Day 567

I never write in the morning but I am so angry right now that I need to vent everywhere I can.


Got to work very early this morning because Youngest had 7am jazz-choir practice. As I mentioned yesterday, today is the first day of Bet doing all of the office work usually done by three people (and till recently shared among two.) Bet was off Monday and Tuesday of this week to take her mother for eye surgery at BigCenter 1.5 hours away from here.


Just now Bet told me she would be off all day this coming Monday to take her mother to a follow-up appointment at BigCenter.  I probably wasn't as tactful as I could have been when I said "Oh!" in tones of surprise and asked "so who will be answering the phones?"  Turns out Manager will be answering the phones.  I don't know who, if anyone, will be doing any of the other administrative work. That was startling enough but Bet then went on to explain that she will be off one day a week for the next eight weeks because her mother needs weekly follow-up at BigCenter.  She will be working four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days because she “has no time left.” 


I do understand that people’s families come first and I understand that we don’t always get the timing we like but I am pissed as hell that I am only finding this out NOW after it’s a done deal as opposed to earlier when I could maybe have used my political capital to ask for some locums help or at least someone to sit at the front desk.  I am FURIOUS that not only will there not be anyone at the front desk one day a week for the next eight weeks but also I didn’t find out until today. I can only assume Manager didn’t know about this extensive follow-up either until Bet came back...but the piece which is angering me the most and has me typing so my head won't explode is the fact that Manager, without getting clearance from anyone, decided it was okay to let Bet work the four 10-hour days so that these appoinments won't affect her pay.  Yeah sure, it's nice to be nice, but the generally-worked hours are 8:30 to 4:30 and the common rule is that when someone is out of vacation and sick time they take any further time as UNPAID time.  We do not HELP the employee screw over the department...and although I may be mean-spirited in thinking this, I suspect that if the time were going to be unpaid, Bet might have been more likely to work out other options like getting other family members to help and/or finding transportation services. I'm even more furious with Manager than I am with Bet.


But I'm doing the self-care thing: walked to the far cafeteria to get tea, vented here, vented in email to my "Administrative Dyad Partner" (the lab director who is Manager's boss) to ask for possible solutions, vented to a friend in email....and now to all of you fine people. A couple years ago this would have been, at not even eight-thirty, the trigger for THIS Friday night to be an extra-big drinking night but no longer...and that feels good.  I'm going to take that good feeling into the rest of the day with me and see how it goes.

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MUCH later:

Dyad Partner/Director talked to Manager and the story he got was that Bet -did- in fact have sick time and/or vacation time but Manager -asked- her to do the four tens instead of unpaid time so as to not lose eight hours a week of work. I sat right there and said "Oh well that's better" and also "I'm glad to be wrong, then."  However about a half-hour later I realized both that he had never followed up on the other thing I wanted to know which was "did Manager know about all these extra days off ahead of time or did she find out today just like I did?"and also "wait a minute...'has no time left' is pretty specific."  So unfortunately even though I tend to think the best about everyone and don't -like- being untrusting, my suspicions have been raised. It is quite possible that Manager lied to Director about the four tens being her idea and the more I reflect on it the more I feel like I was "handled" as in "calmed down/mollified/pacified" by Director rather than having my concerns addressed. He was awfully quick to point blame back at the HR department and the hiring freeze not letting us post/interview/fill the position sooner as the bigger issue rather than talking about my issues too.

But in any case I can put it out of my mind till Monday. I also took myself out to lunch, cold though it was, as a reward for dealing with all this shit. The grilled cheese wasn't anything to write home about but the tater tots were absolutely perfect which was as it should be--the place I chose is known specifically -for- tater tots as a side dish instead of fries.  It was way more than I'm used to eating at lunchtime so I took a walk afterwards but was still bloated all afternoon...which is okay.

Self-care included the usual Friday night pizza and more lying around on the couch. Also a small ice cream sundae after dinner even though I'd had a huge lunch.  Now it's time for a nice early bedtime and since it's Friday night I can sleep in as late as I like tomorrow which will be nice....and I plan to make tomorrow a big cookie-baking-and-freezing day. Just looked over my recipes and I think the order will be lemon bars, sugar cookies, pecan tassies.  Then possibly fudge if I haven't totally worn myself out. Speaking of cookies...I decided those sesame cookies I deemed lousy yesterday aren't so bad after all. Had some with breakfast today and another one with my sundae.  Although I wouldn't try to pass them off to anyone else and expect them to be liked, I think I'll be keeping the frozen dough after all.

Self-care is way better and far more productive than sloshed.