...and she just snapped!
Feb. 7th, 2018 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
just_cydhave you ever been so upset that work yourself into hysterics, crying and sobbing and screaming and the person you're mad at/wish (a parent or person of authority) keeps telling you to calm down or ignores you/mansplains/downplays your feelings and you get to the point that you either pass out or turn violent? That's what my boss DIDN'T see tonight.
---
deep breath
---
Fifth Business Day of the month is cutoff for invoicing. Accounting gets all up in our business, and I get all sorts of people all up in my business. TC and GK were cordial about it, but if it was the only thing I had to do today, it'd be no problem.
---
deep breath
---
it snowed last night - actual measurable snow. 2 inches, maybe 3? enough that the drive in was dicey at best, and on top of the The Crud going around, quite a few people weren't in today. we were down 2.5 admins (one was out just in the morning - planned), so two of us spent the morning doing the work of 5. S, the other admin on duty, is a complainer, and she can't let things go (but not nearly as bad as A. but i'm getting ahead of myself). S freaks out over little things which can be big things ("oh, those USBs i had you send? yeah, they're all wrong. can you pull them from the mail room so we can do over? and i'll make it sound like your fault" - every.single.month), and then won't let them go, and has to run around chit-chatting at everyone about them and how busy she is. dude, if you'd just sit TF down and DO YOUR JOB you wouldn't be quite so "busy"! She's also the "huffy puffy" type of woman, and you'd think at 31, she'd be past that sort of hissy-fit throwing in public
---
deep breath
---
for too many years now, we have been trying to implement some updates. one is a two-fold, double-pronged project: electronic signature and contract management. for the longest time, *I* was the closest thing we had to contract management, and everything was sent via mail/fax to be signed in duplicate. after much kvetching, we finally got TPTB on board with looking into esignature. meanwhile, there was a financial audit that came out U-G-L-Y, so we rolled contract management into the esign search. after a year-plus of research and vetting and getting The Mothership to bless it, we got Adobe eSign. it's amazing. so, two years ago, we moved to using Adobe for signatures. i was a one-woman operation on this (for my side of things. our loyalty program was also on board, but they are their own little universe). I easily sent 50+ contracts a month to be signed, plus the +/-200 that run the full year, plus all the stuff they missed or messed up and whatnot. oh, and don't forget sending reminders and re-routing things. translation: 2016 was the year of BUSTING MY ASS. at the end of the 1st quarter that year, once all of the agreements were in, and invoices sent, and TPTB pleased, the Merch Mgr sent an email out to his "team" inviting all of them to knock off early on X day and meet up at Local Bar to celebrate their amazing achievement. Guess who was NOT invited?
---
deep breath
---
i don't think of myself as a vengeful person. however, i seem to be very, very adept at keeping score. the tinier the slight, the longer it'll stick with me. it's really bad when there's a huge disconnect between the actual action and my perception of it. part of it comes from being a kid and believing what adults tell you. part of it comes from being naive and not knowing that you can't trust anything a person says when she's stoned. and part of it comes from my expectation that you treat me like an intelligent human being and in actuality 90% of the people around me are assholes.
When I get upset, or feel slighted or overlooked or unappreciated, and I have the chance to release those feelings, you better be prepared for a run-down of every.single.freaking.time you wronged me. Names and dates and times. grab a pencil, 'cause I have a list.
---
deep breath
---
I've been with Big Scary Corporation Inc for almost/just over 14 years. I spent five months as a temp (after the initial six week temp gig morphed into more), getting hired on for realz in late April. My title back then was "Secretary." It has since changed to "Administrative Assistant," for whatever corporate HR reason they had. the point is, the week prior to be being hired, it was Secretaries' Week/Day. I heard whispers over the cube wall, plans for a carry-in, but figured it was just that group doing their own thing like they normally do. all sorts of stuff happened over the holidays, and not being a "real" employee meant I never got included in anything. hell, half the department didn't even know who I was! so imagine my surprise when on Thursday of that week I get called to the conference room a few halls over, and there is a chunk of the department, a potluck lunch, flowers, gift bags, and so on, for all of us admins. ALL OF US. I tried to back out of it, but they insisted (I think they knew I was already hired, although I didn't get the offer until the next day). it was amazing. heartfelt messages in greeting cards. beautiful flower arrangements. a gift bag with the usual lovely but slightly generic lady-gifts (hand lotion, scented candle, etc). the insistence that we grab plates, load 'em up and chow down. I did my best to not cry. it was amazing.
in the thirteen years since then, do you know how many times any sort of department-wide acknowledgement has happened?
Zero.
---
deep breath
---
once we moved to eSign, things hummed along nicely, but we needed to find a contract management system that would work with it. preferably something that we could integrate with accounting to prevent errors and duplicate work. Then the project lead left the company. the backup person had a baby. and while I was part of the team, I was not PART of the team, so if anything happened during the lull, I was not involved. at some point, more than once, i told my boss that i wanted to be the one running the contract stuff. I HAD BEEN running the day-to-day contract stuff. he gave his usual non-answer. eventually positions were filled and maternity leave ended and someone else was named Project Owner. I was queried a few times by her, stuff like "where do you get your vendor data?" sort of stuff. I assumed I would at some point become more involved with the process. documenting the steps with ACTUAL LIVE examples. you know, the ONE PERSON who has been doing this established part of the process might actually have some knowledge on the subject and have something intelligent to contribute. or not. i'm just the secretary.
early January happens, and the process is put into place. the directions for the process are provided, and when we get to the eSign portion, they're not just unclear, they're outright WRONG. clearly, Project Owner has NEVER sent anything via eSign with the established criteria. emails are sent to the department but we're not included. meetings are had, an we are not included. very obvious, very deliberate exclusion of us from the rest of the department/process is going on. we admins have a long overdue meeting with our boss, and I bring that up - "people are speaking on our behalf without or knowledge or consent, and that is unacceptable" were my exact words. Boss makes his usual non-committal noises.
---
deep breath
---
Today was a crazy day of unusual stuff. everyone was off just a bit. the invoicing flurry went past 5pm and I stayed to help get to the bottom of that last lingering issue. there was about $100,000 in invoices to be sent without a signed contract. this is Not Good. I get a list of missing stuff, and figure out whose head needed pounded. Merch Mgr does the pounding. I take great pride in pointing out that one of the agreements was just sent to us that morning (meaning it took 7 days past the end of the month for the category to give us the request for the contract), and the other has been in limbo for nearly 2 weeks because no one is capable of providing the information requested (not mine, thank maude!).
in the midst of all this, the lovely Accounting Lady IMs me, wanting help finding a few contracts. she's got access to eSign (as she should!), and under the Old Way, we copied the accounting mailbox set up for just that purpose. they'd automatically get the final signed agreement, and no one had to bug me for them. it was brilliant (and my idea, tbch). under the New Way, we copy the Admins, we copy the PO's group and that's it. "but what about accounting?" I ask. "she's got access to eSign, she can go find the contracts herself." first off, hell to the no, and secondly, NO ONE TOLD Accounting Lady of this change. They have been completely out of the loop. policies and procedures that DIRECTLY AFFECT them have been altered without their knowledge or consent. see a trend? So, in the course of conversation with LAL, I mention this change in procedure. I give her PO's name. I made sure LAL knew that i'd SPECIFICALLY asked about CCing them, and was told in no uncertain terms "NO!". the rage coming through Skype was impressive. I promised to help her however I could. I gave her the date/time/room# of our next meeting and suggested she crash it. she said she would (accounting is in a different building on the other side of town. so for her to crash a meeting is a Very Big Deal).
---
deep breath
---
I don't take compliments well. many women don't - I think it's a cultural thing. at the same time, I always feel grossly under-appreciated. I bust my ass, work overtime and KNOW ALL THE THINGS, but at the end of the day, everyone else gets to go for drinks and have a holiday party and get promoted and celebrated. it was especially tough at the holidays when all of these "team" holiday parties were being planned but none included us admins. (didja hear about the one where A was asked to find a place to book the team's holiday party, but wasn't invited? she ignored the email! go A!) whose team are we on? why is there such polarization within the department as a whole? WHO HAVE I PISSED OFF THIS TIME TO BE TREATED LIKE THIS??!?!?!?!? so today, on top of S being all pissy about the crisis du jour, about 4:15 she IMs me:
S: can you see Boss's calendar?
Me: Yeah, why? you need to check something?
S: look at tonight
S: [angry emojis]
me: what the actual ...?
me: [all the angry emojis]
S: why don't we ever get included???
and then she come scurrying over to my desk to chitchat about it in person. "it" is the PO and her entire group/team/whatever going out for drinks to celebrate making it through January, and all their hard work. our boss was invited, since PO's boss reports to our boss, too. but OUR hard work makes it possible for THEM to do their work, and what do we get? well, I got to stay an hour late to pull the 11th hour stuff for them. I sit right outside Boss's office. not in his direct line of site like two seats ago, but if I talk loud enough, he can hear me. so S is all *whisperwhisper* at me about this. thing is, i'm too tired to be angry. rage takes effort, y'all. I just don't have it right now. I spent the day doing MY job, covering for two of the absent admins, and doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff to make this New Way work. plus school. I need a nap!
---
deep breath
---
i'm hard pressed to find a dozen people in my rapidly-growing department who have been here longer than me. My boss, a couple others, but that's it. everyone else is new. as such, i'm the Department Know-it-All, a title I willingly give myself (usually with a chuckle), but it's true: I know everything. if I had a nickel for every time someone said "omg you're a lifesaver" or "I knew you'd know the answer" or "ask her, she knows everything!" I could've quit my job by now. several times I have jokingly replied with "thanks, can you make sure my boss knows?" and a couple times, they have. usually I find out when my boss forwards me the email he gets, but that's it for acknowledgement or recognition. I have received two ACE awards (certificate AND money!), but they were for things I was told I going to do, on top of everything else, which kinda diminishes their value maybe. I dunno. anyway, any sort of acknowledgement that i'm awesome at my job is always in passing, off-handed, and nearly immediately forgotten. I hate hallmark holidays, but once a year, could y'all get your collective head out of your collective ass to take five minutes today to say THANK YOU for all we do to keep the department - and company - running? There's a whole lot of data in this melon, and while i'm doing my best to get it all down on paper, what you don't know about what I do could cause a disruption of some significance.
---
deep breath
---
So, when my boss made a casual "so, we get everything sorted?" inquiry on his way out the door just before 6pm, something snapped. "Yes, I think we got it sorted, but it wouldn't have been an issue if procedures hadn't been changed w/o notifying accounting ..." and I lay it on him. I don't yell. I don't cry. I don't accuse anyone of anything I can't prove. I don't make threats. but the gate opens up and I have a hard time reigning it in. the list of slights and deliberate rebuffs, the long-running refusal to treat us admins like we're actually part of the department, all of it. I tried to keep it civil. but when my boss started to chuckle at something, I said "Boss, it is NOT FUNNY." and kept going. I brought it all up: the lack of acknowledgement. the deliberate isolation of us admins. the "team celebrations" that don't include the WHOLE team. the fact that I was still there at 6:01 to make sure everything gets done when everyone else is out the door at 4:59. he made his usual non-committal noises and nods, but nothing ever changes.
by the time I left at 6:15, I was shaking. I was nearly in tears, but kept it together. I had at least another hour of work to do, but just coudlnt' do it. besides, I've got a full load of schoolwork tonight, too. so I left. I shook the whole way home. i'm shaking still. I would rage-quit my job, but I have student loans, a mortgage, a car payment, and well, LIFE to pay for. storming out in a huff never did anyone any good. but dammit, i'm going to snap if things don't change soon.
---
deep breath
---
so now i'm home, and pouring this all out. I used to journal all the time; I don't know why I stopped. it helps, that's for sure. I need to get this all out, or i'll emotionally vomit on the next person who looks at me sideways. I'm still shaking. i'm closer to crying. and i'm tired.
---
deep breath
---
Fifth Business Day of the month is cutoff for invoicing. Accounting gets all up in our business, and I get all sorts of people all up in my business. TC and GK were cordial about it, but if it was the only thing I had to do today, it'd be no problem.
---
deep breath
---
it snowed last night - actual measurable snow. 2 inches, maybe 3? enough that the drive in was dicey at best, and on top of the The Crud going around, quite a few people weren't in today. we were down 2.5 admins (one was out just in the morning - planned), so two of us spent the morning doing the work of 5. S, the other admin on duty, is a complainer, and she can't let things go (but not nearly as bad as A. but i'm getting ahead of myself). S freaks out over little things which can be big things ("oh, those USBs i had you send? yeah, they're all wrong. can you pull them from the mail room so we can do over? and i'll make it sound like your fault" - every.single.month), and then won't let them go, and has to run around chit-chatting at everyone about them and how busy she is. dude, if you'd just sit TF down and DO YOUR JOB you wouldn't be quite so "busy"! She's also the "huffy puffy" type of woman, and you'd think at 31, she'd be past that sort of hissy-fit throwing in public
---
deep breath
---
for too many years now, we have been trying to implement some updates. one is a two-fold, double-pronged project: electronic signature and contract management. for the longest time, *I* was the closest thing we had to contract management, and everything was sent via mail/fax to be signed in duplicate. after much kvetching, we finally got TPTB on board with looking into esignature. meanwhile, there was a financial audit that came out U-G-L-Y, so we rolled contract management into the esign search. after a year-plus of research and vetting and getting The Mothership to bless it, we got Adobe eSign. it's amazing. so, two years ago, we moved to using Adobe for signatures. i was a one-woman operation on this (for my side of things. our loyalty program was also on board, but they are their own little universe). I easily sent 50+ contracts a month to be signed, plus the +/-200 that run the full year, plus all the stuff they missed or messed up and whatnot. oh, and don't forget sending reminders and re-routing things. translation: 2016 was the year of BUSTING MY ASS. at the end of the 1st quarter that year, once all of the agreements were in, and invoices sent, and TPTB pleased, the Merch Mgr sent an email out to his "team" inviting all of them to knock off early on X day and meet up at Local Bar to celebrate their amazing achievement. Guess who was NOT invited?
---
deep breath
---
i don't think of myself as a vengeful person. however, i seem to be very, very adept at keeping score. the tinier the slight, the longer it'll stick with me. it's really bad when there's a huge disconnect between the actual action and my perception of it. part of it comes from being a kid and believing what adults tell you. part of it comes from being naive and not knowing that you can't trust anything a person says when she's stoned. and part of it comes from my expectation that you treat me like an intelligent human being and in actuality 90% of the people around me are assholes.
When I get upset, or feel slighted or overlooked or unappreciated, and I have the chance to release those feelings, you better be prepared for a run-down of every.single.freaking.time you wronged me. Names and dates and times. grab a pencil, 'cause I have a list.
---
deep breath
---
I've been with Big Scary Corporation Inc for almost/just over 14 years. I spent five months as a temp (after the initial six week temp gig morphed into more), getting hired on for realz in late April. My title back then was "Secretary." It has since changed to "Administrative Assistant," for whatever corporate HR reason they had. the point is, the week prior to be being hired, it was Secretaries' Week/Day. I heard whispers over the cube wall, plans for a carry-in, but figured it was just that group doing their own thing like they normally do. all sorts of stuff happened over the holidays, and not being a "real" employee meant I never got included in anything. hell, half the department didn't even know who I was! so imagine my surprise when on Thursday of that week I get called to the conference room a few halls over, and there is a chunk of the department, a potluck lunch, flowers, gift bags, and so on, for all of us admins. ALL OF US. I tried to back out of it, but they insisted (I think they knew I was already hired, although I didn't get the offer until the next day). it was amazing. heartfelt messages in greeting cards. beautiful flower arrangements. a gift bag with the usual lovely but slightly generic lady-gifts (hand lotion, scented candle, etc). the insistence that we grab plates, load 'em up and chow down. I did my best to not cry. it was amazing.
in the thirteen years since then, do you know how many times any sort of department-wide acknowledgement has happened?
Zero.
---
deep breath
---
once we moved to eSign, things hummed along nicely, but we needed to find a contract management system that would work with it. preferably something that we could integrate with accounting to prevent errors and duplicate work. Then the project lead left the company. the backup person had a baby. and while I was part of the team, I was not PART of the team, so if anything happened during the lull, I was not involved. at some point, more than once, i told my boss that i wanted to be the one running the contract stuff. I HAD BEEN running the day-to-day contract stuff. he gave his usual non-answer. eventually positions were filled and maternity leave ended and someone else was named Project Owner. I was queried a few times by her, stuff like "where do you get your vendor data?" sort of stuff. I assumed I would at some point become more involved with the process. documenting the steps with ACTUAL LIVE examples. you know, the ONE PERSON who has been doing this established part of the process might actually have some knowledge on the subject and have something intelligent to contribute. or not. i'm just the secretary.
early January happens, and the process is put into place. the directions for the process are provided, and when we get to the eSign portion, they're not just unclear, they're outright WRONG. clearly, Project Owner has NEVER sent anything via eSign with the established criteria. emails are sent to the department but we're not included. meetings are had, an we are not included. very obvious, very deliberate exclusion of us from the rest of the department/process is going on. we admins have a long overdue meeting with our boss, and I bring that up - "people are speaking on our behalf without or knowledge or consent, and that is unacceptable" were my exact words. Boss makes his usual non-committal noises.
---
deep breath
---
Today was a crazy day of unusual stuff. everyone was off just a bit. the invoicing flurry went past 5pm and I stayed to help get to the bottom of that last lingering issue. there was about $100,000 in invoices to be sent without a signed contract. this is Not Good. I get a list of missing stuff, and figure out whose head needed pounded. Merch Mgr does the pounding. I take great pride in pointing out that one of the agreements was just sent to us that morning (meaning it took 7 days past the end of the month for the category to give us the request for the contract), and the other has been in limbo for nearly 2 weeks because no one is capable of providing the information requested (not mine, thank maude!).
in the midst of all this, the lovely Accounting Lady IMs me, wanting help finding a few contracts. she's got access to eSign (as she should!), and under the Old Way, we copied the accounting mailbox set up for just that purpose. they'd automatically get the final signed agreement, and no one had to bug me for them. it was brilliant (and my idea, tbch). under the New Way, we copy the Admins, we copy the PO's group and that's it. "but what about accounting?" I ask. "she's got access to eSign, she can go find the contracts herself." first off, hell to the no, and secondly, NO ONE TOLD Accounting Lady of this change. They have been completely out of the loop. policies and procedures that DIRECTLY AFFECT them have been altered without their knowledge or consent. see a trend? So, in the course of conversation with LAL, I mention this change in procedure. I give her PO's name. I made sure LAL knew that i'd SPECIFICALLY asked about CCing them, and was told in no uncertain terms "NO!". the rage coming through Skype was impressive. I promised to help her however I could. I gave her the date/time/room# of our next meeting and suggested she crash it. she said she would (accounting is in a different building on the other side of town. so for her to crash a meeting is a Very Big Deal).
---
deep breath
---
I don't take compliments well. many women don't - I think it's a cultural thing. at the same time, I always feel grossly under-appreciated. I bust my ass, work overtime and KNOW ALL THE THINGS, but at the end of the day, everyone else gets to go for drinks and have a holiday party and get promoted and celebrated. it was especially tough at the holidays when all of these "team" holiday parties were being planned but none included us admins. (didja hear about the one where A was asked to find a place to book the team's holiday party, but wasn't invited? she ignored the email! go A!) whose team are we on? why is there such polarization within the department as a whole? WHO HAVE I PISSED OFF THIS TIME TO BE TREATED LIKE THIS??!?!?!?!? so today, on top of S being all pissy about the crisis du jour, about 4:15 she IMs me:
S: can you see Boss's calendar?
Me: Yeah, why? you need to check something?
S: look at tonight
S: [angry emojis]
me: what the actual ...?
me: [all the angry emojis]
S: why don't we ever get included???
and then she come scurrying over to my desk to chitchat about it in person. "it" is the PO and her entire group/team/whatever going out for drinks to celebrate making it through January, and all their hard work. our boss was invited, since PO's boss reports to our boss, too. but OUR hard work makes it possible for THEM to do their work, and what do we get? well, I got to stay an hour late to pull the 11th hour stuff for them. I sit right outside Boss's office. not in his direct line of site like two seats ago, but if I talk loud enough, he can hear me. so S is all *whisperwhisper* at me about this. thing is, i'm too tired to be angry. rage takes effort, y'all. I just don't have it right now. I spent the day doing MY job, covering for two of the absent admins, and doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff to make this New Way work. plus school. I need a nap!
---
deep breath
---
i'm hard pressed to find a dozen people in my rapidly-growing department who have been here longer than me. My boss, a couple others, but that's it. everyone else is new. as such, i'm the Department Know-it-All, a title I willingly give myself (usually with a chuckle), but it's true: I know everything. if I had a nickel for every time someone said "omg you're a lifesaver" or "I knew you'd know the answer" or "ask her, she knows everything!" I could've quit my job by now. several times I have jokingly replied with "thanks, can you make sure my boss knows?" and a couple times, they have. usually I find out when my boss forwards me the email he gets, but that's it for acknowledgement or recognition. I have received two ACE awards (certificate AND money!), but they were for things I was told I going to do, on top of everything else, which kinda diminishes their value maybe. I dunno. anyway, any sort of acknowledgement that i'm awesome at my job is always in passing, off-handed, and nearly immediately forgotten. I hate hallmark holidays, but once a year, could y'all get your collective head out of your collective ass to take five minutes today to say THANK YOU for all we do to keep the department - and company - running? There's a whole lot of data in this melon, and while i'm doing my best to get it all down on paper, what you don't know about what I do could cause a disruption of some significance.
---
deep breath
---
So, when my boss made a casual "so, we get everything sorted?" inquiry on his way out the door just before 6pm, something snapped. "Yes, I think we got it sorted, but it wouldn't have been an issue if procedures hadn't been changed w/o notifying accounting ..." and I lay it on him. I don't yell. I don't cry. I don't accuse anyone of anything I can't prove. I don't make threats. but the gate opens up and I have a hard time reigning it in. the list of slights and deliberate rebuffs, the long-running refusal to treat us admins like we're actually part of the department, all of it. I tried to keep it civil. but when my boss started to chuckle at something, I said "Boss, it is NOT FUNNY." and kept going. I brought it all up: the lack of acknowledgement. the deliberate isolation of us admins. the "team celebrations" that don't include the WHOLE team. the fact that I was still there at 6:01 to make sure everything gets done when everyone else is out the door at 4:59. he made his usual non-committal noises and nods, but nothing ever changes.
by the time I left at 6:15, I was shaking. I was nearly in tears, but kept it together. I had at least another hour of work to do, but just coudlnt' do it. besides, I've got a full load of schoolwork tonight, too. so I left. I shook the whole way home. i'm shaking still. I would rage-quit my job, but I have student loans, a mortgage, a car payment, and well, LIFE to pay for. storming out in a huff never did anyone any good. but dammit, i'm going to snap if things don't change soon.
---
deep breath
---
so now i'm home, and pouring this all out. I used to journal all the time; I don't know why I stopped. it helps, that's for sure. I need to get this all out, or i'll emotionally vomit on the next person who looks at me sideways. I'm still shaking. i'm closer to crying. and i'm tired.
