Curiously venting...

Ok, just venting for a second here.


A little something something about me. I believe in ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’

No, people don’t always treat me this way but I ain’t living for them. *shrug* I sleep pretty well and I know what goes around comes around. And, I have been BLESSED! Wish I knew how to put sparkles around that last word.

So, since I have no children to prepare for on Christmas, I have always volunteered to be the person or one of the persons holding down the fort, so to speak, on Christmas Eve at all my jobs.

This year was no different.

First of December, my boss went around doing a check on who would be working on Christmas Eve. Now, the employer I currently have closes half day every Christmas Eve. It’s part of our holiday schedule. So it really is no hardship to work on Christmas Eve in my present job. There are one or two departments that work the whole day because of the work they do. The employees in those departments just take that half day at another time at their discretion.

Hoe-kay!

Every single one of my co-workers had Christmas Eve stuff to do. People were traveling, people were entertaining, people were being entertained, etc. So, my boss was about to tell the newest employee that he would be there Christmas Eve alone. I was coming around the corner on the way back to my office when she was talking to him. So I piped in that I’d be happy to come in. It just makes sense really because I can do everything from review contracts, submit modifications, do preliminary budgets, cost transfers, capital asset purchases, etc.

The new guy is a financial analyst (FA) and for obvious reasons there is a limit on the things they can do in my company.
My boss thanked me for volunteering to come in and let the new guy off the hook.

So for weeks everyone was happily chatting away about their holiday plans. My family gets together on Christmas Eve but not until the evening.

My boss’ last day was Tuesday and everyone still had their plans in place. I would be the only person working on Thursday 12/24/09.

Then Wednesday morning dawned. Suddenly people were changing their plans. Now, I don’t particularly care that people decided to work on Wednesday. Not at all. What got me is that had they spoken up on Tuesday then I could have asked my boss for Thursday off. Since both my boss and her second in command were off there was no one to approve my request.

Wednesday night you could have fried an egg on my forehead I was so mad. I mean, my boss is great. Tuesday afternoon she went around checking to be sure everyone’s plans including mine hadn’t changed because she knew she would not be in Wednesday or Thursday. Everyone piped in they still had plans!

Then Wednesday people started changing their minds. *truly evil side eye all the way around*

Thursday morning comes. I tell myself I am blessed just to have a job and bounce into work as usual. But…there are only 3 of us there. *blink blink* Of the 3 of us, only two of us are really working. I always got stuff to do. I need an administrative assistant to help me but in these lean times it’s just not in the budget. So I do it all which keeps me busy and mostly out of trouble. Mostly.

So around 11 am, I look up and one of the people who said they were coming in strolls in. Again *blink blink*.  No, 11 am isn't anyone's normal time to show up for work.

I am just curious. If your employer says you can leave between 12:00-1:00 pm, what was the point in showing up at 11:00 am and then telling everyone you’ll be working until 5-7 pm? Doing what exactly cuz when I say everything and everyone shuts down that’s exactly what I mean. I mean the computer system is up but after you do a cost transfer, etc, there are no bosses there to approve them. And even if you called my boss at home and she signed into her computer from home and approved your work, there’s no one in purchasing, HR, accounts payables/receivables, etc to process it.

Yeah…what was that all about?

Me and my other coworker, who was actually working, just kind of gave each other a wise side eye on the sly and went back to work. I had almost 300 emails in my inbox and I was trying to get them down to 200 by noon and I didn’t have time for those trying to get over.

Why do people try to get over in such small insignificant ways? I mean really, you are trying to cheat your employer out of half a day’s pay? Why? What exactly is the victory in that?

I know people who say they do it. They seem happy about it. The one person who tells me that they do it a lot, TPL, is always at the whim of his cell becuz he never knows when someone is calling to check up on him and he has to rush back to the job. *smh*

I am at my job during the hours that I agreed upon. When I leave work I am under no obligation to answer my phone after I leave. I can walk away from work and leave work there. I don’t have to worry about getting caught. Good grief! I get 4 weeks vacation and 12 sick days/year. TPL gets 6 WEEKS VACATION and 12 sick days/year. What is the point of sneaking time off?

And he ain’t the only one. He is just one of the ones bragging about it to me. *shrug*

Nothing to brag about as far as I am concerned. If you are so smart that you can get over in these small little insignificant ways on your employer then why don’t you put your considerable smarts to good use? Why not figure out how to build a better rat trap? This is Bmore, baby, we got rats!

Why not invent the next modern marvel? The super computer that will stop all computer viruses in their tracks? Improve the internet? Cure cancer? Invent a way to fix the holes in the ozone layer? Why not write that Pulitzer Prize winning novel? World peace, anyone? I mean…since you so smart and all.

*sighing and smh chuckling* Okay. I am finished venting for the moment.