So, this is what I'm doing with my life now.

Good evening!

do you ever sit back and wonder about what got you to the point in your life where you are right now?  Working for a company that works with plumbing, we get into some really mucky situations a lot.  I know PM, who has a degree in music, sat back recently as foul water and various gunky matter spewed out of a shower drain and onto his shoes, and said, "So, this is what I'm doing with my life now."

Well, that happened to me today.  To understand this conversation fully, all you need to know is that every time Noelle C and I contact a customer, or have contact with a customer we have to make a reminder note in the computer database so that everyone who reads that customer's file will know how often we contacted that customer and what the result of each contact was.

Now you know everything about my job.  anyone want it?

Anyway, today Noelle C decided that my day wasn't stupid enough.  I'd spent the morning fighting with my horribly outdated and woefully under powered computer.  I only ask him, and yes my computer is a boy, to do two things a day and today he decided he wasn't going to do either.  So after fighting with him for two hours, I then called the company IT department.  Normally a call to IT fixes the computer in ten minutes or less. 

Not today.  Today I spent nearly 90 minutes on the phone, during which time the IT guy pointed out several times that I needed a new computer  (it took me two years to get a new copier for the office, and that was something that everyone used.  A new computer will probably show up the day I purchase it.)  and also during which time Noelle C decided to announce to the entire office how SHE HAD TO COVER FOR ME NOW THAT I WAS ON THE PHONE WITH IT.

I wasn't shopping on Ebay.  I was trying to get my stupid computer to work.

Anyway, after spending the bulk of my day trying to get things to WORK at my work station, I then had to play catch up on my customer calls...see, even though Noelle C told everyone she was covering for me and doing my job for me, the reality is, as it always is, that I'm expected to do my job, and her job, and no one is going to do much about it.  She's far too busy these days deciding if she's still in love with her beloved Lumbergh or if the NEW GUY is really the one she loves.  Thats' a topic for another blog.

ANYWAY, by the time it was time for my lunch, something else Noelle C likes to announce to the entire office.  See, I go to lunch at 1:30 or when I finish what I know I absolutely must get done before I go to lunch.  after working with her for nearly a year, this nit wit still doesn't get that.  She still feels the need to call me (and what is more annoying when you spend your entire day on the phone than getting a phone call from someone who sits ten feet away from you?)  and ask, "are you going to take a lunch today?" 

ANYWAY, so I'm finishing up my pre lunch stuff, and I've taken a call from her about lunch and I'm headed to the back office where I hide from her while I eat my Lean Cuisine.  She stops me, "I just have one question."

GRRRRRRRR

It's a stupid question asked by a woman who likes to play stupid.  she asks these questions for one of two reasons:  she either wants to try and get me in trouble or she wants show her beloved Lumbergh that she's really very careful and detail orientated. 

I answer her stupid question quickly and flee to the back office.  My head hurts because my physical symptoms from my car accident in July are back, the headache, the dizzy spells, that sort of thing.  Yes, I have to go back to the spine care clinic.  Again, that's for another day.  My feet and hands are nearly numb because I'm forced to work in an office that is poorly insulated with  man who judges how warm the building is by how warm his all glass office is on a sunny day.  He sits in a greenhouse and turns down the heat.  Meanwhile, I'm sitting nine feet away from him in the outer office, wearing four shirts, two pairs of socks and my snow boots.  Today I was freezing.  Freezing.      I spent my 56 minutes sitting in the back office which is even colder than mine, but PM is back there most of time as are the install guys, who are all good guys.  Good company tends to warm me.

After lunch I get the mail.  Every day.  I put on my coat and walk to the mail box and get the mail.  Every day for almost a year.  and every day for almost a year, it takes Noelle C by surprise, even though I tell her I'm getting the mail.  "Oh, did you take a walk after you spent an hour at lunch?"

Again, she is the master at playing dumb to get other people in trouble.

But the number one thing she does that annoys me is this:  she  simply MUST ask me a question the minute I step within spitting distance of my desk after lunch.  It's like while I was taking my company demanded lunch time  (believe me, I'd much rather skip it and leave earlier.)  the world fell apart and it's my fault and if she doesn't hound me with something the world will end and Lumbergh will have to blame someone so it might as well be me instead of her.

And now, my friends, that's the set up for the point of this blog.  the whole point is this conversation that happened 15 seconds after I got in from getting the mail after lunch.  She said, "Come in here, I have a question I need cleared up."

That is never, ever good.

I walk into her office, really in no mood for nonsense, given the 7 hours I've already had to live through. 

"I don't understand the notes on this one.  This was cancelled, but it doesn't say anything else."

I look at the notes in the customer's computer file.  Yes, they had purchased from us, but had cancelled the order a day later.  I took that call and killed the lead, meaning we were not to call this person ever again.  My notes included these words, "dead lead.  he is going in a different direction and cancelled his order."

So this is what I say, "Yes, he purchased from us.  then he cancelled his order the next day and I refunded his deposit and he told me he was going in a different direction."

She says, "well, I wish I would have known that.  I just called him to see if I can offer him a discount to go with us."

I point to the screen.  "well, I did enter a reminder in the notes."

She says, "but I didnt' know anything of what you just told me about him cancelling his order and going with someone else.  Next time can you tell me that or something?"

Again, I point to the list of notes.  My name is right there, the words DEAD LEAD and the explanation are all there.  "I did enter all that in the reminder note."

Have I mentioned she's told me several times she purposely doesn't read my notes?  Oh yeah.  It's only the main form of communication we have and she's told me she refuses to read my notes.

I look at her and realize that if I don't leave the office in that moment I will scream.  I have zero patience for stupid at this point.  So I say, "well, I entered all the information in the reminder notes." and I leave her office.

I take a stroll out to the shop where PM is working with a new installed.  I figure if I have to be someplace cold anyway, I'm going to spend some time with people who don't make me insane.  He apparently heard a bit of the conversation and asked me about it.  I tell him.  He knows.  he has to work with Noelle c, too.  His favorite thing is when she tells the customers anything they want to hear, whether we can fulfill her promises or not, and then passes the customers on to him.  I've told her to stop doing that mostly because if PM isn't around I have to take those calls and then I get to be the one who tells the customers that no, we aren't going to fix what we installed in their home because they decided it was a good idea to clog dance in gold shoes all over it.  "BUT THE OTHER GIRL SAID YOU Would."

The other girl is an idiot.

I return to my desk three minutes later, take a deep breath, and my phone rings.

"Come in here please."

for a woman who gripes about how she never gets to get up from her desk  (she also likes to announce how many hours it's been since she used the restroom.)  she does like to make me come to her a lot.

I go into her office and she hands me a note.  "I hope you're not going to cop an attitude about what I said before. I was just trying to get all the information clear."

It is at that point, friends, that I step outside myself and say, "this is what I'm doing with my life.  I'm forced to work with a passive aggressive paranoid nit wit who is in love with the boss and sees me as a threat for his affection and therefore must be cowed to at all times or suffer the wrath of her rage and angry paranoia. 

the note she handed me reiterates that I'd better not be mad at her because she's just trying to do her job and that if I have a problem with that then maybe I'd better think about whether or not I am doing everything I can to communicate properly with her.

Yep.  This is what I'm doing with my life now.

The upside is that I have a series of work place books that will probably never have an end, thanks to her.  So there's that.