Ten Thousand Reasons My Job Simply Must Blow Me Raw

You'll forgive me, won't you? As coined in a pair of previous comments, I am about to engage in a Ranty Panty Pissy Pity Party [tm Pisser and Ka].



It is the end of the day here at Place Where I Work. I have spent roughly half the day dealing with office politics, immature ho-bag bosses, and the fallout from Other People's Problems (related to office politics, mainly.)



My best friend here at work just found out today that she is losing her job at the end of May; her program is being phased out because Beverly, our boss, pissed off some of the higher-ups in charge of making funding decisions. So Stella will be leaving. Two other people may or may not be losing their jobs as well; one of them may be dragged into a different program. The only one who won't suffer due to this is Beverly.



Another friend of mine here, Delora, announced yesterday that next Friday will be her last day. She's transferring to a different office because she can't stand it here anymore.



The net effect of this will be that I'm gonna get left in an office populated almost solely by uptight white people, with whom I cannot deal. And I will also lose my lunch buddies.



For a couple of weeks now, I have been researching a problem Beverly was having with her e-mail. She wanted to be able to read it at home and then be able to have it marked as "old mail" when she downloads it onto her work machine. So I made it a research project--contacted three different people in the IT division, including one of the directors, and asked "What would be the pros and cons of making this change that would solve that problem?" They all said, essentially: all pros, no cons. So this morning I spent a good chunk of time explaining the change to her and making the needed adjustments to her mailer.



Around lunchtime she tells me "I don't know where all my mail is going." So I go and check it out, and find that the change has created a new inbox, one that's stored on the server instead of her individual machine. Meanwhile, she's gone to lunch, so I write her a note explaining that now, when she's done with her mail, she just needs to move it to one of the mailboxes stored on her machine. Knowing she'll give me a bunch of shit if she doesn't understand what I'm saying, I go back to my desk and create a graphic, annotated representation of what's happening and why she needs to do this. It takes about a half hour.



I come back from lunch and she says to me: "I don't have time to look at any of this. Why is it like this?"



Typical Beverly--she never has time to learn anything, just time to tell me why I have to do something impossible to make her life infinitesimally easier.



So, after attempting to explain it verbally, I go back to my desk and go back to work on a project. Before I start working, I put on my headphones.



I have been wearing my headphones to work for almost the whole four-plus years I've been here. I work better with music, plus it drowns out the distractions from the hallway outside my door. I have a very hard time concentrating sometimes, and the music helps. I'm quiet about it; in fact, I'm far less-obtrusive with my headphone-listening than the guy across the hall, a total asshelmet who SINGS along with his headphones--LOUDLY, in bad-American-Idol-audition style. Everyone who works with me has seen me wearing my headphones before. When they come in, I take the headphones off and listen to what they have to say, then I put them back on when they leave. No big, right?



Wrong.



Beverly comes into my office about 3:40 and I am in the middle of writing something down. I SEE her walk in but I want to finish what I'm writing before I forget it. She, however, blames my lack of responsiveness on the headphones. (Apparently she had yelled for me from down the hall, which is her normal habit; somehow her yelling is considered perfectly appropriate.)



"Are you listening to MUSIC?" she asks, two seconds later after I've finished my writing and taken the headphones off.



"Um.....yes," I say.



"Not a good idea," she informs me. (I'm sure what I'm listening to is an even LESS-good idea, I think but do not say.)

"Okaaay..........."



As I'm passing her office on the way to the printer a few minutes later, she calls me back. "Has Amy seen you wearing headphones?" she asks.



"Yeah--like a million times," I say. "She's never said anything."



"Well, I don't like it when ________ wears them. I don't think ANYONE should be wearing them. It sends the wrong message, like you're trying to block out the rest of the people." (Which I am, and for damn good reason,, I think but do not say.) "Plus, where do I draw the line about who can wear them?" she asks. "Because, you know, there are some people who really CAN'T wear them." (There are some people who can't walk, either--should we outlaw feet? I think but do not say.)



"Okay, I understand," I say. While swallowing my tongue.



"I'll think about it, and I'll talk to Amy about it, and I'll let you know." (Yep--that's just what's needed. A meeting,I think but do not say.)



"Sure," I say, and go back to my desk. To do some work. Without my headphones. Because god knows my concentration is greatly improved by the non-stop yap-yap-mouth of Asshelmet across the hall, about whom I can summon up only the barest scintilla of empathy over the fact that he is one of the possible job-losers in the Stella situation. Because he NEVER FUCKING SHUTS UP. Not once, not ever.



But okay. Fine. No headphones. Duly noted. Back to work I go. For about thirteen seconds, before Beverly pops her head back into the door to say: "Gladys?"



"Yes?"



"You can wear them until I talk to Amy about it."



"Okay. Thanks." ....ferrrrrrr NUTHIN', I think-but-do-not-say in my best Roxie Hart imitation.)



"And I can't deal with this e-mail thing. You mean I have to move things to a different MAILBOX?" she asks, in the same tone in which one would say "You mean I have to eat this whole fourteen tons of dogshit with a TEASPOON?"



"Right," I tell her.



"Well that's not going to work. That's not convenient. I want all the mail to go to the same box. I can't be moving all this stuff. How do I even do that?"



"You already had all those little sub-boxes on your mail ..."



"I never use them," she says. "Why does it do this now?"



"It's because we changed the protocols to solve your OTHER problem, the one where the mail wasn't getting marked as read. So it's kind of a balance between two inconveniences," I tell her. "You can either move the mail when you're done with it, or you can have it marked unread when you download it. It's a question of which is less-inconvenient."



"Well, I can't deal with that," she said. "I don't have time for all this."



"I'm not sure what to tell you," I tell her. ( DIE DIE DIE, die a million burning syphillitic deaths, I think but do not say. ) "When I get home, please be ready 2 explain 2 me why I can't tell these bitches 2 fuck off, because I don't remember why that's a bad idea," I text-message to LJ. No response. As if he wasn't already on my shit-list, since we're now on Day 68 and I've instituted a new policy, which I'm letting him figure out all on his own: No Nookie, No Cook-ee, or Let Them Eat McCrapburgers.)



I have been spewing resumes like a college boy spewing recycled beer in a frathouse bathroom at 3 AM on a Sunday. And most of THEM are probably going into the toilet as well, methinks. But we shall see.



I have SO got to pull the rip-cord on this job.