Weaponized Neuroses?
January 15th, 2016
I was minding my own business at work yesterday, trying to get things done as quickly as was possible, since I've usually got four or five layers of salaried handlers breathing down my neck about my progress. Naturally, this didn't go as planned, for my boss felt the need to pull me aside and inform me that her boss thought my work area was 'disorganized' and 'a huge mess'.
Things were not as pristine and shiny as I would personally like them, sure, but the simple truth is that I hadn't been as meticulous in my stewardship of the area as was usual. This is because those handlers mentioned above have been pushing us to grind away as hard as we can to make up for their staggering mismanagement of the supplies we needed to get our work done in the first place.
So when I had to listen to whining about my work space, that was kinda sorta the last straw. I was being bugged to once again do someone else's job, as is usually the case despite having a rather large work load myself, but I dropped everything. I then clocked into 'maintenance' and started cleaning our work space. And by 'cleaning', I mean I reorganized and cleaned every single object there.
My two coworkers who share this same space offered to help, even though they usually clean a lot less frequently and thoroughly than I do, but I refused - my boss pulled me aside to complain, after all, so I took care of it. They do that a lot, my boss and her boss, assuming I'm in charge of the group. Even though, you know, that's a) not in my job description, and b) I definitely don't get paid for it.
So that's how I spent my entire work day yesterday, an hour notwithstanding.
The moral of the story is that you shouldn't ask me to clean something unless you really want me to clean something. And if cleaning has been piling up for over a month because of you, don't expect it to only take a half hour to accomplish. And if you give me a dirty look the next morning when verifying the hours I billed the company, you're totally going to get an obnoxious smirk for your trouble.
Of course, that's probably why she made me run the big team meeting today. Ugh.