It has been a rough couple of weeks. I almost don't know where to begin.
Shortly after my last post I arrived at work to Anthony asking if he could meet with me to discuss an email exchange we'd had. He sat down, printed email in hand, circled a section of what I had typed and asked for clarification of my tone. "Is there a tone here?"
To which I let out a long, defeated sigh.
"No, there is no tone."
In my fantasy universe I also added "And I really don't have time for this kind of crap you effing megalomaniac!"
Blah blah blah, a few more minutes of meaningless conversation then I return to my desk. Minutes later I receive an email:
Thanks for making the time to chat this morning. And thanks for clarifying your email. I want to make sure that we are both having a positive experience while working togethera. I know I am, but it's important for me to make sure that I'm doing my best for the experience to be positive for you too. So, please be aware that I am very open to conversations, feedback, and ideas.
Which is the biggest pile of shit I've ever read. Well, the biggest pile of shit I read that week. Later that same day, a coworker missed one of Anthony's meetings. This person was very apologetic and had a legitimate excuse. Instead of listening and understanding, he took that opportunity to pull this person aside to say "Don't ever let this happen again, consider this a verbal warning." Maybe in his business textbooks this is suggested as a way to have "positive experiences" with your coworkers, but in the real world most people don't like to be talked to that way. I don't even like to be talked to that way by someone who is capable, smart, and legitimately holds a managerial position. Coming from someone like him, I imagine it must feel 10 times worse.
I'd also like to let anyone reading know that Anthony and every other member of his management team are notoriously late and/or absent from 90% of meetings they are scheduled to be at. Yvonne doesn't even show up for meetings that SHE schedules. So in addition to handling the situation like a total prick, the hypocrisy must be noted.
Sigh.
So then we had this meeting. It was about microinequities, which I had never heard of before that day. During the training I found out that microinequities describe everything that happens here on a daily basis! Who knew there was a word for it? If you want to read the article we went over you can do that here. The gist of it is that microinequities are things that coworkers do or don't do that make their coworkers feel like crap, by devaluing or disrespecting them. Blatant favoritism is also another form. Here are some examples listed in that article:
- Dismissing the idea of one employee only to embrace it when paraphrased by another
- Using a formal handshake with one employee and a playful pretend punch for another employee who will then be perceived (correctly or not) to be in management’s “inner circle”
- Going out to lunch with certain employees more frequently than others
- Not saying “good morning” or otherwise greeting employees
- Checking one’s BlackBerry or otherwise multi-tasking while speaking to an employee
- Addressing some employees by chummy nicknames, and others more formally
- Mispronouncing, despite earlier correction, the name of an employee or confusing the names of two employees
- Crossing one’s arms when listening to a comment from an employee
- Routinely being late for or leaving early from meetings
- Ridiculing accents or peculiar speech patterns of employees
- Continually interrupting employees or completing sentences for people
It was a true test of my will to sit through this training, with Lorraine, Anthony, and Yvonne in the room. Just the obviousness of it all staring us all in the face. I kept wondering, how can these people sit here and hear about all the nasty things they do to their coworkers without even flinching? Without any sense of irony? Or guilt? It BOGGLES MY MIND.
During the discussion after the training video, Lorraine interrupted a coworker at least twice without apology. In addition I observed her rolling her eyes, looking at the clock, and also staring off into space while the person leading the discussion was talking. I almost thought she was doing some role playing for us. Sadly, she wasn't.
Again, sigh. I just sigh all the time. I'm a sigh machine.
For the first time since Lorraine started working here ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO, she has finally figured out how to make her Outlook calendar viewable to other people. It was like getting an early Christmas present. It has been entertaining, and also enlightening, to have my suspicions about Lorraine's complete ineptitude with technology confirmed. It's also nice to see that she gets her nails done on Thursday mornings, during work hours, and probably pays for it with the company credit card. Sure, NAILS could be an acronym for something. A friend of mine came up with a few possibilities:
Needy Africans In Lube Slings
Neurotic Albino Indian League Society
Nasty Areola Insect Ladies Sect
But I really just think it stands for nails. As in finger, or (shudder) toes. I hope she tips well to whoever has to file down what I'm almost positive are cloven hooves.
I have to let you know that while this madness continues day in and day out, to add insult to injury, at least once a week, there is a stream of emails that starts with someone from management sending an email that essentially says "Hooray!" for some insignificant event that happened, then a bunch of circle jerking emails follow that say things like "Yes, hurray, Yvonne spelled her name right!" or "Congratulations to Paul who baked Lorraine a cake!" When these emails pour in I typically reacquaint myself with my breakfast or lunch, depending on what time of day it is.
The last thing I want to let you all know about is that currently the answer to all of our agency's problems are: INTERNS.
Yes, in case you are all uninformed, interns solve everything. And really, how could they not? Take a young, inexperienced, and temporary student, spend tons of time training them to do something, and then watch them leave by the time they get any of it right. Makes total sense. Yvonne now has an intern, apparently to help her do her job correctly. That's awesome. She introduced her protege to all the staff and she could barely spit out my title, which she still got wrong. Let's hope she passes that on as a good work behavior.
Paul now has an intern, which is the most baffling of all of them. Intern of what? Intern of unicorns? Seriously, what is he going to have her do? Organize his paper clips?
But the best interns have been and continue to be Anthony's. I didn't know it until recently but I have gathered there is some sort of Autistic Intern Foundation. It appears that you just contact them and they send 18 year old boys with poor hygiene, bad hair, unkempt clothes and zero social skills out to your workplace. It's been an extremely valuable service and I look forward to reaping the benefits.
Alright, I suppose I'm done now. But I'm sure before you know it, I'll be back with some more moaning and bitching.
Hope everyone's having a good summer so far.
