Work Drama

I don't usually post about work here because two of my co-workers are also MySpace friends and I link to my blog on my MySpace, but they already know about this and if anyone else finds it, they can go screw. Our company is being bought out by another, much richer company. It has been described by myself and other equally cynical co-workers as a sugar daddy situation where we're spreading our legs and taking it.

Last Friday, before I went to Rusty's, I received an e-mail that said, "Please note attached memo regarding weekly time sheets and the attached time study form that you are to utilize starting on Monday, April 28th. Thanks for you assistance in this matter."

At first I ignored it because I thought it had to do with people who submit time sheets to get paid. Then I read it more closely and read the attachments. One was this (partly paraphrased): "We totally fucked up in our last merger; therefore, we find it necessary to continue to assess various administrative needs within the agency along with the skill set of specifically identified staff members. This is being done in an effort to ensure smooth and affective [sic] operations in each program area. With this in mind, we have identified a number of staff who will be expected to complete a weekly time sheet of daily activities starting on April 28, 2008 until further notice.

Since you personally received this email, please assume that you have been selected to complete the attached time sheet. The time sheet must be thoroughly completed every week and submitted to X by 12:00 every Monday. The sheets will be reviewed by management on a weekly basis to get a better sense of what functions are occurring effectively and efficiently and what areas of concern have surfaced that need to be appropriately addressed. Questions that might arise through the weekly reviews will be addressed with you personally. If you have any specific questions/concerns, please feel free to direct them to our attention. [this will be important later] We want to thank you in advance for helping us complete this assessment which we feel will serve to strengthen our ongoing operations."

By the way, my supervisor didn't even know about this till I forwarded it to her with a WTF?! message attached.

Also attached was an Excel spreadsheet with days of the week across the top and half-hour increments on the side; the squares are approximately 2 square inches each.

This e-mail came from one of our VPs who is not directly over me and who, when I left the York office to go to Harrisburg, called me into her office and said, "Don't start slacking because you're leaving York." You all don't know me, but I am extremely diligent, precise, and hard-working. I've never gotten bad grades or bad performance reviews at work. I did have some shortcomings at my position in the York office; however, many of them were beyond my control.

On several occasions I have brought my concerns to management and my co-workers have made it known to them that I'm extremely underutilized. Apparently management felt the need to treat us like children instead of giving us the opportunity to assess the "various administrative needs" of our position ourselves or discussing with management what we believe to be our "skill set." Here's another great idea. Maybe if we actually got the performance reviews that we're supposed to receive, those could be assessed to determine our fucking skill sets.

One of the other mental health agencies in our area recently closed, so now we're pretty much it, which means not only are we getting all of their clients, we're getting all the clients who would have gone to the other agency. In the first 9 days of April I had done 80 intakes; before this agency closed I usually averaged about 2-3 a day. So, since my workload is so high right now and since I was off for three days last week and since our computer system will be down from noon Monday until possibly Wednesday and since I do a job that was previously done by myself and another full-time employees and since this is the beginning of the month, which is when I have to do the billing, I e-mailed this VP and asked if I could hand my time study in late due to the fact that I felt it was a more effective use of my time to do work that requires use of the MIS while it's working rather than to fill our a time study.

No dice. But she doesn't respond to me directly, she tells the director of the program for which I work, who is also not directly above me, that I can hand it in on Friday (this past Friday) if I can't do it by Monday. WTF?!?!?!?! If I don't have time to fill out the time study by noon Monday, how is it helpful to allow me to hand it in three days earlier!? Apparently logic isn't in this woman's "skill set." God, I hate that phrase. The poor director got an earful and I had a meltdown. Luckily, the upside is that those are more accepted in a counseling agency than they would be in say, a law office (the downside is that everything you do or say is over-analyzed and you're given a diagnosis).

So, being the slacking employee that I am, I spend 4 hours this weekend doing work to play catch-up. And you better believe I made it known on my time study sheet (I made up my own instead of the shitty one they supplied, thank you very much.)

File this one under it's time to look for a new job. At least my resume is updated.