Another Day in the Chi...: February 2005

TGIF!

Friday is finally here...yippeeee! This was a busy week with Oz in town. His visit was okay...it was actually productive. But I'm glad he's gone back to Gotham cuz I struggle with having to be "on" every day. And it really sucks to have my office door open all the time. Oh well, it's 4pm and I am about to be up outta here!

Next week B and I will be taking another stab at this baby thing. (This will be our third round of in vitro.) Third time's a charm, right? I can only hope and pray. I never imagined it would be this difficult. (sigh) I'll try to think happy thoughts. :-)

A New Day

I am going to try and move on from the events of the past few weeks. NOT! Okay, okay, I'm just kidding. I need to move on. But let me just say this.... Today is a new day and I have a brand new observation about my boss. The great and powerful Oz. Our group is in the spotlight these days because of a new weekly product that we are responsible for producing. This week I assigned it to one of my staffers and she botched it up. She is not really cut out for this job. But I digress. At the end of last week, the analyst informed us that he was going to miss his deadline. My staffer informed him that we could not guarantee posting the report by our established deadline if he didn’t make his deadline. At the end of the day, my staffer sent a status report to say we only received part of the document. She mentioned the conversation about the deadline. Oz responded that we are in no position to give the analyst a hard time about deadlines…we still have to “prove” ourselves. Wtf??? If they don’t make their deadline, I guess we are expected to magically make up the time. My point is, the Great and Powerful Oz is really a scared, spineless little man, afraid to stand up for what is right or even what makes sense. Just like the movie.

Pity Party

Have I mentioned lately that I HATE my job? I know that this should really just inspire me to look for something else. I am tired of being a manager and apparently, I suck at it anyhow. I think I’d like to be an independent contractor. I can do desktop publishing and small writing jobs from home. No staff, just me and the client. No stress from having to answer for other people’s mistakes.

Today, Smokey wanted to work from home because her car wouldn’t start. Go figure. I feel like she is forcing me to be a jerk by continually asking me to approve things that clearly fall outside the agreement. Ugh.

Sick Day

I really hate wasting a perfectly good sick day actually being sick. This morning I stayed home from work because I had bad cramps. Yuk.

The Meeting

The cast of characters assembled in a conference room for the meeting: me, the mean staffer (herein referred to as "Smokey"), HR (we'll just call her HR for lack of a better name) and the great and powerful Oz (why? because we never see him...He's in NY. (98% of our interaction is via speakerphone.)

I opened the meeting by telling Smokey that I was very surprised and disappointed in our conversation yesterday. I told her that she has always been a good employee in the past and I never imagined that we would have that sort of interaction. And I said that I was willing to try to start with a clean slate just because this was so out of character for her. I told her that the reason we for the meeting was to discuss the phone conversation and to reiterate our expectations for her position. Smokey started explaining why she was so frustrated and what sparked the outburst. Basically, she blames me for all of her troubles at work...payroll issues (they docked her check for taking vacation days that she did not have), the inflexibility of her work at home agreement and she said that she is not getting the respect she deserves. She also said that she thinks I'm a poor manager. (Talk about disrespect!)

At this point HR jumped in about the work at home stuff. Then Oz emphasized that as the department head I have absolute authority. (wow...I wasn't expecting that level of support from him.) Even through all of that, I don't think Smokey really heard what was being said. HR told her that she was unfairly taking her frustration out on me.

Still somehow, by the end of the meeting my blood was BOILING. I just started thinking about how all this times I've had to compensate for her not being here. And the numerous times I asked my boss if there was some way we could try to accommodate her, only to be shot down. And all the time I spent trying to come up with a way that we could give her something. I didn't even bring up her lying, her borderline insubordination about having to do certain assignments, or her doing a poor job training the production assistant. I won't even play the race card because it has never been an issue with us in the past.

And surprise, surprise...today she called in sick.

People are MEAN!

Managing people is a thankless job. Don't get me wrong, I feel blessed to have a good job that pays well. Most days here are tolerable since I know I will be leaving eventually. I try really hard to treat my staff fairly. I have worked for a boss who sucked. I don't want to be that boss. I address them respectfully, in a professional manner. I don't throw things at them when they piss me off. I don't yell. And yet I still get shat on occasionally. Yesterday morning there was a big pile of it waiting for me. (peee---uuuwww!) Here's the background....There is a person on my staff who has numerous health issues...since I've known her she has had lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and numerous problems with her back. She's in her 60s but she looks about 95 from smoking at least a pack a day for most of her life. She really needs to retire. But she can't afford it because she spent her 401k on an expensive house in the suburbs. So she has resorted to pressuring the company (mainly me) to let her work from home. My boss's boss informed us a long time ago that because we are a support group, part of our job is to be here. No one can work from home. period. After a lot of meetings and debates, the company decided to offer her an alternative work agreement so that she could work from home one day a week. She signed the agreement, but she is not happy about it. I understand her frustration but my hands are really tied. Yesterday her frustration erupted in an unhealthy and disrespectful outburst towards me. She was working from home and she asked me to call her. When I did, she proceeded to tell me that she was working from home because her blood pressure was elevated. I asked her if she went to the doctor or if she's taking medication for that condition. She said no, that she self-monitors it. Then she went on to say that it is high because I am a terrible manager and my poor direction is stressing her out. She said the whole group thinks I suck, but they are just scared to tell me. I think SHE was high. on crack. and pain pills. Needless to say, the conversation went downhill from there and long story short, we now have a meeting with my manager and HR today to discuss her gripes. ugh. Whatever happened to the days where the fear of being fired kept a person in line? When I consulted with the HR manager, she asked me if I could look past the ridiculous things that she said and recognize that she was talking from a very painful place. She wants me to try to sympathize with her. I did sympathize with her until yesterday’s personal attack. Now I just want her gone. More to come after the meeting....