I'm miffed. Life is not fair. That's a given. It never is because "fair" is subjective. And what I think is fair someone else won't think so. And I often think that what other people do isn't fair at all. It's hard for us humans as we are naturally selfish and it's very difficult not to choose an option that doesn't benefit yourself even if it means making life harder for someone else. As long as it's not you, you don't have to deal with the consequences of your decisions that you've made that affect other people. As for trying to be fair, you can't actually split a child down the middle and that wasn't the point of King Solomon's lesson, which, unfortunately, seems to be lost on most people. But when you can be generous and are to some and not to others, it stinks for the people who have not been rewarded.
Our corporate office closed at 3:00 p.m. today for New Year's Eve. Our satellite office (which is just one building over because there wasn't enough room in the space they chose to move almost everyone else into this year), however, wasn't going to be allowed to have everyone leave at three. One of us wouldn't be able to leave until 5:00 p.m. They were actually hoping we wouldn't find out and that all four of us would stay the entire day. However, I'd found out because I asked about it when I picked up our mail at the corporate office to see if anyone had heard if we were closing early. I admit I complained rather loudly once I returned to my desk. I'm sick with a second illness that came right after the last one and I'm not sleeping well because my body feels that if I've been sitting on a couch all day feeling miserable that I must not need that much sleep at night even when I'm tired. So I'm already predisposed to being grumpy. And I came into to work hoping for a short day because I was going to be darned if I had to use eight hours of sick time if they were letting people go home early while being paid for working an entire day.
Please know that our office always has someone staying in it on the rare occasions we close early, even when all the rest of our offices do because one of our management staff feels that someone should be around *in case* one of our clients calls with an unimportant issue that they feel is a dire need. I guess it doesn't matter that all their own offices closed early (if they were even officially open today). Some crazy people who don't like to be home during any holiday might call and complain that the thing that they didn't request in a timely manner (which means, not before we officially closed on any given day) is not happening and they need it right away. We have spoiled our clients in a horribly rotten and thoroughly unattractive manner and sometimes I wish we could split them down the middle and be done with it. Sometimes we get called into work (albeit, briefly) on a weekend or at night because the client's needs are way more important than our own and they can't be bothered to follow the rules as we've set them. And if we allow them to break the rules whenever they feel like it, what is the point of making any to begin with? We do not have to be available 24/7/365. Period. No one should be. Everyone needs some down time when they are not on-call.
One of my good friends is a labor and delivery nurse. We were roommates for a few years and she helped me see my life through her unique perspective. She got tired of hearing me grouse about my days at work and here's why: nothing I did or could do was ever going to be a true life-or-death issue (despite how my company treated those incidents) and it was always the same problems/complaints. Her career, however, is all about life and death. She always had a really bad day whenever there was a death of one of her patients be it the baby, mother, or both. So now I get annoyed when co-workers and clients treat the business world as ultra-important-highly-critical-jump-because-I-said-so. No one will die because you made a mistake in judging your own needs and I shouldn't have to come in to correct it and our management team shouldn't allow it. But they do. And they will. And that's how it is.
Yes, I know I'm not in the right line of work. You may enjoy your job. I do not. I'm like Jim from the American version of "The Office" from the first season (because he later changed his mind) that I'm glad my job is not a career, because if it were I'd kill myself. I wouldn't ever kill myself, though. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem and there's too much I haven't done yet to even THINK about shortening my lifespan. So no worries, but I might on the rare occasion only wish I were dead. Or wish that someone else was.
I don't like my job, but it has been stable employment for nine years. Being a low-level employee for the rest of my life doesn't sit well. I already know that I'm most likely never going to be promoted within this company. So, there's that phrase "grow where you're planted" that I try to follow. I say this because the one management member feels that you should have to pay your dues to get special privileges. As an assistant I do not "deserve" the perks that the managers get due to their title and years of work. It's that entitlement thing rearing it's ugly head again. Forget that I have a college degree when several of our managers do not. It doesn't matter that I work my tail off and have done the lion's share of the work for particular managers. As long as I don't have the title I don't have the option of leaving early or being invited to client lunches, etc. But according to those rules, I will never have that privilege. It won't matter how many dues I've paid if I never get a reward. See, it's not fair because I don't get the perks. When they say that someone is ruining it for everyone, it usually means that because only some people get special privileges that now no one will get them anymore because someone complained. So I'm not officially complaining to the company. I'm not going to be *that* person.
I did get off early, but I'm still mad that I might not have. Again, I'm tired and sick and grumpy!!!! And I was mad that they were only going to let ONE of the two admins go home early. I usually am the one to stay due to circumstances. The other girl was nice and said I could go this time. Wonderful! I was going to. But then it wasn't fair to her that she had to stay. We ended up guilting one of the managers to stay as he'd already committed to the one management member that someone would be there to take the phone calls that probably didn't happen. I have a feeling that they (the two managers in our office today) were going to be allowed to go home while one of us lowly admins had to stay. Sheesh! To be truly fair, if you are closing the main office then all the smaller offices should close at the same time. You cannot successfully preach that we are "one" company (due to mergers and buy-outs and the melding of several previous companies) when you don't have the same rules for everyone. And if I were in charge, everyone in our office and all the rest would have been able to leave at 1:00 p.m. or have had the entire day off.
Thank you for letting me rant. I feel better now.
No comments:
Post a Comment