Know your role

It feels like the boss's new "assistant" is constantly questioning how I do my job. This is done with some subtlety...but not quite enough for me not to notice the doubtful and uncertain tone she uses when "checking" to make sure she "understands" something that I'm doing - oftentimes about things that have nothing to do with her job (which I let her do with a minimum amount of meddling...hell, I don't even give her work to do, even though I've been told I'm free to do so). And there's also the "And this is done that way, why?" line of questions, as if I'm being tested - it feels like she's waiting to catch me in an error or outright lie or something. It is incredibly offensive, and I'm actually getting rather tired of it. I don't do that sh*t, so when it is done to me it really tends to just get under my skin and fester.

It's just another indication that everyone around me thinks they can do my job better - and faster - than I can. Well, ya'll are more than welcome to it, if you are really that in need of things to occupy your obvious excesses of free time. Good luck with making this corporate machine function with no one here to tell you how to do something as simple as get a new e-mail address or to even make sure the fax machine has paper. People need to stop worrying about my job and be a little more concerned with their own. Some of them are pretty lucky that they have jobs right now, and should show a little bit more respect for people who have twice the seniority. Some days I want to just smile and say: "Well. If you think I suck that badly, maybe you should trade places with me for a work-week, and we'll see if you feel any differently after you experience what I do in a typical week. Otherwise, either take your issues to my boss or shut the hell up and top wasting my time. Have a great day!".

I've had three cups of coffee and I'm running on about five hours of sleep the last couple of days. Are my frayed edges starting to show? Just a little?

Earlier this afternoon a little gossipy bird told me that the person whose place I took in the job I'm currently doing (at about twice the workload and 10K less in pay, just so we're clear) has applied for another position with the company, after job hopping twice in one year between different departments and up and quitting when it turned out she couldn't hack it. That means she's a shoe-in to get the job.

On top of everything else, one of the other office peons insists on sending me e-mails ALL IN CAPS lately. Someday I'm going to go over there and do terrible, unspeakable things with that jerkoff's keyboard...