When it rains -

- it pours.

I've seen more rain today than I have in the last three or four months. It should stay like this until the weekend. Hallelujah.

I sent out the final version of the first wave of budgets today yesterday. A week and a half off deadline, eff you very much. I've found myself wondering more and more how I got into the situation I'm in. Meaning - how is it that I landed a poorly defined position that has resulted in my covering multiple vacancies either continuously or for various periods of time over the course of the last year and a half, with immense responsibility and accountability, with an essentially absentee boss. I realized the other day, while I was attending a meeting at the main branch, that the longer I work here the less I understand our processes. Or, more likely, the more I learn about our processes, the more I realize that what we do is overly complex and makes very little sense. When even the people who are creating them have a difficult time articulating (and following) the policies and procedures, you're in serious trouble. It would also have helped me take the whole thing more seriously if they hadn't left the word "propaganda" written on the whiteboard from a previous activity held in the meeting room. Brilliant!

I've heard the rumors of three resignations between last Friday and today, with probably more to come. One of our competitors is intentionally scouting - and openly scalping - portions of the staff. I've become a little detatched lately, and I'm just going to sit back and watch as it all goes down. We have a new employee coming to the front reception desk from another department that has to downsize, which is great since there'll be little training involved, but is also at the same time more than a little frustrating because by taking the position, that person is technically getting a promotion (title and pay grade bump, but no salary increase - that I'm aware of). That's the second time I've seen that happen this year. But I've got to work six more years to get my title to match my current duties. And they wonder why people aren't waiting around to see what the management decides to do going into the new budget period. I have a review (re)scheduled for later this week, and the outcome will probably determine what I decide to do for the forseeable future. Am I being kind of vague? It's only because I'm feeling overwhelmingly noncommittal these days.

I'm like a leaf in a stream, randomly traveling at the whims of the current. And that was my little moment of zen for the day.

Oh, ha! Since I published this post two things have happened: 1) My boss came in and closed my door (he's never done that), and told me that he had recommended to the rest of the management group making my move upstairs a priority, to happen as soon as possible. He also said my review would be good, so no worries. Of course, being the gloomy gus that I am (and looking a gift-horse in the mouth), I have to wonder if he's in a hurry to offload me to another area, for some reason. Then, a minute later, the upstairs boss's assistant called me and excitedly whispered the same news. So now all I need is a date set in stone, and I can let the frantic panic feelings take hold. Seriously - I have a metric sh*t load of work to do before then. And 2) the mini-boss met with the person who will be taking on the admin assistant/reception position to clarify some of the details of the expecations and duties. There seem to be no problems there, but I forsee some minor personality scuffles along the way as the dynamic changes yet again.