Wednesday, September 07, 2005

My diplomacy, my security, my hope and my ice-cream

Well, I'm still employed by Eviljob, although I'm (voluntarily) off for a bit. I just need a break from those people, and I'll see them again next week. Gosh, I already miss the bureaucracy.

...not.

This is only the second temper tantrum I've thrown there in more years than I can count without wondering what in the hell is wrong with my mind. To make a long story short, my manager tried to correct me on several things at once, one of which was not my fault, and another which wouldn't have happened if I had any support at all, ever. Plus I'm stressed-out. So I lost it and walked out; turned off my cell, and went shopping. I bit back the urge to go buy an NWA cd, so that I could blast it on the drive to the mall.

Yeah, I am an angry woman, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...

No, I didn't go get a streak in my hair. :-) Though that's like, my freaking theme song. Well, anymore, it seems.

So I shopped, and I didn't think about anyone but myself (well, ok, and my cats a couple of times), and then I went to play trivia, and then I turned my cell back on about 11:30pm, and had six voicemail messages. And another Foamy t-shirt (Tech Support II is due out on my birthday!), a new Pandora charm, a bunch of new underwears, and a few shirts, a pair of earrings, yet another Fossil watch (as much as an agnostic can, I swear to god that I'm not collecting them!), an Anne Klein watch that was on clearance and was calling me, and more Clinique Timeliner eyeliner (roast coffee and khaki) that I had to buy to get the PWP, but we'll not talk about that. It's all in the past, really.

So early this morning, I didn't go in to Eviljob; I called my manager instead (two of the messages were from her). From the messages I could tell that she didn't think I had quit, but I had been wondering if I was fired. In short, no--though she told me that it's not cool to yell at her. :-) I know that, and I did apologise. I stay quiet most of the time there (hard to picture, idnit?), and I am always ok with the "constructive criticism" stuff, so I mostly just freaked her out when I snapped; that was the last thing she was expecting.

Me too, actually. It just happened.

So I took vacation (her idea) 'cos I'm stressed out. At first I thought she was saying to apply for approved medical leave for stress, but she wasn't; she had just wanted to talk to me before she put the vacation in for me herself. I'm calmer now, listening to Midnight Syndicate's Vampyre, and considering declaring the Christmas Season early this year. It normally begins on September 21st, but I may declare a state of holiday emergency and start it in the next few days. I'm in consultation with my top cabinet advisors on this one.

Romeo: No, Babe. Change is bad.
Weebie: Will I get more food if we declare an early holiday season?
Squoosh: What's Christmas? Can I kill it?

:-)

Ok, on to new things.

So we had a group meeting at my *other* job today, and we were divvying up responsibilities (and thereby authorships) for a bunch of articles we'll be submitting to...ummm...Reader's Digest.

Work with me here.

So the projects were all thrown on the table, figuratively speaking, and we all set upon each other like ravening wolves. Or lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number, to get Our Fair Share. 'cept me. I'm not good at that sort of thing. It just reminded me of Lions after Slumber. Am I on a freaking Green binge, or what? But in things like this, it's mine, mine, mine. Everything is mine. Or theirs, rather. It has nothing to do with expertise, or experience, or...anything but cutting everyone else out.

We initially divided these all up at the first of the Summer semester. I immediately wrote my sections and handed them in. TPTB asked me to re-send a few weeks later, 'cos she couldn't find them. Apparently not many others did theirs, 'cos today we again tossed them on the table and let everyone have at what they wanted. Fluffernut claimed that she'd already written the exact same thing that I had written. Ummm...sorry to hear that, I said; perhaps you can cannibalise it for something else later.

I'm sure we all can guess what Fluffer did. Yep, she got nasty and pitched a little hissy fit. This is hers by Divine Right, because TPTB said so, and she's already done it, and because Ancodia sucks and she doesn't. So there. Black letter law, as far as Fluffer's concerned.

I just sat there. I'd ejaculated all my festering rage yesterday. So I let Fluffer win. Fluffer's wrong. I remember, as clearly as if it were yesterday, the room in which we were in, being cut out of the only article on which I would have really wanted my name, and accepting responsibility for a part that no one wanted after one of those "Bueller... Bueller..." moments. But I let it go. I had a cunning plan.

So after our meeting, I went to see my TPTB; I asked if what I had written was really bad, or something, and everyone had been afraid to tell me. She checked, and lo and behold...there's what Ancodia wrote, right on her 'puter. She'd just forgotten about it and allowed Fluffer to take it over, 'cos Fluffer had decided she wants a Readers' Digest publication asap. Fluffer sent hers in a few weeks before me. Ummm...no, I didn't say--that later date stamp on mine is from my re-sending of it, as requested of me about a month before I left. But I didn't say anything about that; I don't want to get into petty fights. TPTB suggested that perhaps Fluffer wasn't in the meeting where I'd taken it over. Well, yes, she was, I also didn't say. Fluffer was having one of her "I'm just soooooooo busy and sought-after!" indulgences, and couldn't be bothered to accept any assignment other than that which she was already completing.

I have this wonderful remembery. I know stuff like this.

So I said, knowing what I wrote is better than what Fluffer wrote ('cos from my Hawai'i escapade last year, I have some references that Fluffer doesn't; I'm not squirrelling them, I just don't feel the need to share when so many things in this group become so cut-throat. I'll use them for Group Good when I'm the one writing it. Ok, ok--I'm squirrelling them away. Shoot me.) because she's notorious for doing things like crappy keyword searches, and then only reading abstracts, not the whole paper, so I said that was fine, Fluffer could have it. And TPTB felt guilty, and even stopped herself in the middle of saying that Fluffer had kind of marched in and taken this over (I'd figured as much), 'cos one shouldn't say that about people.

IRL, I mean. In-blog, it's all fair game. Mwahahaha!

So TPTB said she'd come up with something amenable to both parties, and/or make it up to me. I guess we'll see what happens.

Oh, yeah.

No comments: