Pointless Griping and Moaning

I have to admit to being a little embarrassed about all the workplace griping I've done lately.  I don't like to listen to it in other people, so I expect that others don't like to listen to it from me.

I've had people close to me ask why I don't just leave, if I hate the place so much.  As I've said before, there's more than one reason.  For instance, as my other driver has often said, it's  not the job, it's HIM, referring to my immediate boss.  If it weren't for his bizarre shenanigans,  life'd be a lot more bearable, and we all keep kind of half-waiting for him to stroke out or get caught in some illegality or something.

One thing that just ****** us the **** off (supply your own words) is the way the man either wildly exaggerates, or flat-out makes stuff up.  The senior office lady, a very sharp lady of many years' experience and deep knowledge (far exceeding our boss's), has observed more than once to a couple of us that our boss craves drama, drama that he needs to solve, to make himself feel needed, and if there isn't any drama, he'll create it.

Boy, howdy.  Ain't THAT fun to live with.

You may recall, a few months back, that I was read the riot act over my "attitude," that he was telling me that people were calling in and saying things about how I'd spoken to them, and "the girls" in the office were cringing every time someone called or they had to give me a service ticket?

Turns out none of "the girls" corroborated that, and the only two specific instances of my alleged bad behavior he cited--well, when I next went to those places (by accident--he did not intend to send me!), turns out they had no problem with me at all.

God knows what he heard, but he apparently blew it all out of proportion and used it as an excuse to lecture me about a "chronic" problem--about which I've heard NOTHING for the last three months, which I find odd, for an ongoing problem.

Yesterday and today, the little so-and-so ticked me off by...

Okay, we get a lot of stuff given to us, donated, okay?  And it is pretty much up to us how we use it, and we have done a lot of good with it.  We have also committed a lot of idiocy, so much that I tend to think of it as routine.

Yesterday, there was a ticket in my stack, a donated item ticket, and it had a handwritten note from my boss warning me that the address was changed and that the new address was NOT figured into my route (My boss makes out my route.  Routinely butchers it, too, as he consistently ignores the time frames printed on certain tickets).  Okay.  I checked.  It really wasn't anywhere near the paying customers, and since the ticket was already a week old, and I had been to the City in question three times last week, and despite ample opportunity to insert it into my route last week, I had never seen it before, I just assumed that, LIKE MOST "DONATION" TICKETS, it was something I could do  when I was next in the neighborhood.  Yesterday, I just stuck it at the bottom of my stack and thought I'd go do it if I didn't run out of time.

Well, I DID run out of time.  I was trying to get back in time to take my two younger kids to evening VBS, and I barely made it.

In the meantime, the lady had called our office and wanted to know if the item was going to reach her that day.  Our office lady had the misfortune of having to tell her no.

Remember: this was a GIFT from us to her.  WE DID NOT OWE THAT LADY A THING.  Nor had anyone given me the slightest inkling that timing was an issue.

Well, we're working a short week this week, as we are closed on Independence Day (Not that we get a paid holiday, oh, no no no no NO, those are for MANAGEMENT STAFF), and as a result, we have been cramming a lot into each day.  I worked 11 and a quarter hours on Monday, came in half an hour early yesterday, and when I came in an hour early today, did my boss thank me for helping to keep up?

Oh, no no no no NO.  Instead, he first let me know my vehicle was a pit (it WAS dirty, but I literally have not had a chance to touch it up in a week), then let me know that I wasn't filling out a form I created (I am not making this up!) correctly, and that I should have gone by that "donation" household yesterday, that when I didn't tend to things like that, "the girls" had to answer the resulting calls!

Really?  We had that ticket since last MONDAY, I was in the City Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and it was such a burning priority that I never saw it ONCE until  yesterday?  If it was such a hot issue, why didn't he have me take it last week?  Why didn't someone put a sticky note on there alerting me of the fact?

Well, when I took it out today, of course, it wasn't a big deal at all.  The lady had just called to inquire about it, and if someone had just said, "He hasn't been able to get to it yet, next time he's in the area he'll drop it off," that would have been just FINE.

In the meantime, I'm putting in more hours than any other employee, and far from getting THANKED for it, I'm getting castigated for not doing MORE.

I am going to leave.  In about six months, I'll know what I need to know about a certain relation, and I should pass a VERY IMPORTANT TEST, and then, I will consider myself to have a little more freedom.  I am antsy, for my employers--wonderful Christian people that they are--have been known to fire people merely for looking for another job. (I am not making that up).  So when I do decide to start looking, I have to be prepared for the possibility that I may be out of this job before landing the next.

But I will be spectacularly ready to look for work, having spent six or seven months preparing, and if the Obamaconomy allows me the opportunity, I will leave, and frankly, the place will experience a disaster.  There are some things that (literally!) only I can do, I (literally!) cannot be replaced due to a unique set of circumstances that allowed me to acquire qualifications that ordinarily, only college graduates acquire (and if you think a college grad with my certification is going to put up with the pittance I make [I have never been rewarded for the work I had to put in to acquire that certification--never!] and not having any paid holidays, you are out of your mind), willing to work the oddball hours, and, last but not least, I am probably the only thing that's been keeping my other driver there.

My other driver is the best friend I have in this world, and it is likely that my other driver will leave about the same time I leave.  Maybe the same day.

And I won't deny that the ensuing debacle will be fun to watch.