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.

News you can use

Because I love Norse mythology, news of the potential release of a version of the tale of Sigurd written by JRR Tolkien prior to penning the Lord of the Rings trilogy is kind of exiting to me:

"Despondent Tolkien fans forced to wait until at least 2010 for the release of the film version of The Hobbit will be cheered by the news that the author's previously unpublished retelling of a Norse legend also adapted by Wagner to create the Ring cycle is to be published for the first time this May.

Tolkien put the tales of Sigurd the Völsung and the fall of the Niflungs into narrative verse while he was professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford during the 1920s and 1930s - before he wrote his most famous works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which have sold 150m copies worldwide."

if you're a lit nerd like me you can read more about it courtesy of The Guardian

Joss Whedon has announced the return of Dr. Horrible! I am so excited by the possibility I can hardly stand it, but the interview I read made it clear that it may not be the same story or format as the trilogy of shorts that were released last year to much acclaim by fanboys (and fangirls). Still waiting for my Firefly season 2, thank you muchly, Mr. Whedon (No, Serenity doesn't count - I can't bring myself to even watch it).

I WILL however watch anything Nathan Fillion does. Any. Thing.





And last - and most certainly least - talk about biting the hand that feeds you:

Sarah Palin is credited with making Tina Fey a world-wide star and boosting Katie Couric's ratings at CBS.
But in a recent interview with conservative John Ziegler, Palin said both "exploited" her twelve-week candidacy — a fact, she said, that "says a great deal about our society.”
Fey's widely-applauded portrayal of the Alaska governor boosted SNL's ratings, while Couric’s audience grew after a series of interviews during which Palin now-famously faltered.
“I did see that Tina Fey was named entertainer of the year and Katie Couric’s ratings have risen," Palin said in the interview. "I know that a lot of people are capitalizing on, oh I don’t know, perhaps some exploiting that was done via me, my family, my administration — that’s a little bit perplexing, but it also says a great deal about our society.”
The Alaska governor was particularly upset with an SNL skit during which Fey's version of Palin said, "I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers."
The line was a clear reference to Palin's 18-year-old daughter Bristol and her fiancé Levi Johnston. The two announced shortly before the GOP convention that they were expecting a baby and had plans to marry.
"The mama grizzly rises up in me, hearing things like that," she said of a skit. "Here again, cool, fine come attack me. But when you make a suggestion like that that attacks a kid, it kills me."
In the wide-ranging interview, Palin also faulted the McCain campaign for agreeing to a series of sit-downs with Couric after the first one appeared to go so poorly.

“I knew it didn’t go well the first day, and then we gave her a couple of other segments after that," she said. "And my question to the campaign was, after it didn’t go well the first day, why were we going to go back for more…going back for more was not a wise decision either.”
During one of those follow-up interviews, Palin took heat for appearing to be unable to name the newspapers or magazines she reads: "Um of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years," was the Alaska governor's response.
In the interview with Ziegler, Palin called that answer "too flippant" and suggested the question itself offended her.
“To me the question was more along the lines of, ‘Do you read, what do you guys do up there, what is it that you read?’”
"…Katie, you’re not the center of everybody’s universe," Palin added off-handedly.
Palin, who has long criticized media coverage of her campaign performance, also said she is interested to see if reporters are equally tough on Caroline Kennedy as she pursues the appointment to the likely-vacant Senate seat in New York.
“I’ve been interested to see how Caroline Kennedy will be handled, and if she will be handled with kid gloves or if she will be under such a microscope,” she said.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out and I think that as we watch that we will perhaps be able to prove that there is a class issue here, also that was such a factor in the scrutiny of my candidacy versus, say, the scrutiny of what her candidacy may be," she also said.

Awwww. Poor widdle Sarah Palin. She's sooo exploited by those gosh darn MSM elite! You know what lady? Grow up, man up, grow a pair - do whatever is necessary to get over the fact that you allowed yourself to portray to the public a persona that could be so easily - and mercilessly - parodied and mocked. You're going to make this about class?! Yeah. Okay. As if you had any...

(and yes, I'm aware that she's referring to the socioeconomic definition of "class", wich is equally ridiculous, because she likes to play off that she's some symbol of the struggles of the middle class, which couldn't be further from the truth).

Well, to cheer myself up I'm watching a Monty Python's Flying Circus marathon, and I'm craving junk food.

The miracles of modern technology...

I am not IT. I have never been, nor will I ever be a computer expert. But there is one thing I know, and that is the basic concept of a network connection. In my company you can have two email profiles - one for your branch and one for the main corporate entity. Because of server limitations on this campus that inhibit certain types of calendar sharing, most people have shifted to having their branch email refer directly to their corporate email so that Outlook's calendaring functions can be fully utilized. That means that almost everyone's main email accounts are connected to the corporate network, which stores the data from a server located at the headquarters in another city. The server "hiccups" several times a week, which causes Outlook to essentially go offline, sometimes for as little as a couple of minutes although it has in the past been down for days at a time. Even though these events happen quite often - and have since I can remember - the connection problem causes some kind of mass panic every single time. So I just had the following conversation:

*General rabble from the HR warrens about having trouble accessing email and contacting our campus IT to fix it*

Me, stepping out into the hall and addressing the receptionist: "The server is down. Our IT can't fix it - it's not their server".

HR manager, looking confused: "What does that mean?"

Me: "The server for the corporate email is physically located at headquarters. They'll restore the connection once they realize it is down. Our IT can't do it."

HR manager, still obviously confused: "Oh"

No sooner than I step back into my office than the phone rings. When I answer it, I am told - not asked politely, but ordered - by a member of the support staff to open my email. When I politely explain that I cannot because the server is down, I get grilled on why and how and within the span of about five minutes, I have explained twice how the connection to the server glitches and people can call corporate to complain if they want, but our IT here is powerless to do a thing. I'm sure this will not be the last time I have to explain that to someone.

I'm sitting here listen to someone who makes a considerable amount more than I do with a nice sounding title complain to HR about how overworked they are and they don't have time to do this and that...my new boss has already begun giving me work that this person is "too busy" to do. Like faxes to request to set up a new account that would take less than a minute to send. Once it is faxed it gets taken care of by corporate in a matter of days - if the information on the form is correct. It wasn't, which I spotted as soon as I saw it. But because for whatever reason people who get paid to know about these little details don't bother, it took a number of days of me taking the time to make phone calls back and forth to get it straight. There are rumors flying around that people are getting raises. The gossip is being perpetuated by the people supposedly getting said raises, who have supposedly been informed by their bosses. One of them is my former boss's assistant, who is also getting new furniture, chair and computer, and got employee of the month for "answering the phones". I'm being told by my new boss that without a degree, no matter the level of work I'm willing to do, her hands are tied. "The system" won't allow a promotion or a pay increase as compensation. Ooookay. So my motivation to take on more is what exactly, when others are seemingly going to be compensated for basically just bothering to show up every day? And she's baaaack. The boss's old assistant has an appointment scheduled with him this afternoon. I wonder what deals she's got up her sleeve this time around...

The HR manager just announced that she got her email back. Oh thank GOD! I can relax knowing that parties will be planned and meaningless morale initiatives will be organized.

Embrace the chaos

First, resolutions for the new year:

• I will not exhaust myself lamenting the inherent unfairness of the impossible systems and biased policies that dominate my nine to five
• I will not embrace the minset that I have to abandon my values in order to succeed
• I will reevaluate my definitions of success by my own standards and order my priorities accordingly
• I will make more of my time and opportunities presented to me - as long as they fall within my value system and don't disrupt the order of my priorities
• I will be less emotionally reactive and maintain a more tempered persona
• I will strive to be more watchful ("constant vigilence")
• I will take the stairs

Now that that is out of the way...
I'm all moved into my new (smaller) office, and I've started adding my personal touches here and there. I have my Hoops plush and my little Gir doll for moral support. My husband has been teasing me about the "Zombie Emergency Procedures" tacked to the bulletin board behind my desk, but so far no one else has said anything. Honestly, what exactly is offensive about zombie preparedness? It might just save your life!

My new office is at the end of a short hallway in the same suite of offices that HR occupies. I've been trying to be inobtrusive by using the back door and not standing up front gabbing away, since I'm not sure if the HR Manager is that crzy about having a different department once again sharing this space. A couple of the reps have made comments about how I must be lonely back here, and I should come down the hall and visit more. Suuuure. Like I need it getting back to my new boss that I spend my time standing around shooting the breeze with Human Resources. Of course, it's not me anyone has to worry about. The HR staff is notorious for suffering from "loose lips" syndrome. Speaking of which - one of my friends in the unit that I'm now (unofficially) a part of was just recently in the middle of a mess involving the spreading of gossip regarding the rumor of her boss getting fired (which, like 50% of all rumors, turned out not to be true...this time). She didn't start the rumor, but she did pass it on, and a claim that she did in fact start the story got back to one of the other managers who marched up to her boss to throw her under the proverbial bus. It's just a mess, and she's a little anxious about the whole thing. The lesson that can be taken away, I think, is that people who you think are your "friends" won't hesitate to sacrifice your reputation for their own potential gain. Which is part of the reason that right now I am very much in "head down, eyes open, mouth shut" mode. The goal is to maintain a low profile and just mind my own business as the corporate machine plows along...

and sometimes I get nervous/when I see an open door

The Killers have a new album out, and the first single 'Human' is growing on me - to the point that I might buy this one, which I haven't done with the last three releases. This song supposedly references part of a Hunter S. Thompson quote in the lyrics, but I can't find a reference. And the video features a (thankfully) clean shaven Brandon Flowers, so I can overlook the coat with the epaulettes of many feathers that he sports. In the desert. How practical!