conrats

Evidently I'm having one of those days. You know the ones I mean, the ones where little things that you normally just shrug off get stuck in your head. Like a festering wound, oozing and burning, these little things just sit there eating at your very sanity. And you'd chew your own arm off to stop them from bugging you.

I mean, I spent about half an hour sitting at my desk irritated at the font the new LadyBoss has chosen for her e-mails. It's not hard to read, it's not blinky or overly stylized, I just don't like it. So every time I got an e-mail from her I had one of those gut "grrrrr" reactions and I had to repress the urge to just delete it to get it out of my inbox.

But I digress. It's a font, I'm letting it go.

Then "conrats" happened. And my world collapsed into a fuming pile of inconsolable irritation the likes of which my cat can't even replicate on her worst day. (And those of you who know, realize that's quite an accomplishment.)

"But who the what where and why?" you ask. Let me break my irritation down.

First, the initial salvo. Apparently there's a new Manager in another division, and someone thought everyone needed to know. So this nifty little "please welcome so-and-so," e-mail goes out to the entire company. Name, rank, and mini bio follow (mourners please omit flowers would probably be a little overdramatic, no?), and my irritating sh*%-o-meter goes up a notch.

Because I know they're coming. Its inevitable. They can't be stopped and one must endure the painful platitudes of... The "Reply To All" Addicts. All companies have them, all companies mock them, and yet they still exist.

Now my company, in the last six months or so, has had three separate training memos sent out about abusing the RTA button, but still I start getting the little e-mails. "Congratulations!" "Welcome!" "Glad to have you!" And so on, and so on, and so on. All the while the meter's climbing.

And then it came. The one-word, RTA message that had me halfway into a scathing e-mail on proper account usage before I deleted it.

"conrats"

This sent me over the top. How many e-etiquette rules have we broken? Let's find out.

1. Misuse of the "reply to all" button.
2. Spelling counts. The word is "congrats," and that's not even a word, it's an abbreviation.
3. While the usage of punctuation is debatable in one-word e-mails, I'm already irritated, so here we are.
4. It's called capitalization, look into it.

Now I'm as guilty as the rest of you when it comes to the last two, and I have my spell-check set to 11 to keep me from flubbing #2, but that's not my point. This is:

If you're sending an e-mail to a co-worker you have never met, how do you want to present yourself? As a professional, courteous, and intelligent resource, or as a lazy, ignorant, and inattentive slacker who tosses off an e-mail with the forethought of a drunk Hollywood Celebrity. Whoops! Maybe that's not the impression we're trying to make...

But enough with the rant. Its quiltin' tme

Hear the sound of the poundy heart drums..

OK, so the key word here is trepidation. That sinking feeling of dread with which one approaches an event. Heart's in your throat, and your fighting that fight or flight response.

Not that this is as bad as all that, but it's the general feeling I have at this point. The regional manager (aka- The Overboss as he was dubbed awhile back) is coming out to the branch. Normally it's not a big deal, he's just a little annoying with all the hovering he does. (It's not like anything actually changes before or after his little visits.) But this time it's more nerve-wracking, because he's more or less just coming out to see me. And when he's gone, I might be, too.

Not that I think I'm getting fired! Don't everyone freak out on me! Should've typed that one better, sorry!

It's just one of the things he's coming to talk about are my issues with the current situation. Which really isn't as much a "current situation" anymore as it is an ongoing problem. There will also be a discussion about money. I have been told there is more in my future, but after what happened the last time we had that little talk, I'm not really going to hold out any hope of a decent raise until he actually throws a number at me. And what really ruffles my feathers- is that apparently he's already gotten the raise approved, without even going over it with me to see if I tought it was equitable to the hellish freakshow of an office I'm stuck in!

Seriously, I'm not looking forward to this. I hate this situation, and I hate job hunting, but I am so ready to walk, I'm halfway out the door.

Yeah, not so much...

Maybe not the best idea to blog when I've been drinking. But I thought you'd get a kick to know... in the neverending search for decent co-workers (ha-ha) it might be interesting to notice that my boss put in her two-week's notice.

Yea!

Not laughing anymore.

Of course, Beetlejuice looks well-adjusteded to me these days....

Six foot, seven-seven foot, eight foot bunch...

A beautiful bunch, a bunch of banananas!
Daylight come and me wanna go home....

Ug

It's all kinda one big, sucking, vortex of blurry blah right now. My life, that is.
We still don't have a replacement for our last work casualty, the builder is still running that freaking promotion that's upped our workload to the breaking point. (And spring's the busiest time of year anyway...) My boss threatened to write her own letter of resignation, and I just want to crawl under my desk and hide. Hide A Lot!

Checking in

For those of you keeping score at home it's now Me 5- Office 1. I have now officially outlasted 5 of the seven people that have worked in this office since I began almost three years ago. One assistant and four account managers later (#4 just put in her notice), and I'm still here. So is my boss.

I've decided that the other account manager position is akin to the defense Against Dark Arts Position at Hogwarts. A revolving roster of professionals with varying levels of experience, different reasons for being there, vastly different working styles..... and a short life span.

Hopefully, our Regional Manager will hire someone quickly. They don't make time-turners in the Muggle world, and the mortgage business can't run on house-elves. (Although I think the Gringott's Goblins would make mincemeat out of out more finicky customers!)

(Sigh) It makes the inner crocodiles very angry- luckily Netflix is sending me many violent, action-y movies to feed them with. (Snap-crunch!)

In other news- I really like my jewelry classes. I'll try and get some pics up on flicker as I finish some more pieces. In the meantime- a friend of mine just got hitched. There are bachelorette party pics- no strippers, but my roommates and I had to dress as men, and there are some wedding pics up. Enjoy!

And, in a move that has overjoyed a certain friend of mine, I have joined the entertaining World of WarCraft. And in an attempt to meet all expectations- I am getting my butt kicked- seriously- I am not that great at this. (See, I'm trying to steal an egg from this cave filled with spiders, but they keep chasing me and killing me, and then they hang around my corpse so when I finally get back from the graveyard and resurrect myself they just kill me again, and, um where was I?) But what the heck- it's a learning curve, right? And I get to kill things (when they're not killing me) and that makes the crocs happy. And when the crocs are happy- I'm happy.

Grrrrrr

The new guy decided he didn't want the job after all.
S*&$!
Not amused. REALLY not amused.
Looking for my happy place....
Let me in!!!!

Ranny-din thinks...

...that if I start pricing gun holsters at work, people won't bother me as much.
Just a thought.
Kinda nice thought.