These past few months have solidified my need to restart my regular journaling. I really need to start tracking some of my daily tasks, pending and processing duties, expectations, conversations, and anything else that can be quantified as CYA. I’m still not sure what the hell is going on, but my disappointment and frustration with the almost endless backstabbing and undermining has me stretched to my limit. Although I didn’t really want to, following a rather pernicious instance of let’s-screw-rhetorator-over, and with my back against the wall, I talked to my union rep. I explained that I was feeling so decimated that I was considering bidding out … that is if my reputation isn’t absolutely shot to hell.
Where to begin…..
Well, after my last entry regarding the unholy hell my colleague put me through, I allowed myself to vent on Facebook. Somehow–and I’d really like to know more details about how–HR got wind of my rant and called me out. Like, literally, my boss called me in for a meeting and read me the riot act. At no point was I asked for my side of the story; however, I was voluntold that I would require mandatory training and it would take a lot to rebuild my reputation. Essentially, I was told that I fucked up royally. So, mentally fuming, I acquiesced and agreed to attend said training–Business Communications and Managing Emotions in the Workplace and coaching sessions. Funny, my colleague didn’t have to attend any of these courses. That’s a bit skewed, don’t you think?
Anyway, I took the whole mess to my union rep–including a screenshot of my rant–and, hey guess what?–she determined that I had not violated the companies social media policy. But you better believe that I locked down my Facebook profile. I was also a bit put off that both my ‘coach’ and the training instructor acted like I had kicked a kitten into an electric fan when they found out *gasp* what I had done. I mean, really? what kind of lunatic rants in a public social media forum? I’m going out on a limb here and saying: a human being? I’m entitled to feelings and emotions, and believe me, it takes a lot to make me cry. The fact that I came home sobbing on, not once but twice in as many months, tells me that something is very wrong.
Now, I’m returning to my trusty daily diary to record and capture as much of my day as possible, from number of hours worked, comments made to me that could be easily misinterpreted, blatant disregard for me, my staff, and our duties. One of the kickers–and mind you, I like my boss–was when he questioned why my staff didn’t know how to do some things. I think I took him by surprise when I told him that the tasks that he’s asking me to have them do are two classifications higher than what their current position. For a split second, he looked stunned, and then suggested that I have them work out of classification and if they wanted to grieve it with the union later, that was their choice. Ummmm … no. That’s not how it works. Again, had I not been denied a higher classification staff member on either of the two occasions that I requested one, we wouldn’t be where we are now. But, no, I was told that I would have to work with lower classifications, which–and I said it then and I’ll say it now–effectively ties my hands for a minimum of five years. That’s the amount of time to fully train and prepare an admin for promotion. And my longest tenured admin is just about to hit his 3-year anniversary. Woo hoo! That means I can take a vacation … in two years. did I mention that my lower classification admins aren’t eligible for lead pay, which means they can’t fill in for me for more than a couple of days.