I need a spot to rant about work......Ya wanna' help?

Very cute pic, ehbeth! Thank you so much. Keep my friends in your thoughts and prayers please!

Rae, if we were closer, i'd be calling in favours for you.

Edited.

ohhhhh, give Chef a hug. it must be particularly hard when you've put more than just hours into a job. well, not that most of us just put in the hours, but i think some of the creatives lose a lot more than just a paycheque when something like this happens.

All right, many of you have probably figured out by now (though if you have I'd kind of wonder why you were spending any time thinking about it at all) that my job is largely a sideline to A2King. This isn't entirely a discredit to me. When I started in this position it was a very busy job, which I have automated to a considerable degree, and much of my time was taken up with preparing spates of numbers for people, a responsibility I have eased a great deal programming a spreadsheet thing to do the work for me. Now I manage to mix in work with goofing off pretty effectively, and no one has issued any complaints, so I feel reasonably all right about my skiving.

So, having justified myself...

The boss -- not my direct supervisor, but the boss of the boss -- is blisteringly incompetent in every area in which our jobs overlap. (I suspect this is the case in other areas, as well, but I don't know this for sure.) There are a number of us here who have been here longer and have a better understanding of both our goals and of the bureaucracy which either facilitates or hinders our reaching them. Today, she took one of us up on a point of policy. She was challenged. There was an unnecessarily heated argument, exacerbated by the fact that the Boss is aware that she does not have the respect of her employees and is very defensive as a result. She refused to budge and sent this employee off to complete a stack of paperwork that is totally unnecessary (and that will likely end up being a problem down the line if the person who receives it doesn't have the good sense to throw it away).

Then another employee, hearing about this, went in to try to clear up the matter. No go, but the Boss is very angry at this point and is likely starting to doubt her firm stance.

So she's already pretty keyed up when I go in to explain the actual policy. I even know why she's confused about it, and I mentioned this, as well -- it's something that was resolved months ago after some destructive meddling by somebody from another department. No good. She goes on, in fact, to tell me that another individual of considerable rank and expertise gave her her nice little bit of misinformation. I know he didn't, because I've talked to him about this same piece of policy in the past -- when I was resolving the first round of confusion. Then she kicks me out of her office, saying she's got a conference call to make. (Odd to be making conference calls 20 minutes after the hour, but, hey, I'm not one to question another person's integrity.)

I have since got an email from this person she cited as the source of her information that she is, in fact, wrong, and that anyone who made such a misunderstanding as she has made is probably pretty stupid. I forwarded this email along to her. She has not yet dignified it with a response.

Okay, just felt like sharing. Damn fax machine's busted again, too.

Oh do I ever know that type. Mucho sympathy. And nice of you to try to stand up for your coworker. Won't accomplish much -- boss is in "must save face and show them who's in charge" mode -- but nice of you. I doubt that she really doesn't know she's wrong, she just has an unnatural fear of admitting she's wrong. Is she, like, short, young, extremely stupid? (The last one seems to be indicated by your story.) At any rate, I'd bet she is pretty insecure for whatever reason.

There was one time when I wanted to get a special, hard-to-get, prestigious certification for my program (before I went solo.) My boss said, "no", I asked why, and she said "because it's too much work." I said, well, I'll do the work, and she said OK, great. So I assembled this BOOK full of sample lesson plans, special forms I had to create according to their guidelines, etc., etc. It was a TON of work. As I was finishing up, I found out that my sister-in-law, who was 9 months pregnant, had been found to have a brain tumor and needed to be operated on immediately. My husband and I arranged to leave the next day to help out with everything and help care for the newborn. (Delivered by c-section so s-i-l could have brain surgery.) The deadline for the certification application was later that week -- I was leaving Tuesday, it was due Friday. So I worked extra extra hard to get it all finished. Definitely a Scotty "Well, I need a minimum of 8 hours..." [4 hours later, as they're about to explode] "there! It's done!" moment. Almost missed the plane in the scramble.

But, finished. Absolutely all the way every last page finished. Whew. Felt good.

Made sure the boss got it in time, went to tend to s-i-l (she came through it fine, baby came through it fine, everyone's healthy now), and then waited to find out if we'd actually gotten the certification. Expected it. Was taking a long time. Asked the boss. She was cagey. Started to get suspicious. Then, in a staff meeting, with about 10 other people, she rattled off quickly at the end of something else, "Oh, and I made an executive decision not to submit the certification application." WHAT?? I told her off, civilly but in no uncertain terms, in front of all of these people (which I guess she had been betting I wouldn't do.)

Found out later she thought I'd never be able to complete the application in time, and just said "yes" so she could blame it on me when it wasn't finished. Never wanted to do it. (Cost $200 or something, but would have paid for itself many times over.)

Some people...

Rae--Perhaps it's a bit of a heartless thing to say, but I wonder if your chef isn't better off.

pdog & Soz--Thank you for reminding me to count my blessings.

Every day I tear off a page from my Dilbert Page-a-Day calendar and every day I see a new Dilbert cartoon that seems to reflect my work life. So I pose this question: Does life imitate Dilbert or does Dilbert imitate life?

A friend asked how work was going. Here's part of my reply to his email: However, there have been two General Managers meetings this week, one with Human Resources. Rumors abound about sales manager layoffs, so we're all a bit tense. I'm pretty safe no matter how cuts come down but I have to wonder about the staying power of a company that's in tough enough shape to begin laying off at my level. Personally I think we should fire the board of directors. They've been ******* up this company for quite some time now and feeling no repercussions except for drops in their stock. The problems we have right now are from several years of mismanagement not from the economy. The drop in the economy just hastened the process.

Rae! I missed your tales of woe earlier. Oh my goodness. Big hugs.

'Tis a bummer Rae. It's one thing when a heartless institution is run by nitwits. It's another when you put something of yourself into a place and incompetent bastard come along and, um, foul (yeah, I'll put foul there) it up.

Soz -- your story sounds very familiar... Ours is old, dumb and insecure -- but she works very hard to try and dress "young." Didn't trust her the minute I met her, and trust her even less now. Marking off days until I'm out of here. Will be gleefully giving my notice in a couple of weeks.

PeppermintPatio, I picture you doing a Snoopy-style happy dance as you hand in that notice

Hey, that's probably pretty accurate. (Yeah, it's been rough sitting here in front of this virtually unlimited high-speed internet all day...)

It looks to be escalating today. The fearless leader is now harassing her third employee in four months -- one of whom was up for a long-deserved promotion, had initiated paperwork under the previous regime, and whose reclassification file has now been "lost." HR is going to be involved. I await the opportunity to go to bat for somebody, because I've got nothing to lose at this point, and figure I should be of some use to somebody before I leave.

I walked out of my job last Tuesday. No notice. In the middle of a shift. I've never done that before.

Oddly enough, they said they'd take me back if I change my mind or want to go part time.

Sales have been plummeting. The Austin office was making the money, carrying the headquarters, but corporate decided to fire the top management in Austin and move one person from corporate to cover for four people. Our managers had to work harder and take on some of the extra work.

There was one position available for upper-middle management, so all the managers were posturing for that postition, including my mananger. My now ex-manager is Hispanic, and although he deserved the promotion, did not get it. I do believe it was a racial issue.

His attitude dropped and he was looking for another job. One day he just didn't come in, later I found out that he had called in late to say he wasn't feeling well. I think--actually know--he is looking for a new position, because he told us he was.

In the meantime, some twit from Manager's in Training, whom they had decided not to promote because of her Gastapo ways, was brought in to "babysit" our team. She was awful and rude. Not to me, but to a young tall, polite black man, whom I guess she thought she could push around. He had waited thirty minutes to take his break and she questioned his leaving without being "tapped" on the shoulder. Um, our manager NEVER "tapped" us for our break. Jeez!!!!!

I guess I felt like if the good managers leave, we'd be stuck with the leftovers. A frightful proposition!

I'm glad I have my office in Austin for proofreading and a publisher who sends me work regularly. I will send out resumes to about five other publishing houses who publish along the same line of fiction, so I am hopeful I can pick up some more work to round out my newly available time.

The other job was just quicker, frankly better, money. And I did enjoy it so much. It was lots of fun and I made the top ten in sales two months in a row. Not bad for a newbie. I had actually worked there before and had left to work on the house we are remodeling, then went back after a year. It was the only job I enjoyed enough to actually return to.

So much had changed and then THIS. It's awful really!

Anyway, sorry this is so long. It was pretty traumatic for me. I hate it that I left without notice. I hate it that their lack of professionalism affected mine.

From reading these posts I realize probably everyone works with or for an idiot.

Well, now I work for myself, so at least I'll know where this idiot is coming from.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Good luck, dupre. Please keep us posted on how your job search goes.

Thanks. I appreciate that.

a-yup, good luck there.

Good luck, dupre.

As hamburger always told me: "one hand for the ship, one hand for yourself". In other words, it's important to take care of yourself, your own needs, your own rights, YOU!

ehBeth, you are right. I probably shouldn't have worried about a Hispanic or a Black person. After all, I'm white.

My leaving isn't going to help either of them. And I didn't ever want to be in management there, anyway.

I just couldn't stay with that going on, on top of everything else like the plummeting sales.

Small minds, small results.

In 1998 when I first sent out resumes to about eighty publishing houses, I got about four responses, and one offer, and that took about three months. But, back then, I didn't have any experience. So, naturally, I can hope for a better response now, with over a hundred novels under my belt.

My cash flow can cover me till mid-November, so I'm in a good position.

I'm just shocked that prejudice and small-mindedness still go on, especially in a forward-thinking city like Austin, Texas.

I'm shocked that I walked out. Not at all like me. I was so disgusted. I just couldn't believe that woman said what she said to our team member. I just can't believe that they would keep her around. I just can't believe I quit. I'm not a quitter, and having recently been one can only leave me with some personal doubts as to my level of . . . of . . . stick-to-it-tiveness?

Something I will need to make it on my own, with the overhead now of an actual office.

Anyway, when I quit, I didn't go on about the real reasons why. I just said that the 7 am shift was too early for me, and it was. I had to be in bed by 8:30 and up by 4:30 to make the drive through morning traffic and get there on time.

Any other shift and I would have been with a different manager, and, well, our manager was the best, so that only left part-time open for me and with the plummeting sales, there just wouldn't have been much out of that paycheck.

So, I guess my leaving isn't really all that noble. But I would have stayed, of course, if the atmosphere had been better all the way around.

Maybe it was just the economy. Maybe that's the only reason sales were falling. Some of the old-timers were still selling OK, but a lot of us weren't doing well.

Anyway, I just feel awkward. It will pass.

Thanks for letting me air this out.

Wow, dupre, that took some guts. Good for you, and good luck.