Little Bit of This, Little Bit of That

Preface: After just under twenty years with the same company, I took a new job at a different company and started in early November. I worked from home full time for three years, and now come in to an office every day. I have a cube, desk, etc. I am trying to get used to new coworkers, new personalities, new quirks.

Mischief-maker coworker, L, discovered on Friday that I am...picky...about my paperclips. They are sorted and stored by size, and I get rid of all the ones that are bent out of shape. I don't know why, but I cannot function with a jumbled mess of paperclips. Never have been able to do so.

L was like, "Ooh, this should be fun." I literally don't care a bit if people tease, I know it's a bit anal of me, and worth a giggle. I said, "All I ask is that you don't actually mess with the sort; please, please don't put the wrong size in the wrong cup." I had an email from her shortly thereafter with nothing but pictures of paperclips in it. It made me laugh, and I moved on.

Today I was reaching for a small clip, and jammed in the cup were a bunch of big ones. And goddamn if I didn't empty it out right there and start sorting through it to fix it, all the while stewing. There were about fifty of them, all mixed in. And several stuck together, which takes ages to undo.

Like, I get it, it's funny. But it takes time away from what I need to be doing, and for shit's sake, it is literally the only thing I asked you not to do. I want to complain to hell and back about it, but I recognize how petty it is. It just-. asdf;lkj Looks like I'll be hiding the cups away each night now. Sigh.

/rant

I hate my job.

Stop, rephrase. I hate what my job has become.

It's been a while since I bitched about work, so I might as well dive back in while my frustration is raging, right?

Everything has been fucked up and busy as hell since, oh, the last time I posted about work. Which was, admittedly, last year. Nothing got any better, and then someone decided to merge the professional billing with the hospital billing WITH ONLY THREE MONTHS WORTH OF PLANNING.

Which, of course, fucked everything into a billion more pieces than it already was, so you can imagine the headaches in this place.

My dipshit coworker finally retired at the end of April, but did literally NO* work the whole last week, and of course the only other person who knew how to do it was me.

Then they moved cash application down to yet another new manager and supervisor, and these ones, we've discovered, are micro-managers. We've been on our own for the better part of eight years, and suddenly we're under what feels like a microscope.

"You should only be taking two minutes in the bathroom."

"You need to fill out this stat sheet every single day."

"You need to log how many phone calls you get and how long each one takes."

And a bunch of other piddly things that while they do add up, it takes me fifteen to thirty minutes just to do the motherfucking recording of all this shit, and then they ask, "What took you this half hour?" and "You were gone from your desk for four minutes, what were you doing?" Well Jesus Christ on motherfucking stilts, calculating all that shit took half an hour alone! And I was in the bathroom for four minutes; if you can do it in two, then don't touch me or anything on my desk because you aren't cleaning yourself or your hands properly. Two minutes. It takes thirty seconds to walk there and another thirty to walk back, I cannot pee that fast, SUE ME. Fuckers.

I've been trying to train people and so I'm pulled away from my desk just as much as before, yet they're unable to see that it cuts into the time I should be able to use for actually posting the damn cash. It's like I'm back to the first couple years with my first supervisor here, and I am just about ready to tell them to fuck themselves running. Like, literally - just leave all of this stuff to them. They have NO idea what's untouched yet, because I can't get past this other shit Asshole McBastardPants left. It's a vicious cycle and there's just no end in sight.

I have been trying to be open minded about things because I know I resist change like nobody's business (Look, I just think you should make it perfectly clear - preferably with examples/proof - that the changes will make things better and smoother and not be a pain in everyone's collective damn ass, okay?), but I've given it over a month now and it should have gotten better but hasn't.

Impatient? Me? Damn skippy.

Sigh.

*No, seriously, he did NOTHING the whole last week. He ignored everything that came up that was his, walked around and chatted with people, made appointments to talk to people in HR and was basically everywhere but his desk. When his ass actually managed to find his desk chair, he only took small piles of work THAT HE'D ALREADY DONE and pretended to look them up so it looked like he was working. I WATCHED HIM DO THIS. It wasn't surprising, really, but at the same time, just-. WTF.

So, first things first:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
I wish all the best for each of you this year!

And now with that said, as far as I'm concerned, 2011 can JUST GO FUCK ITSELF.

Some of you already know about my year so far, but most of you don't, so here, quick recap:

New Year's Eve was rung in with me in bed with a moaning and groaning, tummy-achy Boychild. He was puking and couldn't do a number 2, and didn't want anything touching his belly. We thought it was very similar to his stomach flu last April, and called the nurse line on Saturday morning (New Year's Day) to get an opinion. They told us to go to the Children's hospital to the ER because it might be appendicitis.

Sure enough, Boychild had his appendix out that evening - and apparently, so did my aunt. How weird is that?!

Anyway, we spent that night in the hospital, went home the next day. Kept him home Monday, and Tuesday, and were back in the ER Tuesday night because he was having pain that wasn't getting better. After six hours or so, some pee in a cup, some Xrays and a few CAT scans, everything was normal and we went back home. Stayed home with him again Wednesday.

Over those few days, a nasty cold was developing for me, and while we sent Boychild back to school on Thursday, I stayed home because I was feverish and lightheaded from all the coughing. Managed two hours of work on Friday before being ordered home by the manager.

Felt better Saturday. Had some fabulously authentic El Salvador cuisine for lunch, enjoyed some time bumming around a bit. Got the ingredients I was missing for making chorag (Armenian tea bread) - which turned out gorgeously for a first attempt on Sunday, thankyouverymuch - and just generally had a really nice day on Saturday till 7:30 PM, when MY WALLET WAS STOLEN.

We actually don't know if it fell out of my coat pocket and someone found it or if it was actually grabbed from my pocket, but-.

They cleaned out our bank account over the course of Saturday evening and Sunday (yesterday). Apparently, I didn't really think people could be so carelessly indecent, which is why I'm so, so upset over this.

Canceled the check card Sunday morning and filed a police report, went through the motions.

So anyway, went to the bank this morning right when it opened, and they've been very good to us. Started the process, reversed all the charges and resulting overdraft fees; they'll also keep an eye on still-pending transactions for us, and the girl gave us her card and told us to also keep our eyes on it and let her know anything that seems off.

In the Small Favors department, my Social Security card was NOT in there, and we didn't have credit cards in there. Some debit cards, but they all require a PIN to be used, and the PIN isn't written anywhere. Canceled them anyway to be sure, but am reasonably certain they'd be useless.

Have to go get a new ID this coming weekend, and still call the library, among other places.

Our Relative Custody Assistance check was in my wallet, too, so hopefully the idiots didn't try cashing it; we'll have to get it reissued. And of course, the one person I need to talk to about it hasn't bothered to return my call yet.

My head wants to explode. And dammit, I LIKED that wallet.

I've said it once and I will say it again: PEOPLE are my pet peeve.

It's been a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad YEAR. I think I'll move to Australia.

So OMGWTF are people smoking?! Like, seriously. I get in this morning and the first thing that happens? My mentally-disabled coworker apparently threw me under the bus in her "meeting" on the sixth by saying that I NEVER HELP HER OR EXPLAIN THINGS OR ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS FOR HER.

I wasn't angry, I'm still not, just mostly baffled! I know that she was lashing out, because she's afraid and doesn't really understand anything that's going on, and because it's a defense mechanism. But at the same time, JESUS, I hope when she was spouting those lies that the people hearing them were considering the source!

Already people who've heard about it are jumping to my defense, and angry on my behalf because I wasn't even here last week to defend myself. And there's been serious mishandling by the manager so far anyway, according to several people. I'm just - GAH. I need a different workplace, and I need it, like, yesterday.

I may start looking on other hospitals' websites for job postings, I don't know. There's certainly nothing in my own hospital, nor would I ever want to have to deal with this manager again. I'm so...fuck, I don't even know what I'm feeling right now. It's not anger, it's not hate, it's not hurt...it's like a mixture of the three, but not even simmering. I'm...I am weary. I'm only 32 years old. I shouldn't be feeling like it's time to retire...and I just got back from vacation, for shit's sake.

Homeless Good Samaritan Left To Die

Do people DO this? Who and where are they?

Seriously?

At year-end, in the accounting office?

They have GOT to be fucking kidding me.

I've got a million and one things to accomplish before I go home on December 31st, and these morons take down the entire computer system for two hours.

*throws up hands in resignation*

Honestly.

EDIT: THREE. HOURS.

This stupid test took three bloody hours out of my workday, and the whole time there was this pinched-face little woman up here, observing what we do during downtime. There was nothing for me TO do!! Normally I'd file all this crap I haven't filed since, oh, September. But the Denial Unit people were in there, pulling EOBs, so I was told not to go in there by my supervisor (not her fault, I'm not angry with her). I was told to tidy up my desk. I did, but it looks exactly the way it did before the frigging downtime because everything on it? Yeah, it all needs to be filed. I have a two-foot pile of remits that I need to put away, and that's not even because I'm lazy and have been hanging onto them like the other stuff I need to file; there's currently no room in the file room because I can't get in there to clean it out till January.

So I did my best to look busy and move paper from one side of my desk to the other throughout this whole stupid-ass "test." Which they should have scheduled for, oh, I don't know, FEBRUARY. Idiots. I swear to God, it took everything in me not to swear violently and creatively. So now I'm pissy and mean because I've got all that stress bottled up.

People should REALLY just listen to me and do what the hell I tell them to do.