or all three?
Maybe on my next job I'll institute the cuss jar, and try to cut out the liberal use of the F word. But right now, it may be the only thing preventing an actual stroke. Those of delicate sensibilities may want to click away now, because there's a lot of profanity ahead.
The perceived resolution of yesterday was very short-lived and has already been strangled by another officious corporate idiot. After a full day of email from snippy glorified secretaries in other cities, I was offered - again - the same solution I investigated and dismissed last summer. I'm not kidding. I honestly don't know how I got through this day without having a fucking stroke, but I'm over it. I did not have the strength to reply or discuss it further, because I knew I couldn't do it without a string of profanity and/or quite possibly quitting on the spot. And I won't do that because I care about Boss and the clients, but I'm only there for them as long as I can be, as soon as something decent comes along, I'm gone. Our employer can kiss my ass. My declaration of war now extends to the entire corporate structure, and I am there on a day by day basis at best.
The analogy I came up with today: I have been digging a ditch with my bare hands. I asked them for a shovel and they handed me a toothpick and insisted it really is a shovel and I'm wrong. People who have never seen the ditch I work in, OR a shovel for that matter, are standing around pointing at a toothpick as the "answer" to my problem, and I'm the one who is wrong. And let's remember, this is over $169 worth of software. I have never in my legal career saw a law firm balk at dropping a few bucks on an efficiency tool, the cost of which can be legitimately distributed over multiple long-term cases with the clients' blessing. It's not the money, one outside copy service job on one of our cases easily runs two, three or four times this much money! It's "Why do YOU need this? Nobody else has this!" (Uh, nobody else does the same work we do? That's just the truth, but apparently not a valid answer.) I could blame it on the fact that this is a corporate bastardized Frankenfirm, not a real law firm, but I've worked in-house before and I know that's not an excuse. I've never seen anything this insanely awful.
Boss and I assigned ourselves homework - we're updating our resumes this weekend, and Monday we start seriously job hunting, emailing our friends, hitting the agencies, networking. I am not going to kill myself working like a dog and falling ever more behind, for this fucked-up organization that gives its people no tools, no support, and shitty money, while endlessly piling on the inane bureaucratic TPS cover sheet level demands. We also were told there would be no bonuses for anyone this year, though it has nothing to do with our performance, which everyone agrees has been stellar -how's that for morale-building? So the good people are bailing left and right, and it's time for us to strap on the parachutes and line up at the door.
And the sad part is we like the clients and the clients like us. We like the work. I can, and I have, put up with a lot of bureaucracy (I've worked for big corporations) if it had some semblance of competence or was focused on getting the job done more efficiently. But this is a clusterfuck of the sort studied in business school, and life is too short to sit around hoping it will get better. I am old enough and wise enough to know when it Ain't Fucking Gonna Change, except for the worse.
This weekend is going to be, by necessity, a Me Weekend. I need to update the resume, weed through the wardrobe, maybe make a hair appointment, compose cover letters, look up email addresses, and start the process of bailing out of this crashing airplane.
And knitting. I did succumb to temptation and order the Shimmer and Vol. II of the Walker stitch treasury this morning, to motivate myself to to go work, and came home to find an email saying it had already shipped! So I have about 5 days to finish something, so I don't have the guilt of yet more yarn and nothing else done. Tonight may be another take to my bed with knitting and TV evening, last night was great and I slept through the night.
believe it or not, i can understand. i work for a corporate entity(i'm using nice words, lol, no cuss jar for me) who can be completely oblivious to the needs/wants of its employees. i'm just glad my immediate supervisor has a clue. good luck in your/boss's search.
ReplyDeleteTWO levels of my supervisors are on the clue train - actually, three, now that I think about it - but none of them can help. They are all at the mercy of people who can say "NO" to a very basic and simple software package that will live only on my C drive. It's a surreal system - legal is governed by people who have no clue what we're talking about but are convinced we have no idea what we are doing. I'm over it.
ReplyDeleteLike I said... been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I worked in government for over 11 years. Government and large corporations are startlingly similar in the way they act and "think". I also had similar problems with equipment and software. They insisted on buying things I told them wouldn't work.
ReplyDeleteAnyhoo... you and Boss have finally had the kick in the ass you both need.
By the way, the second Barbara Walker Treasury--definitely worth it. I have one and two. I've been considering three for a long time, but I just haven't seen enough in there that I'd use to justify the cost.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, we've had people comment that "it's like working for the government," and other people,who actually used to work for the government, immediately scream, "This is worse!" I do feel like the kick in the ass is here. It's time to go do something better with my life, because sitting in a cube feeling frustrated is no way to live.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Hey, maybe at your next job you'll have an office... *doing Less Nessman impersonation* "with WALLS."
ReplyDelete