Last week before I got down to meet my Spousal Unit for lunch, Mark comes into the lunch room and mentions to my SU that he should expect me to be pretty bitchy for the next couple of weeks. "Oh yeah, how come?" my SU asks (what he really wanted to say was, "welcome to my world" but that's another story). And Mark's response was, "because she has to work with me." It kind of irritated me that he said that (why does everyone think I am such a bitch? I'm really a very nice person--most of the time)
Anyway, on only 2 days of this week has Mark received any of our parts to work with. We're getting pushed from all our engineers to get this inventory moving because we only have a couple more weeks to try and get rid of a little over $1 million in defective inventory (did she say million? yeah, that's right). So late this morning, Mark walks in and announces to us that he won't be in tomorrow because he's taking comp time. And he still hasn't received any of our parts yet today. Oh man, I just lost it as soon as he left the room. Before Lynnea left, she told me that her manager had said if we had any situations where we felt Mark was not taking care of our work properly to let him know, so you better believe I fired off an immediate e-mail to Mark's manager. I tried to word it nicely and read it back to my office mate, just to make sure the note didn't sound as angry as I felt. In less than 10 minutes we had a response from the manager indicating that Mark would be in tomorrow. (So Mark, that prediction you made last week in the lunch room did come true....)
While I was at lunch, my office mate said Mark came down to our work area and he wasn't happy. You know what, that's too bad, because you're not doing your job, Buster! I wouldn't begrudge him the time off if he had gotten even a portion of our parts taken care of for us, and I have yet to figure out what he does all day because there's another guy in his regular area who can help cover Mark when he's over doing Lynnea's job for us. So needless to say, I believe there's now another person at work who will say that "Ruth is a bitch and you sure don't want to piss her off. " All's I can say is that if I'm working hard trying to support my people for that lousy $11.90 an hour vendor wage, you better be earning your $17 or $18 per hour (plus regular employee benefits) too. Is that too much to ask?
Whew, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Thanks for listening. So now I need to relax and what better way to do it than a few hours of knitting. Tonight was the second session of my "Funky Fair Isle" hat class. I had 2 students and here's a picture of us happy knitters.
They did pretty good considering we had only 2 hours. It's always rewarding for me to teach someone something new in knitting and have them say, "wow, that's really cool, I never knew how to do this before," or my other favorite, "this is so much easier/better than the way I was doing it."
Next month I will be teaching a two-part mitten class. A couple of my students have indicated that it would be fun to make some mittens to match the hat they learned in this class. Hopefully I'll be seeing them again.
I want to let you all know that I probably won't be posting as regularly for the next couple of weeks, due to being busier at work and archery deer season opening up this Saturday. I hope to be able to stay caught up with everyone's blogs. I'm looking forward to a week of vacation in October and getting back to my regular schedule (and happy mood) again.
9 comments:
Why is it that when women step up and see that the work is done well, they're called bitches? Too bad for Mark. His snit is HIS problem. You did the right thing.
You just rant away Ruth- We'll listen. That's what friends are for!
Your knitting class looks so fun! Thank you for the dishcloth! It's so pretty- I hate to use it!
Good luck deer hunting and I really can't wait for the Hawk Ridge trip coming up!
Yes ma'am you did the right thing! Who is he to think he can just take a comp day when there is too much work to be done (or left undone)? Huh... we will just be indignant for you Ruthie! Hell hath no fury.... like Ruthie's blogger friends scorned! LOL!
Have fun hunting and knitting and try not to let Mark get to you. We'll be here reading when you can post. ;c)
Hi Lynne,
Thanks for listening.
I'm sure glad I have my knitting for relaxation (breathe deep & knit, inhale the scent of new yarn....) I started a new project yesterday too--that's what I do when I'm totally stressed out. (I'm glad you like your dishcloth, I enjoyed knitting it)
I'm looking forward to Hawk Ridge too. I was reading on their website yesterday about what we could expect to see--I hope it's one of the >10,000 hawks days!
Hi Jayne,
I truly appreciate your sharing this with me. I think probably all of us can relate to a similar situation.
I thought of you last night...after teaching my class, I took all my teaching money and headed right out to the mall for some Bath & Body Works aromatherapy! That made me feel better too.
RuthieJ--Thank goodness for knitting. You can just knit & purl away your tensions.
Mark sounds a lot like an employee my husband works with. This time--it's a she. . .but she does something very like what Mark did. Work crunch time is on--and my husband is already working 50-60 hours a week. So who takes off--comp time? She does, of course.
Hi Donna,
I also say thank goodness for knitting (and blogging too).
I've probably been a little too harsh on Mark. I always have a hard time remembering that not everybody works the same way and maybe I'm the person doing it wrong by caring too much whether the work gets done in a timely fashion. I'm just thankful that most of the people I work with have a work ethic the same as mine.
Two things:
#1 - A bitch is a woman who speaks the truth to men who don't want to hear about it.
#2 - (Totally unrelated to #1) - I have tried knitting. I would LOVE to knit. I YEARN to knit. I even tried private knitting lessons--I kid you not. I just don't have the knack. I totally drool over all those fabulous knitting books I see at Barnes & Noble. Can I do it? No. I am knitting-disabled.
Wish you were here to help.
--Robin (Bumblebee)
P.S.
I can play Debussy arabesques on the piano, so don't think I'm a total manual moron. Just when it comes to knitting.
Ruth,
You got your L.L.bean last Sat. well I got mine today, I always get things later then you do, that's because we are rural. Lots or things to drool over, already have page corners turned over of things that might look good on me. I also got a Lands End catalog that's my idea of shopping, sit in the Lazy Boy and turn pages to your heart's content. What would I do without catalogs to shop from.
MOM
P.S. Knitting is such a good stress reliever for you, I can tell by how fast or slow you knit by how much stress you have in your life.
Hi Robin,
#1 made me LOL! (so true!)
#2-I taught a beginning knitting class and there was one woman who could crochet, but was having a really hard time learning to knit. She came to the second class and sheepishly admitted to me that she had taken that day off work to try and get more done on her scarf so I wouldn't think she was totally stupid and then told me that she just wasn't liking the knitting. I told her that was OK, and it is because everyone's good at something different. That's why I don't have any kids--because I would not have been a very good parent (I have patience only for knitting)
Some day each of us should do a blog post about something we're really good and something we're really bad at (with pictures if possible)
Hi Mom,
We're rural too, but Rochester rural and I think Rochester is the hub where all mail to SE MN circulates from....but a whole week later for your catalog? I think someone also is a little bit lazy at your PO.
You go, Ruth. I hate when people refer to women as bitches whenever they speak up about the work getting done. You did good. I've ranted on my blog about work in the past and it was a great release for me.
During these summer months, two of the people I support took two weeks at a time vacations and when I asked to have a four-day weekend once, I was grilled on "how will Mike and Doug's programs do when they are gone and you are gone, too?" I said, "screw my long weekend. I'll be here." But, when I take time off from work, who gets MY job done?
But, you know what? I felt a little worried last week when I posted "Police Academy"... I made the mistake of sharing that post with some people at work who really appreciated and loved it. What I shared did not include my blog address, but I felt I needed to cover my tracks. So I deleted a post I did a few months ago when I called my director incompetent and a few other excerpts from other posts. So, I won't be bashing people at my jobs anymore and I'm sad about it because I'm a bitch and love doing it.
I'll save my bashing for e-mails to you and others :o)
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