-image-Did I just get bit?

September 15, 2008 | bitterness,The Nugget

By karma? All of my office-related bitching may have caught up to me and snapped some jiggly flesh in its laughing jaws.

My position, which is grant-based and therefore temporary, tenuous and oh lordy, let me tell you, filled with lots of un-fun paperwork, ends at the close of September. We applied for a new grant and got it — whooppeee, you say, an extended position! Part-time! With benefits! How lucky are YOU? Well not very.

I’m not sure if it’s a manipulative attempt to oust me from my place of employment because…oh, I don’t know… I don’t hide my dislike for a certain higher up whose favorite office pasttime includes being manipulative and backstabby or if truly, well, whatever.

On Thursday, I learned that we scored a new grant from the same funding agency that funds the grant on which I currently work…same topic, some of the same goals, and more more work to do. Most of my colleagues assumed, as I did, that if we did receive this grant, I would close out the current grant and the transition to the new grant. Some came to me when they heard the news and cheered our good fortune! Yay! I felt relief.

Part-time work. Fair pay. Benefits. (Some) wonderful coworkers. A wonderfully sweet, interesting and smart new officemate to share eyerolls with. A new in-office building cafe with ridiculously delicious peanut butter cup cookies. Life was looking good.

I should have seen it coming. Duh.

I heard her coming, and that was bad enough. Into our office she wobbled. I wrongly assumed (again) she was there for the other woman in our office. Nope. For me. Uh-oh.

Down to her office we went. She wanted to talk about the new grant! End the sentence on an upswing! Even though you’re the angel of death!

I can’t remember many details but it seemed like in one big breath she told me that the new grant has some salary changes and I am being overpaid on my current grant…it was a mistake by the inner-agency which handles my paycheck… and this new salary would be xx amount of money, which, quick math I can do in a state of shock: 33% less money than I currently make.

So I sat there and nodded and mewed in all the right places and I’m not sure what else I did or said.

In my HEAD however, I was yelling. OVERPAID? EXCUSE ME? Did you just… yes, you did.

Back in my office, I went into zombie mode. The conversation, what I remembered, replayed in my head, and all of the comebacks and questions I could have said flooded my thoughts.

How could I have been overpaid for so long? Wouldn’t it have been more responsible if you’d have done something about it, say, as soon as this was discovered? When did you know and why wasn’t I informed? It seems like that’s the sort of thing that should have been rectified as soon as possible! And how is it, dear lady, possible that this overpayment (on the project I currently work on) is even true, since when I was hired a couple of years ago, I was hired for an entirely different grant and told the salary by YOU. And this overpayment (which you quoted me) continued from one grant to another…even though different governing agencies handled the grants. Geez. That’s a whole lot of bad management.

Gosh golly. Ok. Well, no thank you on the new opportunity. I really don’t feel like paying several hundred dollars a month to come to work.

So I’ll finish out my project. Considering I work part-time, the actual number of days I have left are few…and suddenly I have to spend all of this money left on the grant (or so I was told…even though I had been told previously that the “grant is out of money.”). Maybe she should take notes so she quits contradicting herself? Just a thought.

Today I received an email from her telling me to (start and) finish a report due at the end of the grant. I’ll do my best. I’ll also take this Thursday off, as I had planned, and plan to take next Thursday off, as I have vacation accrued and things I need to take care of … like looking into preschools and withdrawing the children from daycare.

This report she mentioned is due at the end of the year. I saw the request. End of the year. When I see her tomorrow, I’ll bet the bank she tells me it’s due at the end of this month. Deadlines and truths are flexible in her world. For me? Just my middle finger.

-image-MUZAK

September 11, 2008 | bitterness,The Office

NOT GOOD. Why is Muzak being pumped through the office? Are the office goddesses trying to tell me something?

Also: To quote the second worst boss I ever had, but who for once made a great point and actually lived by this:

If you’re too big to do the small stuff, then you’re too small to do the big stuff.

Put that in your PhD and SHOVE IT.

Also? My last day of work is September 30. SO SUPER SHOVE IT YOU SHOVEHOLES!

-image-You might be a douchebag…

September 9, 2008 | bitterness

If you drive a ferrari in upstate new york and rev your shiny stupid engine behind me when the speed limit is FORTY bucko and the light up ahead is red and three strikes jacko, you might be a douchebag.

If you drive a silver Toyota Tundra and are totally on my tail when the blanket of rain allows for one car length visibility and then scurry around me only to get stuck behind a slow-moving sedan and yet you continue to ride people’s tails and then end up, finally, behind me at the tollbooth so how’d that work out for you? Well, you might be a douchebag.

If you work at Babies R Us and just kind of wander around behind the registers and return desk and avoid looking at the many people in lines to check out and return items and don’t…I don’t know… take some steps to help, like even call for help, or OPEN A REGISTER, then you might be a douchebag.

Also? “Might be” = “certainly are.”

-image-Strike what I said…

September 4, 2008 | The Office

about the work move because lo and BEhold, what can be found now in the relaxation room? Oh yes, a big ass LazyBoy. I kid you not.

On the other hand… I just noticed that since I’ve returned, I haven’t been paid. That tips the scale, doesn’t it?

Let’s end on a positive note though: a farmer’s market (where I can spend my hard earned imaginary cash!) in the parking lot of the building next door! Although I didn’t have enough cash this week to buy the peanut butter & cinnamon sugar spread (hot love!), I did manage to get the cutest little italian plums, corn on the cob and green beans!

-image-Things That Make Ya Go “WTF?”

September 3, 2008 | bitterness,family,the homestead,The Office

We moved our offices. We were suppose to have the move completed well before I returned from maternity leave; however, no matter that I extended my leave an additional two months, the move went down the week after I returned to my part-time gig.

Getting out of the move? It wasn’t to be.

Thankfully, the poor woman who got stuck doing my job (in addition to hers! twice the fun! one low salary!) packed up most of my files and belongings, going so far as to bubblewrap my various bobbleheads and beloved pens bearing witticisms from The Office. Gotta love the attention to what’s important!

I had nothing to do with organizing the move. Our office manager-type bitter employee handled most of the questions, held most of the move-related knowledge and hated life more than anyone I’d seen in a while. Another employee, who I formerly shared an office with, stepped up to the challenge and met every problem, bonehead question and ridiculous request with a smile and kind word. Really, I want what she’s on.

This angel, who knew she was leaving after the move (like *poof* gone already and I’m SOBBING about that), still gave her two weeks notice. Who DOES that when during that two weeks they have to deal with DRAMA and missing furniture and complaints and workmen and organizing an overwhelming amount of crap and bad moods and shit? She does. Dude. If it weren’t for her, the move would have imploded into a heinous hellacious nightmare of the heinous and hellacious nature. Seriously. So when she left, she got a cake. Doesn’t seem fair. I’m going to send her a gift…if she ever gets around to sending us her address, which, now that I think about it, may never come.

She dealt with a LOT of drama…drama that we continue to deal with. Let me just give you some highlights of our move:

1. We went from a nasty, dirty, unhealthy building where everyone had offices with large windows to a clean, birdmite-free pretty building where only a certain “level” of employee have windows. Those without windows, the majority of us, now have this allegedly natural overhead lighting. If that’s natural, then so is Pamela Anderson.

2. I went from a big ass shared office with two couches, two chairs, four desks, at least 20 feet of windows, a sink, room with toilet and two closets to … a small shared interior office with three desks and four people. Again, I have to share a desk.

3. Oh yes, I have to share a desk…even though I’m an EMPLOYEEEEEEE and the other people in the room are graduate assistants or interns. Being a part-time employee immediately lowers you to “scrub” status.

3a. Unless you’re a part-time administrative assistant who has her own office to herself. How did she score that? WTF?

4. Someone (who, although they don’t enjoy a window, has several degrees and full-time status) called me a scrub when telling me that I was going to share the desk with their intern (and like it, dag gum). Which, no on the “dag” and the “gum.” Heavy on the “BITE” and the “ME!” I’m a scrub? Really? Me? The one that you relied on for every decision when I first started and couldn’t think without getting my opinion first? The one that you begged to come and help decorate your office? The one you constantly ask out to lunch because I’m your only friend…you called me a scrub? Really? Interesting. Oh, and yes, I’ll watch your food while you hit the bathroom…just don’t be surprised if I hack one majorly phlegmy loogie into your burrito, douchebag.

5. Even when the political tour took place and our leader showed off our new space to the muckity mucks, I was lumped in with the “GAs” even though I’m decades older than them and um NOT A FUCKING GA it makes me just want to rack up some serious health and dental expenses. That will really hurt the (wo)man.

5a. Except that plan blows since I lost health and dental coverage when I extended my maternity leave past 3 months. snap!

6. The bathrooms. Oh where to begin. Our ginormous lobby has two lovely bathrooms for the male and female clientele. Two lovely bathrooms stocked with toilet paper, paper towels and smelly handsoap. That doesn’t seem odd, though, right? I don’t work at a truckstop. HOWEVER, towards the back of our space are the employee bathrooms (two of them)… single stall. They are not designated “men” and “women” which drives one of our male colleagues nutso. He’s taking informal polls and carefully dropping hints that the men have the first bathroom and the women should only go in the second one. This would be all fine and stuff if the male/ratio split at our office was even remotely close to 50/50. Nobody but him is going for this. Who would want to go to these bathrooms when there is NEVER any toilet paper NOR soap NOR papertowels. NOTHING! Apparently, the management company won’t clean those bathrooms because oh wait, yes, there’s no excuse that makes any sense. Kind of like nominating a vice presidential candidate with minimal political experience.

7. I finally received keys to access the office and our lobby last week. Finally. For weeks I was locked out and had to duck into our crabby office manager’s office to request keys, wherein I’d sit through her bitter rant as to the Key Fiasco of 2008 (which basically is: she didn’t order the keys in time. she didn’t want to have to drive to …gasp… campus to pick them up.). She eventually picked them up after a dentist appointment, which she made sure everyone knew was on HER TIME (I’m guessing 15 minutes of her time TOPS); this is from the woman who gets in at 8:59 and slams the door shut on her day at 5:00:01. So boo fucking hoo.

8. The Relaxation Room. Oh dear LORD don’t get me started on this bullshit excuse for a waste of space in the back of our office. If you were to have a relaxation room at your place of employment (which is for the students, apparently), what would be in it? Something, say, relaxing? Like a desk, desk chair and office armoire? And computer? Well, that’s what our director finds relaxing apparently. That and stacks and stacks of unpacked boxes of who knows what because no one is missing them yet OR perhaps they are the “missing/stolen/lost” boxes one of our more paranoid employee continues to search for/blame the movers. The relaxation room? I have made it my Pumping Station…when yet another part-time employee isn’t in there. And yes, he’s claimed it as his office.

8a. I don’t mind though because he’s funny and nice and has a funky name that reminds me of another funkynamed dude I know, so I immediately liked him and he can have the relaxation room and I’ll just pump in the lobby.

8b. No, I’m not that desperate. yet.

9. Office furniture: I can’t even GO INTO the lobby furniture because its hideousness cannot be conveyed through writing except to say…when I saw the two fabric choices, I flashed to this (bad bad bad) outfit our director wears come fall, and guess who picked out that fabric? Oh yes.

9a. The colors of the desks is a warm, reddish maple(ish) material and the shelving and cabinets are all gray. It doesn’t go, but whatever, it’s uniform throughout, so the myriad of dinged, damaged and tatted up filing cabinets were FINALLY filed under DUMP. HOWEVER, one nameless person ordered an additional filing cabinet for my small shared office to go with her GA and guess what color she chose for the fucking cabinet? Beige. Not gray (the only other color choice. you know? the one that the other THREE HUGE SHELVES ARE). Beige. So now against one wall we’ll have three gray sets of shelves and one stupid beige filing cabinet. Thanks.

I could go on. Really, I could because the insanity continues. For now, however, I must stop and read some teenage vampire love before bed. Cuz you know I have to go to work tomorrow. Even though my parents are here visiting. And the kids will be in daycare (everyone is working on the basement playroom! Wee!) Oh yes, and my FIL is coming. Even though his evil wife will probably whine that her fingernail is falling off and he can’t leave her (that was her last excuse and it worked).

Stories? They just keep coming.

-image-Your Friendship is Leaking All Over My Foot

September 2, 2008 | friends,The Office

One of my neighbors gave me the Amish Friendship Bread starter. I made it to Day 10, so far not screwing anything up or forgetting to mush the bag on most of the days.

Oh yes, I mushed. I mushed it soo well in fact that on the last day, after I’d purchased the additional ingredients to finish out the bread, I failed to notice that the ziploc was neither zipped nor locked and mushed it all over my barefeet and the floor.

Amish Friendship Bread…not the best smelling, I gotta tell you. And also? The starter is a mystery, so it’s not like I could just start over on my own. My dreams of presenting fresh mini-loaves of Friendship bread to my neighbors vanished. I had the cutest ribbon, too, for wrapping up the loaves.

Oh well. Then, of course, I’ve been learning who my true friends are (or more accurately, how squeamish my friends are) through accidents and incidents involving liquid gold my breastmilk.

Lizzie, my style icon friend, barely batted a gorgeously curled eyelash when I spilled a good six (precious) ounces of breastmilk all over the kitchen counter of her new house…even as it worked its way under the espresso machine. LOVE YOU LIZZIE! She definitely deserves a Best Breast Friend award.

Also deserving? My coworker T, who always offers up her office as a place to pump and doesn’t mind a bit when I leak onto her new chair or keyboard. KIDDING!! But really…some people would have problems with this, but most of my coworkers have been supportive, even if they advised me to not to pump during the Friday morning meeting. Whatever. I totally would have muffled the pump engine with a pillow or something.