Wednesday, April 22, 2009

P.S.

My current rage is making me want to make regrettable decisions.

Thank you work for making this day stellar! Thank you work for not making a donation to my marathon despite doling out a grand to my coworker. Thank you work for acknowledging the NEWEST employee for her administrative help on this fine fucking ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT'S DAY.

Fuck you work. Fuck you and your constant determination in making me want to throw myself in front of one of the moving trains that go past my bedroom window.

While I don't want to identify myself as an admin, the sad fact in this job is that I am. Bottom of the totem pole. An intern is getting offered a position here and something tells me they will make more than me.

So, is it wrong to want one day of appreciation? Especially since the last two years in a row I have brought cookies and cards on boss' day. (And no, it was not called Shitty Boss' Day which would have been a more appropriate celebration.)

So, shitty bosses, no more fucking cookies for you!

I will eat all the best intentioned cookies that I was planning on making for you. And thankfully rage calories do not stick to your ass as they get burned immediately by the hate fire within.

So to summarize: Work, you fucking suck. Bosses you fucking double suck.

Things That I Like That I Didn't Know I Like

I doubt that I am alone dreading the many ways that I have become my mother. However, as I get older, I realize it's not such a bad thing. With the exception of passing on the Rodriguez women's curse, i.e., batshit crazy moodiness (the end result being that my medicine cabinet looks like a pharmacy. I would be depressed about it but thankfully I have a pill for that.) my other shared traits have been smooth sailing.

One of the more pronounced similarities is our shared rage for slow people. Slow as in slow moving, not as in dumb. There is nothing that irritates me more than people who walk in front of you at a snail's pace, blocking any hope you have of passing them. Oddly, my rage is contained to walking only and rarely comes out during driving. Like me, my mom reacts the same way - internal and near combustible rage.

To look at us, one wouldn't suspect that we are fast. Both hovering somewhere around 5'4" ish, we are not tall people. Yet, perhaps we have both been cursed by our predelection towards tall men lacking awareness at the double strides we have to use to keep up with their leisurely ones.

Despite our shortness, we want to move people! Slow walkers are one of the primary reasons that I avoid malls and amusement parks. Grocery stores cause me heart palpitations as well. It takes a lot of self control to not scream that they "GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY!"

I run because it calms me. However, my rage towards slow walkers is only intensified when I am on the trail. Although I hate slow walkers, I admit that I am a slow runner. In my defense, I adhere to proper etiquette - slow people to the right on a two way trail (to the left on a track if you are going counter-clockwise). So if a fast runner is coming up behind me, I move closer to the right so they can happily pass without breaking stride. SLOW WALKERS on the other hand tend to hover somewhere around the center yet take up so much space that you can't pass to the right either.

I hate them! There is nothing worse than breaking your pace. SLOW WALKERS of course don't get this at all because slow doesn't have a pace that is worth maintaining.

In short, I hate slow walkers. I think it may result from anxiety about not being in control of my surroundings. It sort of feels like claustrophobia only with big wide spaces that have been unfortunately bifurcated by slowness. I don't like to feel caged in. My heighthened fight or flight response may be the cause. You see, my only hope is going to be flight as I am no fighter. (Although is words were punches I could lay off the slow walker hate.) This is all of course probably yet another manifestation of the Rodriguez Women's curse. We have created a fine pairing of anxiety and control into one single stream of crazy. I accept it yet I hate that I can't push people out of the way.

Unrelated to slow walkers - did you know that I like hemp protein? I didn't know it until last night! My smoothie was delightfully free of grainy chunks and tasted like an unadulterated smoothie the way it was intended to be. So thank you helpful smoothie ladies at Castle Hill!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Maths Make You Mean

So, clearly I have taken a long hiatus. It could be because I had nothing to write about or that I have been super busy. That would be partly true but the main ingredient would be that I am incredibly unmotivated to maintain activities even if I enjoy them.

So to catch things up to speed briefly - marathon training is still in full effect. I am fundraising still which means that I am constantly baking cupcakes. It's all I do. That and run. I also am still having job woes.

I was able to tweak my roles here and that has helped quite a bit. The problem has been the residuals of my old position. Until we hire a glorified receptionist, I am still having to take care of processes that are huge time distractions.

The upside is that my old boss isn't really my boss anymore. This is good. The downside is that I still have to do things in conjunction with our accountant who may be the punishment my past life was deserving but I can't say I am certain about that.

At one point, I would argue she had every right to be frustrated with me. I was behind on projects - the cause stemming from coordinating our office move. This was truly the low point in my job and left me in tears on a daily basis. I stopped sleeping the whole night through, constantly freeting over the day I had just left behind and the awful one awaiting me. I spiraled into a hypomanic mess and was taking a pharmacy of drugs to get me through the day. (Months later I was rewarded by my boss with a criticism of what an awful job I did on the move overall. Very motivating when I look back on the toll it took on me mentally and physically). Moving an office shouldn't be the hardest thing in the world. However when it is being overseen by three people who refused to make timely decisions or contradictory one it became a logistical nightmare. Couple that with no help from anyone and the demands of a job that were already out of hand and it became a hellish.

Back to the point. I offer that as explanation and not an excuse. Although I guess it could be argued that they are one and the same. However, it was a difficult time and I was very overwhelmed. And in that meant that I was not as swift as I would have liked in completing my daily tasks, which didn't stop just because I was trying to take care of a huge project.

The accountant took all of this personally. I didn't get her things when she wanted them because I wanted to hurt her. Seriously, this is the stance she took. She told me this with tears in her eyes. Before you think I am an awful person, I would like to clarify that NONE of it was personal. I would never willfully ignore my work to get at someone. The fact that she saw it this way was beyond irritating. Since this time, after I apologized to her and calmly tried to explain that I was in an unforgiving situation at the moment and taxed well beyond my reserves, she has continued to operate on the pretense that I want to hurt her and try to make her life difficult.

How do you reason with someone who is taking an emotional slant on something that is not a result of intentional malice? Since then she has taken a passive aggressive stance with me and attempts to undermine me at every turn. I try to remain pleasant and kind to her because I have no choice. Even when I hear her grating giggle and ass kissery, I remain sweet and as accomodating as possible. While I don't indulge her ridiculous requests - it is not my responsibility to hand deliver her fedex packages to the mailroom - I try to stay on top of valid things she needs. I am in turn treated like a vile human being. The moment I leave her cube I hear her discuss me to whoever is closest.

She is toxic. I feel like her goal is to poison everyone against me. This in turn makes me feel paranoid and insane. Any interaction with her makes me feel like an insecure middle schooler certain that no one will let me sit with them at lunch.

I don't know how to handle her. Any time I have tried to confront her in the past, she acts like I am attacking her. She refuses to offer solutions and meets every request with a complaint.

I hate it. I hate her. Things are finally looking up her but she is tainting every day that I have to talk to her. I hate her, hate her.