for some really last minute stuff and pretty much expects me to drop everything I’m doing and take care of his stuff. And most of the time, that’s ok. He’d been saying for several weeks now that he had some money for me and so I wasn’t really sweating some of the stuff that’s looming for me. But when I talked to him today to try and arrange a time to finally get to meet he tells me that since I haven’t done the billing in a while, there’s really no money for him to give me and implies that it’s my fault.

Now, here’s the problem I have with that….

a) One client, whose stuff I spent HOURS on and who I just spent nearly $10 mailing something to via certified mail because she’s been bitching she didn’t get the previous mailings, just dropped a big check about 3 weeks ago.

b) All of the billing there is to do is for clients who have outstanding amounts dating back to 2007 or earlier and who have gotten multiple bills, collection letters, etc. and haven’t responded.

c) The couple of newer clients that haven’t been billed? It’s because I have no record of time spent on their files and therefore have no idea what to bill them for.

This is someone whose whole office we moved on the spur of the moment, without his help, a couple Sundays ago. So, like 4 hours of packing, moving, cleaning, taking shit out to his house after getting a call early on a Sunday morning and there was the expectation that we’d just drop everything and take care of it…

I dunno, I don’t think it’s unreasonable of me to be a tad miffed that 2 weeks ago I was told that there was money for me and now I get asked “Why aren’t you able to pay your bills? You have a job…” Yes, I have a job. And I had 6 months of no work and scraping by on almost nothing that I was getting for unemployment. The tiny bit of savings I had was gone and I was stupidly counting on getting paid for the work I’ve done. Silly me.

So, I’ll be looking for either another freelance gig or a second “real” job here shortly. Sigh. And then deal with the fallout when I am not available to drop everything for this long-term client at the drop of a hat. And probably lose the one really good, shiny, stellar reference that’s even somewhat recent that I’ve got.

Ahhh, freelancing… the best gig in the world. Except when it’s not.

Most people in the workforce who work in an office have colleagues with vaguely similar titles who work in the office, as well. However, most of the time, in a smaller business or in a business where different divisions of the business sit in a specific area (like accounting or HR, for instance) there is but one Administrative Assistant or Office Manager. Therefore, that person has no real “peers” in the office setting. In most cases, pretty much every position is seen as being superior to an Administrative Assistant. As such, there can be a real feeling of isolation for the Admin. My current job function is Administrative Assistant, even if that is not my title. While I have the skills and abilities to be able to do more than I currently do and while the primary manager would like to see me utilizing more of my skills, for some reason the person who would assign those tasks to me will not speak to me (Euroboss) and I happen to know this has created some issues. I am not sure exactly what his issue with me is. I’ve never not accomplished something that this person has managed to bring himself to ask me to do. I do not kiss his ass or fall at his feet in worship, which MAY be the issue. Or perhaps (because he is not American), he looks upon me as a stupid American. It could also be that to him I am “just a secretary” and thus should not be given more complex tasks. It could have something to do with the fact that the person in this position before I got here was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. (I am basing this on things I’ve seen and comments I’ve heard). Because this opportunity had been presented before and I had been initially rejected for it (they said they needed a different skillset) and because Euroboss was the original hiring manager I tend to think that I would not have been his choice when they filled the position for a second time and that’s why I am being snubbed.

But I suspect that his unspoken (at least to my face) rejection of me has given the “green light” for the rest of the team to snub me, as well. I base this on the fact that although there is a weekly team lunch that I am supposed to be invited to, they often leave for this lunch without a word to me (and it isn’t at a set time or place every week so it isn’t as if I am not in the assigned meeting spot at the assigned time).

Over the years, I’ve grown used to the isolation that being an Admin. brings. You have to be careful to not be too chummy with the manager level people because then the rest of the office eyes you with suspicion thinking that you are the “spy” for the managers. Since you may not have the tech skills of the “regular workers” (as is the case in my current position… I work with a bunch of engineers) you have nothing particularly insightful to add when they are discussing work stuff over lunch. And you also have to be aware when management level people have seen you rubbing elbows with the “regular workers” and start asking pointed and probing questions of you in order to get information about certain employees. I’ve been in the position of being asked to basically “rat out” people and that isn’t a position you want to be in (if you do, then the “regular workers” will, of course, not want anything to do with you and if you don’t, then management dubs you “not a team player” and if you aren’t fired outright, you will be denied raises/promotions/etc.)

I’m not saying I want to be best buddies with my co-workers, but I would at least like the courtesy of being invited to lunch. I know that the fact that I usually need a ride works against me. But I think that there is some deeper flaw (or flaws) that work to set me apart. I’ve been told that were I somewhere other than The Frozen Tundra that my work life would be different. I am not altogether sure if I believe that. But maybe it’s because I’ve been the “different” person for so much of my life that I just don’t know anything else. I really wish I could just not let it get to me, but it does. On the up side, I figure it can only get better, right?

It wasn’t a bad day at work but I will be honest and say it wasn’t as productive as it might have been.

The day started well enough. I ran some errands before work and then went into the office. Then I opened my email. Yeahhhh.. that was a bit of a nasty surprise. A flurry of emails about things that needed to be ordered! Right now! Today! Pronto! But, you see, there were a couple of problems with these missives.

First off, none of them were issued by my boss. Who is, by the way, traveling and so even if we did manage to research the best possible price, put together the purchase order and send it to be approved, there’s not a good chance that Mr. Bossman is going to see it and approve it today.

Secondly… are you kidding me? Do you REALLY believe he’s going to just say “okie dokie” to an item that costs almost $15,000.00?

Lastly, I have questions about some of these items and am not in the mood for people to be sighing and rolling their eyes at me because I cannot intuit what KIND of KVM switch they need. And did anyone bother to check if these things you are giving me links to can be shipped to places outside of the US to our affiliates? Did you stop to consider that or check? I’m guessing NO because none of the places you cited ship outside of the US which isn’t going to do our non-US affiliates, for whom we are ordering some of these products in the first place, any good! *facepalm*

I pinged the boss and the person who had issued the “we need this stuff ordered TODAY” missives. The bottom line came down to this… it didn’t all get ordered today because there were too many factors that were not in our control and no one but me bothered to even scout contingency plans.

Tomorrow promises to be another bonanza of clusterfuckery. The boss is returning to the office, I don’t have many of my “loops” closed because I’ve been dealing with clever little games like “what is that noise, where is it coming from and FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY MAKE IT STOP!!” And other things like needing a note pinned to my shirt to remember to bring the goddamn digital camera back to the office!

In spite of the fact that there was a little grumbling about it, I bought Truvia for the breakroom again because I am thinking it’s better for those who use artificial sweeteners than the alternatives (plus, I want to support the use of stevia where I can).

Also, before today I had no idea it was even possible to eat just ONE of a two pack of Reeses’s Peanut Butter Cups. There is hope for me to live a life of moderation yet!

For many reasons, I am needing to “repackage” myself for my next career move. I am assuming that the next job I look for will be in the state I plan to move to…where no one knows me and so I have somewhat a new start. I am not sure what the job market there is like so I am thinking that I need to start repackaging now.

The big job is going to be remembering all of the places that I have my resume posted online and going to take each of them down. I am wondering if just completely erasing the accounts and starting all over again is maybe the best way to go.

This doesn’t mean that I intend to lie about my past or my experience. I think there are ways to make myself more marketable and appealing, though, and I can’t do that with the current look/feel of my resume.

The hardest part is going to be references, though. Once you’ve left a job and haven’t been there for a while, the people who knew you who might be good references go away, too. And the best reference letter I have… well…. the person who wrote it has moved on multiple times and I doubt he is still reachable.

I’m hoping to get everything tracked down and taken care of by the end of the month and then can start on the new stuff. Then, by June I will be up and running with the new look.

I’ve known for a week and a half or so that we have people coming in from out of town. I did everything I was supposed to do to make this go smoothly and… yeahhhh… not so much.

There are 6 people coming. 4 of them let me make their travel arrangements. 2 of them would not cooperate with that. Fine. At least they all got their flights booked. I did manage to get everyone booked into the same hotel but had one guy tell me he cannot sleep if there’s noise. As if I can do anything about the noise level at the hotel. Whatever.

I was supposed to have agendas early last week so I could plan refreshments and lunches. Guess what I still did not have when I left Friday night? If you said agendas, you would be correct. So there are no lunches or refreshments on deck. Nor have I made any plan to pick up breakfast for tomorrow because no one gave me any instructions.

I am supposed to talk to our Borg Cube representative to get badges for visitors. Guess who was on vacation last week? So, the pseudo replacement guy, who I told on MONDAY that I needed badges pops in on FRIDAY at 4:30 to let me know that he “forgot”. Well, that’s SUPER. I only talked to him 3-4 times last week and he sat in my office with his laptop allegedly ordering the badges but apparently only PRETENDING to do so to placate me or something.

Now… the other part of this is… to have computer access at our facility, Computer Guru needs to have informaiton. Which I asked our travelers for. Twice. ONE of them got the information to me. One of SIX. Again, FABULOUS.

So, here’s what’s going to happen… we are going to have a bunch of overtired, jet-lagged visitors who won’t have badges, won’t have breakfast, won’t have lunch, won’t have computer access and won’t get a damn thing accomplished because no one has any sort of organized PLAN and who is going to be the one who looks like a schmuck who didn’t do her job? Yeah, that would be me.

I only hope I have the presence of mind to smile, nod my head, and take being yelled at for things that were not in my control and not totally lose my shit. I hate the whole “I’m not going to let some stupid SECRETARY tell me what to do” mentality.

I’m also looking forward to planning this big site celebration that I found out about totally accidentally and it looks like I will be given approximately a week to put together something that would optimistically take a month to put together well.

My mantra is “this is a contract position and the contract has an end”. If this was going to be a long term gig, I’d be losing sleep over the problems I KNOW are coming, but.. ummmm… knowing it’s only temporary I’m just trying to roll with the punches. And I have every reason to believe it is gonna be one of “those” weeks. I’ll let you know.

I think I may have noted that I’ve been told I have very inferior communication skills. But yet another situation has come up where I have to wonder if it is really MY communication skills that are the issue?

I got an email today from HR Lady @ Corporate Office. She is traveling to my office. She asked about the site celebration that is planned for the time she is in town. Wait, what? Site celebration? Not one peep had been said to ME about any site celebration.

So, I dutifully pinged Mr. Bossman. And he said “ummm, yeah, that’s supposed to be a secret” and I responded that HR Lady believes that I am planning this celebration. Some of the things mentioned take WEEKS of planning. This isn’t the sort of thing you can just throw together, but yet I am going to be left with approximately 2 weeks to plan and execute it.

Honestly, I am good at what I do but I will have to say that it is rare that I can pull off miracles. I plan things so I don’t have to rush (rushing leads to mistakes that would have been avoided with planning) and I hate that the lack of communication now puts me on a “rush this” time schedule. Not cool.

But you all know as well as I do… when/if things don’t happen perfectly, it won’t be Mr. Bossman who takes the heat. It’ll be the person who was tasked, however last minute, with pulling off the amazing with not enough time.