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

I've worked for several of those.

Okay, so I don't really wear a lot of makeup to work. Truth be told, I take all of thirty minutes in the morning to throw myself together before I head out the door so I seldom wear makeup to work. However, when I do I look damn good. Anyhow, one of the cosmeticians said to me this afternoon, "Your makeup looks fabulous; who did it?"

What the f*&%? Just because I'm not one of you I must not have a clue as to how to apply cosmetics?

I didn't have to say a word because one of the other girls chimed in and said, "THAT was a mean thing to say." <evil grin>

All of thirty minutes, like that is pretty quick! Every morning, when I spring out of bed (hah!) I would thank God I were not born a woman, if only I weren't an atheist.

Thirty minutes is all I need too! Half hour to hit the snooze, another half hour to make tea, brush teeth, get dressed and play a few hands of spider solitaire to wake up before driving out into traffic.....

Thirty minutes will do me too.......... then 15 minutes to love on my kitties, then 2 secs out the door, then 5 mins. to drive to work, then ..... "it's like, I'm there" no two ways about it!!!!

Up at 4:50 am and out the door at 5:45am, in the office at 6:15 to 6:30 depends on the early traffic. Shave,shower,eat, and run.

I have to hit snooze for at least an hour. Then the animals need feeding and attention, then make coffee, check email, make lunch, decide what to wear, get off my butt and get into the shower. Thirty minutes from shower to door unless I'm being a primadonna and futz with the hair and makeup.....then it's forty. That's why I don't understand the cosmeticians: Most of them come in without makeup on and do it in the store before they punch in. It takes them like half an hour to put their makeup on even though they're using the same products, techniques, and skill. Maybe it's all the gum snapping between products.

Make-up, to work? Well, I used to wear eye-liner, until it disagreed with my eyes - now it is for going out.

Still takes me an hour and a half, though.

For futzing.

And cursing.

I need an hour, twenty ... unless I oversleep and then I can miraculously get out the door in 30 minutes!

Oh, yeah. I can wake up, get that adrenaline rush from looking at the clock, and be at work within twenty minutes of the first sight of the clock. This is usually followed by a very long day.

coffee, shower, morning paper, water the plants, play with the dog, more coffee, sometimes a jog, dressing up and make up, i can be out in 1 1/2 to 3 hours, crack of dawn! good thing for the world i ain't got a regular job, just a part-time - come and go as i please.

dag, you're a week late already. where's chapter one?

alarm, snooze, alarm, snooze, alarm, snooze, dog jumps on head, up, open door, dog food, shower (sometimes), shave (sometimes), espresso, clothes, shoes, out door. 35 minutes, give or take.

I need a spot to rant about work......Ya wanna' help?
Coworkers who lie. I hate that. There was one working for me once who wouldn't know the truth if it came up and bit him. He told a customer he was an eagle scout. A month later he was going on a hike in the Berkshires and asked me to look over his list of equipment to see if he'd missed anything. He had. I suggested a compass and a flashlight. At the end of his tenure I caught him stealing and had him fired. Felt good doing it too.

working on it. tomorrow it shall be finished! i promise. tomorrow is my birthday too, it is meant to be a nice surprise for me - i will finish it and email it to myself. so don't tell me no matter what!

I have an employee who's not new, but new to me. She's already adversely affecting the morale of my staff (not to mention myself). Her association with the truth is casual at best. I suspect the security manager will get rid of her before I do.

I wish we could get rid of our chronic liar/slacker. I no longer believe a word that comes out of her mouth. I wish I could say the same about the boss.

Okay, I'm going to co-opt this for a bit, since I felt the urge to get going on another thread.

Now, obviously I'm a skiver, or whatever the Brits call it; I ain't working hard here at all. I used to, but it turns out it makes no difference to anybody whether I do or don't, and I think they like having me around as a place to pass the buck to and to figure out solutions to problems that stump them when such occasions arise. Most of the time, though, I do whatever minor tasks cross my desk and goof off a lot. Nobody's called me on it.

So that's where I'm coming from. Hardly a work angel here.

But there has been a wholesale change of management in the past year or so; and a totally inept, under-qualified, power-tripping, paranoid sh!twit has been handed the reins. Her second in command was a temp with attendance issues when I showed up, briefly struggled in the position I now hold, but was promoted into a position that literally nobody else wanted, so I bear her no grudge for marching mindlessly in step with the fearless leader.

One anecdote will, I think, illustrate the sort of environment that has developed. There is a woman here who has held the same position I hold for about 15 years. She's practically computer-illiterate, but she's got a few things she does where that's not such an issue. Before the old management types quit ~18 months ago, she was working on a reclassification (read: promotion). She had a file going, she was in charge of certain personnel processes that qualified her for the new position. She's about 60, looking toward retirement, and deserves the pay bump even if her skill set may be a bit behind her younger colleagues.

When the new honcho (E, let's say) arrived, this woman -- X, we'll call her, because she could be anyone -- introduced herself to E and explained what had been going on. E promised to follow through with it. A month goes by, nothing happens. X asks E if there has been any progress on her reclass. E says she's busy with the new setting, and hasn't got around to it yet. A couple of months go by with this series of events repeated over and over. In the meantime, X's husband loses his factory job because he is going blind. The disability payments help, but they don't make up for the lost salary, and certainly won't make up for what he's lost in pension pay.

Then X gets a memo that the responsibilities that make her eligible for reclass have been reassigned for anyone else. She, contrary to her general nature, is incensed. She goes in and asks to see her file. She is told that her file has been "lost." There will be no reclassification, no higher salary. This in a state where workers haven't had a COLA in two years, and where state workers' share of certain health care plans has quadrupled (which is significant in this instance, since her husband, who is going blind, is on her health care plan). X, however, knows that there will be a round of layoffs coming along with the new state budget in July, and knows that it is not unheard of here for people to be let go not long before retirement; in fact, it's happened to somebody in the dept. within the past two years -- so she shuts her mouth and silently bears it.

Somehow I don't feel motivated to give it my all for E; hardly anybody does. I wonder why......

good god, pd - how awful!

That's the type of behavior that can lose a manager her entire staff. Sounds like E needs a kick in the ass....or the head.

The turnover here has been very, very high the last couple of years. She needs to get sh!tcanned. And p'rhaps she will. She's already got several complaints filed with the ombudsman. Faculty will have to get on board if any meaningful action is going to happen.

She's locked horns with just about everybody but me, oddly enough -- and she's got plenty she could lock horns with me about. Either I'm immune to attack, or she's plotting an ambush. Dunno, don't care -- I'm gone this summer.

Really, I don't want to be a bad employee, but so little respect is shown by administration and by faculty for the regular staff here that it's hard not to just walk out, let alone do more than the bare minimum.

Yeah. Whine whine whine. Don't feel bad for me; feel very bad for X, and the other lifers like her, because they're getting hosed. I hadn't planned on giving an early notice of my departure, but since it might save somebody a layoff I'm going to have to do it (though it does appear that the budget cuts will be used to get rid of people that E wants to get rid of, and my resignation probably won't have any bearing on that).