I feel the anger surge through me as I grip the hilt of the Sword of Truth, it coarses across my body like a thousand little flames dancing to the beat of the devil incarnate. It can’t be controlled, it can’t be contained, it cannot be stopped. I now begin my rant.
Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that? I may be a peon, but I’m not your fucking peon. Do you understand that? Does it even register? I don’t work for you. You don’t have the authority to boss me around.
I was hired by this department. My actual boss is ten feet away from me, she’s not too hard to miss. If you don’t get that, I’ll give you my business card telling you what department I work for.
Now ask around to everyone else. They’ll tell you how plesant I am to work with. If someone needs something done, they can ask me and I’ll make the time to do it. They all realize that I’m doing them a favor. Can you say favor? Two syllables, emphasis on the first one.
What the hell’s wrong with you, anyway? I come up to you, after I’m halfway through your god-damn assignment and I tell you that it’s very easy for you to do, I’ll be glad to show you how it’s done. You come up to me later and say “Do you have a problem doing things for me?” Caught off guard, I say no. You say “Because, if you do, I can take this up with management and they’ll tell you you have to do this stuff. I don’t have an assistant and I’m very busy.” Well what the fuck? Like I’m sitting on a beach somewhere sipping margaritas. I don’t care if you don’t have an assistant, that’s not my fault. I don’t care if you don’t have the time, it’s not my responsibility.
I do these things because I’m nice and I make time. All I’m asking in return is a “Thank you.” But don’t yell at me because I won’t do your work for you. Because next time you do, I’ll yell back. And you won’t like what comes out of my mouth.
Ender, your problem isn’t with the bitch, it’s with your boss. She should be protecting you. She’s obviously a weak willed incompetant, who’s not capable of looking after her own team.
Holy cripes! Did I write this in my sleep? Do you have my job in some alternate universe? Oh, I am so sorry that somebody else has to go through this demeaning, presumptive, condescending, ungrateful bullshit. It smacks of malicious superiority and does nothing but injure a person’s self-esteem. sigh And I am so very tired of it.
It’s taken me a while to figure out how two people can ask me to do something using exactly the same words, yet one of them makes me feel like I’m really helping and other makes me feel like a bad pet monkey. There’s never a rude word, but the message is, “Try to get it right this time. You’re lucky I feel sorry for you and let you do this for me.”
And in my mind, I’m thinking…
We’re all nice people, really. I mean, underneath it all…so why this parade of self-importance? Why force down my throat something that I really don’t care a lick about? All this to make yourself feel better? And you can only do that by making me feel worse? That pretty sad. Damn sad. And so I keep this in mind when I do your work and I don’t bitch about it because, apparently, you NEED this to feel good about yourself. Wow. But you’re going to wonder at some point why it is that everyone else gets my smiles and jokes and you just get what you ask for.
Again, you have my apologies–not because I owe you any–but because someone DOES. And I want you to have what’s owed to you.
The reason she doesn’t have an assistant is because “the management” hasn’t given her one, probably because they don’t think that she needs one. So I’d bet they’d be surprised if she went to them to complain someone who was not in her department was failing to do her work. I say you call her bluff and let her go to the management. Better yet, go first yourself, say you’re having trouble getting your work done because a random rude bitch from another department has been giving you work. Tell your boss. Don’t just sit there seething.
I agree 100%. They have upped the stakes from a favor to a threat - definitely make them follow through on it.
At worst, management will say you have to do the work, which it sounds like you are already doing. At best, they’ll get this fool out of your hair for good. Bottom line, you have nothing to lose.
There’s one guy at my work who’s pretty much a one man department; he could hire employees, but he likes doing things alone. He’s a good guy, smart, personable, but will not take “that’s not my job” for an answer. He once told me to do something once and I told him that I’d get the next shift to do it. He pointed out that he told ME to do it and did not back down (I didn’t dare say a word) until another of the one-man-departments pointed out that it was an hour past the end of my shift.
A year or so ago, he went up to someone (a pretty arrogant guy, from what I’ve heard) and told them to do a task. The other guy came back with “You’re not my boss” and walked off.
Less than a week later, he was his boss. A month later, he wasn’t his boss anymore. As hard as it is to get rid of driftwood in my company, I’m sure his termination was well documented.
Well, I feel better just at having ranted this. I love the BBQ pit. It’s either that or a clocktower with an AK-47. So, on behalf of all the student nurses out there, thank you.
Anywho, I finished the assignment, without so much as a thank you from her. I’ve decided to avoid any confrontation for right now. It’s over and done with, so there’s no point in trying to bring it up to anyone in the office. I’ll wait until next time…and I’m sure there will be a next time.
The one thing that bothered me about the situation was that, even if she did have the authority to tell me what to do, she had no reason whatsoever to yell at me. Sure, I was annoyed at being given the assignment in the first place, but when I went into her office I was being completely non-confrontational and was, in fact, trying to help her out (you know, teach a man to fish…). Why she choose to view it as a sign of rebellion, and, even further, justify to herself that she could yell at me as if I was worth nothing, is beyond me. She’s lost all respect from me as a manager and as a person.
