The second circle

So I just stood and listened to the assistant to the company CEO air her grievances to me for a good fifteen minutes. I commiserated with her, nodded my head at the appropriate times, and said "Oh, sure, I understand completely" when it seemed like a good response. And I really do have both empathy and sympathy, to a point. But this is the executive assistant to the biggest fish in the pond - she has access to more perks and her title garners her more potential respect than I'll ever see in my time spent here no matter how long that may end up being. Because she chose to allow the previous CEO to skip merrily along wearing blinders and didn't warn her of the various issues ensnaring the administration like a giant ravenous beast from the dark fathoms of corporate politics, her old boss effectively got sh*tcanned, and her new boss is the hand now wielding the axe. Unless she can prove to them she is both capable and willing to do the work (with little complaint), she may not make it through this next wave of budget cuts. As it is, they're shifting her out to reception, which she's slightly insulted about. I think she's learned a lesson about priorities and what little reward comes with certain types of corporate sacrifice, though.

I've been thinking a lot since last week about something my new boss said to me, kind of off hand, about transitioning some of my duties to the staff downstairs. She told me that HR had reminded her that with reorganizations and restructuring, we had to be mindful of people's workloads when assigning them new duties, and to make sure these duties were written into job descriptions. This ticked me off, mainly because for the last two years no one has been bothered to show any "concern" about my workload or the extra duties that were assigned to me with no compensation (and in direct conflict with company financial oversight policies). I was pretty blunt in relating to her the fact that I am doing more to make sure that the staff taking on little pieces of my old duties are trained and have as much information and resources available as possible to do what they are being asked to do than I was ever afforded when I became the business manager. It really irks me to continue feeling like my whole working life centers on the expectation of making things easier for everyone else. I have no official job description...I have not pushed the issue of salary equity...I'm in corporate limbo doing work for two different divisions...and I was "volunteered" by my new boss to work the front desk of another department for part of next week, because it would be cheaper and "more convenient" than having anyone else do it or hiring a temp for two days. Yeah. So other people's feelings are a concern to me, why, exactly?

Ugh. Now my old boss's assistant is bothering me about paperwork that is part of a filing project that I've been kind enough to do even though it was really not my freaking job and kept me (hi - random sentence fragment...I need a proofreader/editor sometimes). The project is not done yet (I was very clear in conveying that another department's filing issues were not a particualr priority of mine), and she seems to have a problem with that. Well, she can just as easily do it as I can, so if she starts to hassle me, I'm hassling her back. Not like the woman has much of anything else to do all damn day.

Sheesh. The more things change, the more they really just don't.