What do you do...

What do you do when your management gives you instructions or responsibilities and then rescinds them without your knowledge? How are you supposed to react to a situation like that? How do you handle the issue when it has to be discussed? How about when they tell someone else that your job has changed and make you look like an ass to your peers? I have to ask myself these questions now because that's what has happened to me.

I'm supposed to be directly responsible for a specific aspect of my team's duties. This was established months ago. And I just found out today that my manager has been telling people, in a meeting with other management persons and proverbial higher-ups, that I'm full of shit. Isn't life just fucking grand? Then, the person given this information by a manager, calls me out on the floor in front of the people I work with. People I'm supposedly assisting and training on particular detail where necessary because my ass is on the line if it's done wrong. They want an explanation about why I've been lying to them and everyone else.

So not only does this person, who I've had a lot of respect for, call me out and make me look like a fool, I'm supposed to handle it in a diplomatic matter. I don't know about you, dear, few readers, but I don't handle personal attacks in a diplomatic manner. I get defensive and I get pissed off. Then I have the terrible habit of taking it out on the wrong person apparently. So now I have to find out why management is calling me a liar, explain why I've blown up at someone and explain why I've been referring to my manager as a less than favorable and effective leader. Fan-fucking-tastic if I do say so myself.

To boot I have to answer for myself at some point to upper management, the client of the company I work for, why I've been shouldering this responsibility without endorsement of management.

I hate my job right now
I really do. I don't like the atmosphere anymore. The environment has become one of kill or be killed. I have to go in to every action, every decision, like it could be the last I make at my job. This shouldn't be a bad thing but should, instead, be a motivator to help you perform better, a kind of ethical guide-rule one keeps themselves aligned to.

I don't like my management anymore. They're effectively calling me a liar, making me less credible in the eyes of my peers and other managers. In all actuality they are making it seem that I'm some kind of rogue who's out to screw everyone. I'm not so sure, because I've never been a manager, but I don't think that you do that to your employees.

I don't like the people I work with anymore. Someone cries foul and all of the sudden I've wronged everybody in my office. I'm supposed to train these people and they make me look like shit because they ignore what I've taught them. Yes, I know, I could be guilty of the same thing but I take credit and blame when it's due upon me. People say I have a hard time admitting when I'm wrong. Those are the people who apparently don't know me because I'm one seriously fallible person. That's why I'm a person, not a fucking automaton.

I don't like the work I do. Not because it isn't rewarding. I like working with customers, especially when they like working with me. But I don't like that it changes. Not the infrequent, minor changes apparent in so many jobs but the fact that what I do changes on a daily fucking basis. And then I don't get told about it but I'm still held accountable for it.

Then there's the people I deal with. I have to fix other peoples fuck-ups. I have to explain to at least one customer per day why they were told something wrong. And I have to show the courtesy not to directly blame anyone when that's what the customer really wants: "Someone fucked me up, now I want someone to get fucked up. Since you're on the phone it's gonna be you asshole." Gotta love how you get to be a scapegoat because somebody can't seem to pull their head out long enough to check for changes in the weather.

Fuck everyone
I just don't like people right now. I'm at a point where, for the moment, I just don't really like a whole lot of people. There's a few who I still like to be around. I can count them on one fucking hand... literally. All of them know who they are. If they don't then they're not on that list. I could do with a vacation from people.

Let's define persons and people really quick here. A person is an entity, human, who has an intelligence level greater than that of a newt. Someone who, for a cumulative total of at least five minutes per day, has something intelligent, insightful and worthy to open their mouth to utter. People, on the other hand, is a group of two or more persons that cause the average group intelligence to drop by a decent proportion each time another person is added, making each new person added worth one half the previous addition. A fantastic example of this is a customer.

One customer is equal to one person and, let's say, 10 points. They are informed about the world around them and are capable of dealing with more than one person in a two sided conversation without becoming stupid. But add another customer to your first and you have customers (the plural of customer), therefore people (the plural of person). When you have two customers to one customer service worker the conversation dynamic changes. Math would state that you should now have 20 points. But you really only have 15 because the new person can only add half the amount of new, valuable information as the first. Add another and you only have 17.5. See where I'm going?

It's a downward trend friends. You see this most when you have a conference call. Oh holy fucking hell. The general consensus is that each additional person will have something new to add, some facet of the stone that needs to be revealed. The problem is that at a certain point, very early in the game of add-on, the new information either is irrelevant or trivial to the point of unnecessary. Don't believe me? Ever read a blog?

Think of blogs as a conversation, especially news blogs. CNN drops a story about a bombing in Iraq. NBC hits it at the same time but each has details the other doesn't. Then comes CBS and they have a new detail but it's something like "the car the bomb was in was a Toyota that was bought from Abu Nahasapemapetalon". Okay, so they like to use Toyota's from Abu but it's not really relevant to the reader, just good for troops to look out for. Then Fox says it was a white Toyota. Now we're getting stupid. Then it hits the bloggers. By this point all necessary detail has been gleaned from the incident and all new "detail" is ridiculously useless or simple conjecture.

But this is how people work. Persons are intelligent. People are dumb. This means that humanity, in general as a social species, is collectively stupid. I'm not separate from this condition. I can be pretty fucking dumb (quite a bit actually... fnord).

Okay, I'm done
Really, I'm done. Just done with all of it. I'm going to ignore my homework (can't concentrate on it anyway) and read. Need to turn my mind off for a while and read some smutty stuff... yay!

Gryyphyn, out.
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