blame the post office

So everyone at work is frantically waiting for something to come in the mail. I’m not sure if it is a check or legal document or what, but they are all obsessed about getting it. For the last week I have gotten asked about it probably about 5 times a day. “Is it here?” “Did it come?” “Have you seen it?” No, no, and no. I guess they sent it and we never got it so they sent it again and we still didn’t get it. So I can see why they are eager to receive it. Whatever “it” is. Anyway they have been so obsessed with its arrival that I seem to have blocked out its importance. I think the item they are looking for did indeed arrive…both times it was sent. I am pretty sure it arrived because I am pretty sure I threw it out. Twice.

The first time I threw it out I thought it was junk mail. In fact the second time I threw it out I thought it was junk mail. But that’s neither here nor there. About a day or so after I threw it away the first time someone came looking for it.

SO – “Did you see anything come in from XYZ”

ME – “No. I don’t thi…nk so. Um…no definitely not. If I had seen something I would have given it to you”

My internal dialog – “No. I don’t thi…..fuck…I totally saw it. Shit. Fuck. I definitely threw it out without even opening it yesterday. Opps…nk so. Um…no definitely not. If I had seen something I would have given it to you. Shit, too bad the cleaning lady actually did her job yesterday and emptied the trash.”

SO – “Oh, cause it should have gotten here by now and we really need it. So if you see it come in please give it to me right away.”

ME – “Why don’t you ask them to resend it?”

SO – “Yeah I think that is what I am going to have to do, because it is really important”

SO’s internal dialog – “I’m sooo important that I need to tell people how everything I do is really really important, even though it isn’t that important, but don’t tell anyone. The only way I know how to deal with my insecurity is by telling people how important I am””

ME – “OK, well I’ll be on the look out for it. I’m sure it will come one of these days. But you should probably have them resend it just in case…I mean if it is important.”

My internal dialog – “Sorry bitch. That shit has come and gone, you better call and ask them to resend it ASAP, because unless you want to head over the landfill in Jersey it was sent to there is no way in hell you are going to get your hands on it.”

SO – “OK, just let me know if it comes”

ME – “Of course!! I’ll let you know right away.”

A few days pass and although she is obsessively asking about this document I seem to completely forget she is looking for it. And I think they are stupid. Anyway a big envelope from XYZ comes in the mail, I look at it for two seconds decide it is junk mail and toss it. Apparently the conversation I had a few days before was not enough of a deterrent to keep me from repeating my mistake. Unfortunately for me that meant we had to repeat the same exact conversation again after I threw the letter away for a second time. Only this time there was more emphasis on how important it was and also more persistent questions about whether or not I had seen “anything.” I think she is on to me, but she has no proof. And since she has no proof I’m actually kind of annoyed that she thinks I would have lost/hidden it from her. I mean come on, I’m the only competent person who works here.

SO- “Are you suuuuure you didn’t see anything from them?”

ME- “Yeah, I mean if I had I would have given it right to you, I know how important it is.”

SO- “OK, because they said they sent it again…”

ME – “That’s really odd. Maybe they sent it to the wrong address? Although you never know with the post office these days, sometimes things just don’t make it. It is weird that they sent it twice and we didn’t get it either time.”

SO’s internal dialog – “Yeah that is exactly the weird part. Nothing gets lost in the mail twice. I know it came. I know it was here. What did she do with it? Is she hiding it from me? AHHH! Why would she do that when she knows how important it is?”

SO- “Well I guess things happen. Are you sure nothing came in?”

ME- “About as sure as I can be”

SO’s internal dialog – “Bitch, I know you have it.”

SO- “OK well I guess I will ask them to send it again. Just please let me know if you see anything.”

ME- “Sure thing!”

Sure thing. Yeah I don’t think so. But I’m certainly not fessing up to this whole mess. The only thing I can do is try my hardest not to throw it out a 3^rd time. No promises though.

I QUIT...JK

So I decided to quit. Except I'm too afraid to actually do it, so I'm not quitting. I mean let's be honest, I have essentially stopped working, I just haven't given notice. This approach has some benefits, for example I am still getting paid, unfortunately regardless of whether or not I am actually doing anything, I still have to go to work everyday. Showing up is half the battle, or whatever it is they say.

I knew when I decided to quit that quiting usually sucks, even from jobs you hate. It never happens like on TV. If I were quitting on TV, someone would say something that pisses me off or ask me to do something I am morally opposed to and I would get red in the face and then some music would play and then I would storm into my bosses office, give some touching yet powerful speech and then storm out of the building without looking back. In real life, when you quit, can't just storm out. You have to go back to your desk and not only continue working for the rest of the day but you have to keep working for at least 2 weeks, or even two months or however long they were able to convince you to stay.

Not only do you have to continue working, often times you have to train your replacement. I hope that isn't the case for me. How am I supposed to train someone to do the things I haven't done in over a year? I'm sure my replacement will be well versed in gchat and facebook, which is pretty much what I do all day, no need for me to "train". But in order to train a replacement they need to hire a replacement. And in order for them to be able to hire a replacement, they need to know I am quitting. And in order for them to know I'm quitting...I need to actually quit. See where this is going? As I see it I have two options.


Option 1: Quit.

I can march in there right now and tell her I'm outta here. I can tell her I'm sorry to leave right when they need me most, but I have to focus on getting my career/life on track. I'm too old to be doing this. I'm kind of embarrassed of what I do. I would rather be unemployed then tell people about my job. At least if you are unemployed people feel bad for you. And if you are unemployed they don't ask you "how is work?" The last thing I want to talk about when I'm not working, is my job. I mean come on people. I was there all day and you think I want to relive any of that. Um...no thanks.

Anyway, in my quitting fantasy I ask my boss if I can talk to her for a second. We never really talk so she will immediately become terrified. I sit down and say something like "you know I love it here (lie) but I just don't think think position is right for me anymore. I need to move on and find my path." In response she says "OK" and we never speak of it again. In my quitting fantasy there will be no discussion of the timeline of my departure, or training my replacement, or interviewing my replacement. I don't want to have to update my job description. I don't want to have to make the announcement to the staff about why I am leaving or where I am going or about what they are going to do without me.
I certainly don't want to be the special guest at a going away party.

All of those things sound awful to me. I wish I could slowly float away or magically disappear without having to talk about it. We have way too many meetings as it is, I couldn't stand sitting in a meeting about me quitting. Torture. Almost as bad as continuing to work here. And let's be honest for a second. They don't really care what my future plans are, or where I will be going. I barely care what I'm doing next...as long as I'm not here. They are probably only asking to be polite, so why bother answering questions they don't even want the answers to. That is why I never ask questions just to be polite anymore. I don't even say 'how are you?' to be polite anymore. Actually I don't even say hello to be polite anymore. What's the point? I don't care. I'm sure even if I did care, they wouldn't even care that I cared, so why bother? But that's a whole different story.

Option 2: Stop showing up.

Talk about a quitting fantasy. Option #2 really takes the cake. Clearly my preference. I just wish I had the guts. I would implement the plan on a Friday afternoon. I would just say goodnight to everyone, see ya Monday, have a great weekend, all that BS. Act all normal, then just never come back again. No one would notice until about 9:56 Monday morning. That's when I would send my boss an email about how that "although I enjoyed working with you, I wont be coming back...ever" At first she will be slightly confused and think I just took a sick day. Then she will read it for a third time and realize it did actually say what she thought it said. Then she will call some people in to read the email to make sure she read it right. They would all agree that I had in fact quit over email. After that I'm not sure what would happened. I would probably get a crazy voicemail followed by a crazy email. And then more voicemails...until they got the hint.

They say there are five phases of grief. DABDA - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance. I have a feeling they would stay in Denial for a while. But knowing my boss the Anger phases would be most entertaining. Unfortunately/fortunately I would miss that since the whole plan revolves around the idea of not ever setting foot in the office again. They could bitch and moan and complain all they want, but it wont matter to me because...I wont be there! My replacement can deal with it.

vacation or personal

All of you who work in offices understand the torture of only being allowed to take two weeks vacation all year. Two weeks equals 10 days not 14. That sure was a tough concept to grasp right out of college.

"Yut you said two weeks"

"Yeah two weeks...10 days"

"Um...two weeks is actually 14 days"

"Yeah well. um. 10 days. You know two full WORK weeks"

"oh"

So out of the whole entire year you are allowed only 10 days to take off. The worst part is that regardless of the fact that you are an adult you have to get approved for this vacation. Its not like you can just say "Hey Bob, I'm not coming in tomorrow." You have to let them know days, sometimes weeks in advance! Honestly I think its absurd. Especially since most employers wont let you know things that are critical to your job until the very last minute. For example - I have a friend who's company was getting downsized and she had no idea until one of her customers emailed her a copy of the letter that the president of the company had sent to all the customers. I guess mail merge must have left out all the employees by accident. Anyway, if your company isn't going to let you know you are out of a job until the last possible moment, they why should you go out of your way to let them know when you will be on vacation? You shouldn't. And since they only give you like 10 days a year to do what you wish with, it seems to me that that means they only stand to be inconvenienced by your absence 10 days out of a year? Sounds like something they should be able to live with. Unfortunately that is not the way it works and we are all forced to go through whatever annoying process your boss made up to request vacation days.

As someone who hates formalities it kinda sucks that I am also the person who happens to be in charge of tracking how many vacation days people have left. My ideal system would be the following. People would just take vacation when they felt like it, and whenever they annoyed me or I felt that they had taken too many I would tell them they had used all their days. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way either. Every time one of these little fuckers takes a vacation day after getting approval from their various supervisors they hand the form over to me. I suppose I am supposed to process it because whenever anyone submits a form they ask me 15 times whether it has been "processed". I don't even know what that means. The only processing I do is sticking it in a folder marked "time sheets". The folder says time sheets because I am too lazy to cover it up with a label that says vacation forms. In fact 90% of everything on my desk or in my filing cabinet is labeled wrong. God forbid I didn't show up one day and they needed to find something, they would be completely confused. But that's a whole different story.

Anyway after I receive a vacation form and after it gets filed into the "time sheets" folder it just sort of sits there. Then inevitably some idiot asks how many days they have left and I have to figure it out. So then I enter each vacation day into the system. People are extra serious about their vacation days. It's actually kind of funny. Any slight discrepancy sends them into a panic. I try to let them know that it is possible I have made a mistake (although I rarely do). You have to calm them down immediately or they really freak out. They come to my desk waving copies of their vacation requests and start questioning which days have been "processed" as vacation like I have all their days off memorized. Please. They are lucky I remember their names. Anyway, after going through all their days off it usually ends up being their mistake because although I pay little attention to what I do and regardless of the fact that I can't think of anything I care less about, unlike them I am not incompetent. Apparently incompetence is worse than complete indifference because they are the ones who usually have marked their own vacation days down incorrectly. I mean if I only had 10 days off a year and I wasn't in charge of keeping track of them, I sure as hell would make sure I wrote them down correctly. Fortunately I am in the position where I can keep track of my own vacation days. I could take 10 days or I could take 35. I would be the only person to know. But the guilt would be overwhelming so I usually take far less than my allotted days. Which is actually kind of pathetic.

Besides people getting their own vacation days wrong the most annoying aspect of THIS part of my job is explaining the difference between personal days and vacation days. See there is no difference. They don't seem to get that. There is absolutely no difference between vacation days and personal days except that for whatever reason someone decided to give them two separate names. Neither of them can be “carried over” at the end of the year. Both of them must be requested in advance. You don't actually have to go on vacation to take a vacation day. Personal days are not only supposed to be used for doctors appointments and personal errands. You can use any day for whatever the fuck you want to use it for. At least that is how it works around here. And I can't understand why they can't understand that. There are plenty of things in this world that are the same but go by different names. Like a grocery store and a supermarket. They are the same thing but they have different names. A sofa and a couch; same thing different name. You get my point. It is endlessly annoying to hear people debating about whether or not to use a vacation day or a personal day. This of course wouldn't bother me if it were an internal debate...but it never is. It usually happens out loud right in front of my desk.

"Oh I don't know. I have already used 5 vacation days, maybe I should use a personal."

"mmhmm"

"But I don't want to run out of personal days."

"mmhmm"

“What do you think?”

“mmhmm”

"Oh I just don't know. I guess I will use a vacation day. Can I change it later?"

"mmhmm"

I'm not quite sure how to get it into their heads that it DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER!! It particularly doesn’t matter anymore because little to their knowledge the entire vacation policy has been completely changed. Now they don’t have vacation days OR personal days. HA HA HA. It is called Paid Leave Time. PLT is identical to both personal and vacation days, but the powers that be wanted to mix things up a bit so they changed the name. I kind of can’t wait to roll my eyes as I see their confusion. That will be quite enjoyable, although I’m sure I will stop enjoying it as soon as I have to explain the difference between PLT and vacation/personal days to them.