Ohhhh, party people--please, indulge me this work post?? Please? I'll skip a NASCAR post if you do....
So here, I talked about a little bit of what's up in the office. If you don't wanna link I'll summarize: we're doing an ill-planned upgrade on an ill-advised timetable, nobody asked me what I thought even though I'm the tech, and now other people are starting to tumble to the fuckuppitude of the whole plan.
Chief among those who think this ain't gonna work is--was--RuthAnne. RuthAnne is an assistant director--sorta like a vice-president--and no one has the slightest iota of respect for her as a manager. She hasn't the least little bit of managerial acumen or even a hint of leadership ability. She's a fecking idiot, in fact.
But that last comprehension came a little late for yours truly.
Last week, I called her about something else and she started with me about her worries with the database upgrade. How Samuel, the designer, had no concept of our workflow; how he seemed to be missing a ton of pieces in the whole picture of what it is we use the database for.
Some of these things dovetailed with worries I'd had for a while, which I'd kept quiet; so I told her we should meet about it and I'd present our worries to the president and the other vp. We met last week, for about two hours, and I took notes which I read back to her at the end of the meeting, saying "This is what I hear you saying--is this right?" Then I typed it up into a three-page point-by-point outline.
It was a fucking EXCELLENT report, can I say? It was factual, calm, absolutely devoid of any of my more histrionic exaggerations. It said "This is what I think could be a problem; this is why I think it might be a problem; this is what could happen if it becomes a problem; and this is what I think we can do about it." It was well-written, it was rational, and above all it avoided any finger-pointing. My friend Stella, who's a disinterested observer, read it and she thought it kicked ass.
I e-mailed it to Amy last Friday, and to RuthAnne as an FYI, here's-what-we-talked-about message right after. Later Friday I called RuthAnne to ask her what she thought about what I'd written, and she was pretty noncommittal... "What do you think Amy's going to say about this?" "What do you expect to happen because of this?" I told her it didn't really concern me either way, whether they did anything or not, because at least if the shit hits the fan in December, no one could say I never made my worries known. And that conversation ended.
People, would you do me one tiny favor--would you read that last paragraph once more? Drink it in. It is about to become crucial to my story.
It was a pretty frantic week at the office, and what with one thing and another, Amy and I were too busy to meet til yesterday at about 2:00. She popped into my office and said "Could you meet with Beverly and I about this list?" So up I hopped, and trotted into Beverly's office.
Amy came in a minute later and the FIRST SENTENCE out of Beverly's mouth, as she waved my list in the air, was "Why is this all just coming out NOW? Because from what I'm seeing here, you're just trying to stir the pot."
I said, "That's not my intention at all."
"Well RuthAnne said that you called her and told her you wanted to talk about the problems you were having with Samuel..."
"No, that's not accurate. We were on the phone about something else, and SHE started telling ME about all the things he hadn't taken into account. THAT was when I suggested we meet, because some of what she was saying overlapped with stuff I'd been worried about for a while but hadn't mentioned."
I knew right then what had happened, and I started scanning my body for clothespin marks, because it was quite clear I'd been hung out to dry.
At that dramatically-appropriate juncture, who walks past but RuthAnne. Beverly called her in.
"RuthAnne? Come on in here for a minute....I'm getting conflicting information. Gladys tells me that YOU were the one who brought up all these issues about the database..."
"No, that's not true....she called me and said.."
I wasn't gonna hear the same bullshit line twice. "Um, no. Ruthanne? I had called YOU to ask you something totally unrelated, and YOU said to me 'I have these worries about this database thing' and I said 'You know, I've been thinking some of the same stuff--why don't you come over and we'll meet and I'll write it up and give it to Beverly and Amy.' Do you not remember that conversation?"
"And in that conversation," she said, "do you not remember that I told you these issues were all in the process of being resolved, that I'd talked to Samuel about them and he was dealing with all of them? Samuel and I are in constant contact--we meet every week, and...."
I stuck a finger in my mouth and started chewing, because I knew if my jaws were left empty during this crap-fest, I was going to open them and say something really, REALLY inappropriate.
Remember that paragraph I asked you to re-read? The one about how I sent RuthAnne a copy of exactly what Beverly and Amy were now grilling me about? And how I ASKED her her opinion of its content, and the only thing she could come up with was "What do you think Amy is going to say about this?" If the content of what I'd written was so damn wrong, don't you think she would have SAID something? That, after all, was what I was giving her the opportunity to do. But she didn't.
Furthermore--and most importantly--she was lying her ass off.
I took notes through that meeting. At the end of the meeting, I read them back to her. I summarized exactly what I was going to say. She agreed totally--no waffling about "oh, those are being resolved." She mentioned that in connection with ONE issue, which I didn't even include. So for her to say that she told me everything was all hunky-dory--Bitch, if everything was so hunky-goddamn-dory, what the fuck was that two-hour meeting about???
And then she got Republican about it.
Beverly: "I don't know if you've seen this document that Gladys sent..."
Me:"Yes, I e-mailed it to her the same day."
Beverly: "Did you read it?"
(Quick--go back again--she obviously read it or how would she know to ask me what I thought they were going to do about it?)
RuthAnne, Lying Sack Of Shit: "Not really--I skimmed it a little..."
Oh, fuck YOU, bitch. I sat there chewing my fingernail as Beverly and Amy explained to me, in the tone normally used in dealing with a moderately-retarded child, that they knew I was trying to do something good, but that the upgrade was going to proceed on schedule. Beverly: "We knew all along that people didn't agree with this timetable, and we made the decision to go ahead and do it anyway. We talked about it for weeks--you were THERE in most of those meetings!--and we gave it a lot of consideration, so the bottom line is, we're not changing it now.
"That's fine," I said. "I just wanted to make sure my concerns were clear." Which was true--I just hadn't expected RuthAnne to deny EVERYTHING she'd said, leaving me ass-out to the wind.
The meeting ended, or at least it ended for me; after I left the three of them stayed in Beverly's office with the door closed for about ten minutes. I went back to my office and tried to answer e-mail, but it was difficult because everything looked red.
A few minutes later, after the closed-door session was over, I passed Beverly in the hallway and she beckoned me over to a little alcove. Whispering, she said: "We'll talk about this later, but I want to give you a piece of advice. Don't ever put yourself in a position where you're advocating for someone else's issues. I know what you were trying to do, and I know it was good, and I'm not mad at you--but don't EVER put yourself in that kind of a position."
I said "Thank you--I appreciate your understanding on this." It was pretty clear that she'd seen through at least SOME of RuthAnne Lying Sack of Shit's denials and waffling....after all, why wouldn't she? RuthAnne does this stuff all the time!
What happened AFTERWARD, though--THAT was what put the cherry on the sundae.
My major plan for yesterday was to do OS upgrades and new-computer rollouts. One of the ones I'd scheduled--oh, irony--was RuthAnne's new laptop. So after this meeting is over, she's somewhere else and I'm in her office hooking up her machine, wishing I was the sabotaging sort.
As I'm finishing up, she comes back. I say something about the new machine, and as I'm walking away from her desk she says this:
"You know, Gladys, I'll support you, but I'm not taking a fall for you."
And that's when I strangled her and left her in a pool of her own blood. No, wait--no, that's not what happened.
What actually happened, though not as personally-satisfying as strangling her might have been, was actually way cooler of me: I said, and I quote, "That's just fine, RuthAnne,"--and walked out the door.
But oh...my....god. Do you BELIEVE that shit??? Since when is standing up in defense of what you said, acknowledging your OWN words and actions, considered "taking a fall" for someone else??? BITCH!!!
I've learned one thing from this, though--that's the last, LAST time RuthAnne can count on ANY support from me for ANYTHING. The minute she opens her quacking snout to tell me about her problems, I'm going to reply in two sentences: "I don't want to hear this. You need to go talk to Amy or Beverly about this."
Right now, in fact, if RuthAnne was on fire...
Not ONLY wouldn't I throw a bucket of water....
Not ONLY wouldn't I call the fire department....
I wouldn't even call someone to come spit on her to try to put it out.
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