My Target

It's been a frustrating week with the co-worker from Hell.  I pretty much lost it yesterday --to the shock of other people, 'cuz I've been a fairly level-headed guy while working here.  But not yesterday.

Drama Queen had her 3 strikes by 11 yesterday morning, so when a 4th "swing and a miss" came in before lunch I seriously started looking for a baseball bat.

She'd had 3 strikes on Friday, which I wrote about in the last post and topped it off yesterday with 3 more.  I got an early start in order to alleviate the pressure on me later in the day.  The boss had a new assignment for me and wanted it to be the top priority for the day.  I finish up a bunch of
little things first and prep for the boss' arrival.  Minutes after he comes to the office, one of the ladies I'll be working with at one of the major events in mid-July drops by the office --for our meeting.  See, the meeting was actually scheduled for July 5, but she'd called last week to rearrange the meeting to an earlier time.  She spoke to Drama Queen and DQ gave her my schedule for this week, saying I was available all morning on Tuesday.

If only DQ had written it in my calendar, yes?  In her defence, she DID tell "The Boy" about my changed schedule --like that helps (although she thinks it does --it's obviously his fault for not passing the information on, right?)

So, after the quick lecture to DQ about the importance of letting me handle my own meetings and the importance of taking messages instead of finalizing things for me, I head off for the meeting --which I cut very short since I had absolutely no prep time for everything we needed to talk about.  When I return, my boss isn't impressed but an explanation after the meeting clears
things up --a bit.  But before I sit down to start working on my "top priority for the day," in walks someone from the accounting office with a stack of paperwork that DQ has told them I'll be happy to handle.  I reply, I won't be happy to handle it and escort them down the hall to DQ's desk and plop it down there.  DQ will be working on the paperwork since she was happy enough to volunteer me.

Strike 3 happens not 10 minutes later when the people going to the follow-up meeting --from the Saturday thingy mentioned in the last post-- seems to have lost their way to the meeting room.  DQ had special signs posted for the meeting, but forgot to put a date on it and the custodians took them down over the weekend.  Idiot.

DQ starts panicking and puts a nasty call through to the custodial department (like they care that she's stupid enough to forget to put the dates on the notices).  She then leaves the office to try and find people presumably wandering around lost.  I take the saner approach and put a call through to
our switchboard letting them know where the meeting is (in case anyone phones in and asks) and then I call the front information reception area and let them know.  While I'm talking to her, she's interrupted by a panicky woman (obviously ignorant of the phone at the receptionist's ear) who says that she's looking for a bunch of people who don't know where their meeting is taking
place.  The receptionist asks if it's the meeting I'm talking about and sure enough DQ says it is... but she's confused as to how the receptionist knew about the meeting.  "Well, maybe he knows what he's doing and you
obviously don't." [sound of chuckling from the other end of the phone]

When the meeting's about to start (only an hour late), we discover that the meeting materials have completely vanished.  DQ "thinking ahead" stored them in the room over the weekend.  and, naturally, the custodians
threw out the box at some point in the previous 96 hours.  It's unclaimed paperwork inside a box with no discernable information on it.

And then I explode.

The boss and I go for a walk later on in the afternoon.  I explain to him the importance of her leaving, but he apparently has another trick up his sleeve and I'm more than vocal that if he plans on having her stick around in some other capacity he's going to lose the rest of his staff sooner than he thinks.  You don't go through 6 people in a year for no reason.  I'm
going to be thinking up some nasty work for her over the remaining few weeks.  She's my target now.