Category: disapproving boss

Needle in the haystack

Hoo boy, today is going to be a long day. I’m in a *freak out* mode at work.

I’m still pretty new to this job and I’ve been asked to “throw together a slide deck” to present to the senior leadership.

“Throw together”….uh, sure.

I *think* this is a chance for my boss to get me in front of the big bosses. So that’s a good thing, yeah?

However…the content of this little ol’ presentation hasn’t been well defined. Actually, I think it’s a bit of a test, let’s give the new girl some vague thoughts, make her run a bunch of reports and see what she does with it.

Ugh.

This is a VERY numbers oriented company. My last job wasn’t; they were all about the “gut feel.” I am rather anxious to make a good impression, but rather nervous about all these data points. I mean I *can* do a numbers analysis…I’m just a bit out of practice (at my old job, I “had people” who did this for me, fer goodnesssakes!).

And the hell of it is…I am not sure exactly what I am looking for. I have 12,000 lines on an Excel spreadsheet that I could cut a thousand different ways.

So I’m soothsaying here. I’m trying to intuit what, exactly, my senior management wants to hear.

Oh hell, I’m sure I’ll get it wrong. I should just embrace that and move on.

Maybe once I’ve got some iffy content on there, I’ll choose instead to make the PowerPoint pretty, full of graphics and cool twirling transitions and flashing images.

What’s that ol’ marketing saying? “Sell the sizzle and not the steak.”

Meanwhile, I continue looking for that elusive needle in the haystack.

Ugh!

Copy Cat!

Seems the shoe throwing way of expressing dissent has found itself a new audience in China.

From the BBC, the Chinese Prime Minister was giving a talk when an athletic shoe came soaring his way, but a bit offline, landing about a meter away.

At least the guy in Iraq had some arm on him, eh?

Anyhow, don’t let my employees know that this is in style. Some of the ladies on my team wear these tall clunky heels. That would cause bosslike hematomas and such. Ouch.

So is this now a trend? A latest fad? If so we’re all going to need helmets. ugh!

Perspective is a beautiful thing.

So, really, this new job is blowing my mind. I knew that changing jobs after almost ten years at a rather quirky company would be difficult. Challenging. Would test my bounds.

It’s been all of that and more.

I’ve been here two months and I’m still struggling. They promised the learning curve here is at least six months, but me, being both impatient and a chronic overachiever, feel like I should be up and running fast. Contributing to the work. Being useful and value added.

So far I’ve been mostly a bump on a log that asks a LOT of questions and says, “Are you sure?” upon hearing the mind-blowing responses. Oh, yes, this is a very backwards organization.

Last week I sort of had a breaking point. I wasn’t feeling great physically and I had my second “called into the principal’s office” to be told “what you did wasn’t *wrong*, it just wasn’t The Company way.”

You know the drill, you are right but you are still wrong. Won the battle but lost the war. And other platitudes.

I went home demoralized, a new hole punched in my self-esteem. I cried on The Good Man’s shoulder. Considered packing it in. Wondered how I could have had a successful fifteen year career in my chosen field and still can’t get it right in this two-bit flea circus.

So the weekend came and went. I got some sleep. My immune system kicked in, and I started feeling better, physically at least.

I made my way to work Monday, and it wasn’t so bad. Tuesday came and went. That brings us to today, Wednesday.

Starting my day, I was reading the headlines and saw the latest report on the doings of our new President. The story was about Obama needling the Washingtonians for shutting down schools due to ice. Said that his Chicago daughters play outside in that kind of weather.

It was a fun, humanizing story. But it also made me think.

This guy’s got a new job, too.

And if he makes a misstep, it’s not only reported to the world, it impacts the world.

He doesn’t just get called into the boss lady’s office for a talking to, he’s got real issues.

So maybe, for as freaked out and demoralized I am about this new gig, it could, definitely be worse.

I mean my coworkers both in my own organization and across the board, including my predecessor, want me to succeed. Everyone is trying to help me get acclimated. I don’t have to take the slings and arrows of Congress, snotty media and opposing party’s interests. I don’t have to remember what I promised last year during the interview and then deliver.

No one is watching my first 100 days, other than my immediate manager.

I don’t live under the hot fire of the magnifying glass.

Then again, Obama’s also got a horde of advisors. Maybe I need more advisors.

Hmm…

Just one little thing…

Last night, after coming home late, and looking for something to accompany my dinner of hot soup, I watched some throwaway episode of some throwaway show in syndication.

The premise of the episode was that just one little thing can change the outcome of your whole day. It was a riff on the Butterfly Effect complete with a CG butterfly.

I actually thought it was a clever bit of television writing, and it was highly satisfying, along with my chicken soup.

This morning, I had occasion to revisit this bit of chaos theory as I made my way into work.

I left the house a skosh later than I’d wanted to, and when I fired up the Jeep, the gas indicator began making noises at me. I had to stop for gas, making me run even later.

The closest gas station is located on a road out of town that I don’t usually take, because along that road there are three schools. The parents dropping off their kids always backs up traffic, so I avoid it.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. In addition to running later than usual, and running into school traffic by taking a road I normally don’t take, it turns out there was a traffic light blinking at the most critical intersection (right before the highway entrance). So traffic on that road was backed up for about five miles.

And because I sat for an hour on a road that should normally take ten minutes to traverse, I got to work much later than usual, meaning I had a hard time finding a parking spot. The one I did find was a tight squeeze by a wall in the parking garage, and so I dinged my own door on the way out.

It also means the work cafeteria was out of orange juice by the time I got there.

And my staff gave me an arched eyebrow when I did finally roll into my office.

All this really bodes for a great day, right? Ugh.

So as I sit here at my desk drinking coffee instead of OJ, I got to thinking about how just one little thing had ruined my whole good day.

At first I blamed the traffic light. That damn light! If not for the flapping butterfly wing of that stupid busted stoplight I would have made it to work on time!

But that’s not really true, is it?

It’s that I rolled out of the house late. Had I had my you-know-what together and left earlier, there would have been less traffic.

But that’s also not really true, is it? Because even leaving late, I would have taken a different road and been fine…if I had a full tank of gas.

The crux of this whole thing was my empty gas tank.

See, last night when I was driving home, my near empty gas tank was already beeping at me. I could have stopped for gas on the route home, but feeling lazy and tired, I chose not to.

So the flapping wing, really, was my decision not to stop and get petrol last night.

That one decision has blown my whole Wednesday morning.

And unlike the television show, I can’t do a second act on this day and show what would have happened if the decisions had gone differently.

I have to, as The Good Man says, “just play through”.

That there is chaos theory, Karen style.

Insults that aren’t really curse words

I was reading a bit of a gossip rag online this afternoon and stumbled upon an unknown (to me) insulting curse word. It’s one of those great borderline usages…not really a dirty word, but close enough to get the idea across.

And if said with vigor, makes all the impact you need.

The word that is now the newest addition to my personal lexicon is nobsack.

Used in context: “… she knows a thing or two about unbearably dirty-looking nobsacks.”

I don’t know *exactly* what the word means, but I bet I can hazard a pretty darn close guess.

It sounds British. The British really are wonderful for the insulting words that aren’t cursing…you know, prat and wanker and bollocks. All good ones to drop in casual conversation.

Nobsack has a new, fresh sound to it. I do get so weary of the time tested “douche bag” which has regained popularity recently. The cooler kids have reduced it to just “douche” and morphed it into an adverb…”Why do you have to be so douchey?”

It’s not one I use much, but it works. Insulting without cursing. This is good. At my last job, cursing was like water, flowing its way through every conversation. Heck, our CEO used the term “batsh*t” in reference to our competition. Cursing was expected and I gladly went along for the ride (much to my mother and brother’s dismay).

At my new gig, no one curses. It was even addressed as part of my new hire training. So I’m having to break a nearly ten year habit. As such, I’m collecting non-cursing insults. Like dillweed and dillhole. Time tested, mother approved.

I knew someone from Mexico who used the Spanish word for peanut, cacahuate, as a replacement for sh–. It does certainly *sound* bad when said strongly.

Well, I’ll keep collecting the “clean” dirty words. This is a tough transition.

And anyone who says differently is a nobsack.

Yeah, that flows pretty good off the tongue.