The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Oh, my heavens, what is really important?  Is it the customers or raising awareness or accomplishing the goals?  Is it being robust and adding capacity and reaching out?  No.  It's making a Christmas ornament out of our logo so we won't be the only ones on the big Christmas tree without a logo ornament.  That would indeed be a catastrophe.  I even got the graphic designer and paid him with company funds to make an attractive version of the logo on a Christmas ornament.  Now it's just got to be mounted and cut out and a hole punched and ribbon attached.  Stop all other tasks until this is complete.  Yep.  And yep.

 I resemble this pup way too often.

Reach Out

Certain phrases or words genuinely annoy me.  Here's a test: try getting through a day without hearing or seeing the word "awesome."  You can't do it.  I've tried.  In the workplace, various buzzwords and phrases come and go.  We don't hear much about Quality Circles anymore.  So 80's. A phrase that is currently bandied about is to "reach out" to someone.  It's not enough to call, email or even contact someone.  You must reach out to them.  Frankly, whenever I hear that phrase, my first thought is Carrie in graveyard.  Happy Halloween to all.  

Meeting Fever

Is there anything anyone loves more than meetings at work?  Think of all the things we do to make them palatable - snacks, locations outside the office, cheeky office wags with amusing anecdotes, and, my personal favorite, people singled out for doing exemplary work when all they actually did was THEIR JOB.  That has become such a rarity that it must be acknowledged with cleverly named awards.  At one place I worked, it was the "Golden Bone."  A shiny gold spray-painted dog bone. You were supposed to feel immense pride if the Bone got to sit on your desk for a month.  No, I never won it.
     Today, we were blessed with two meetings.  The Managers Meeting, which I refer to more accurately as the Justify Your Existence Meeting, since it consists of everyone reporting what they have done in the past month to earn their whopping paycheck.  The advent of PowerPoint means most people say the same things, but now they read it off a slide instead of a piece of paper.  And woe be to the person whose figures are not up to date.  You are obviously no longer justified in retaining your position here and have become a sucking vacuum of mediocrity and sloth.
     Later came the Staff Meeting, aka the Lecture.  The number of people who fall asleep in this meeting rivals the average freshman year history class.  But we have cake!  Or pizza!  Or both!
     Sigh.  From my seat in the back, hiding behind a wide-bodied fellow employee, I can look out the window and see bright fluffy clouds and a brilliant blue sky. Not that it makes things any better.  I'd still rather be re-reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  Would that I could apperate out of the deathly hallows of these meetings.

Blackout

A few years ago, Leadership decided that managers could not be trusted to stagger employee vacation requests during our "busy time," which happens at Thanksgiving and Christmas (debatable, but that's fodder for another post), so they imposed a Vacation Blackout.  However, clever folks (uh, me) schedule their holiday time off in July so it will be honored.  For others, the Blackout means you must find child care solutions, defer that trip to Grandma's or be absent at your best friend's holiday throwdown because you gotta work.  Blackouts are  a perfectly legal practice, but I'd like to point out that, in the world of Marvel Comics, there are two characters named Blackout.  They are both villains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout_(comics) 

Austerity

The company has made a major capital purchase that it can't afford.  Now it's a big sucking drain on financial resources.  Leadership's answer?  They will no longer buy boxes of tissues for people's desks or Styrofoam coffee cups.  They threatened to stop buying coffee since "everyone goes to Starbucks anyway."  (Note: at least two pots of coffee are consumed daily.  Apparently by elves.) That idea went away, but I'm sure there will soon be en embargo on paper clips and rubber bands.

Disgruntlement Are Us

First, I admit - the problem may be that I'm just sick of working.  It's been a long time of getting up way earlier than I would like and having to think and smile and interact when I'd really rather just be a slugabed, wear pajamas until noon and maybe think about doing something, but then lie down until the feeling goes away.  Instead, I work for a living.  And I'm getting crabbier all the time.  So, I thought I'd share.

I work in an office at a small organization.  I'm a mid-level manager.  I'm middle aged woman.  I have a college degree and a modicum of intelligence.  I'm good at some things; not so good at others. Most people like me.  But I piss people off occasionally.  Mostly because I have a very low tolerance level for bullshit.

Today we discovered the guy who just resigned left behind more of a mess than any of us imagined.  He basically hauled down a handsome salary for a year and looked busy.  Why can't I find a gig like that?