My New Job

Contrary to what the title would make you think, I don't have a new job yet, but oh - I will.

I didn't come to work yesterday because my Great-Grandmother passed away and I was up all night with the family and spent the day working on funeral arrangements. So, when I showed up this morning there was, as I expected, a giant pile of things that I needed to do. However, as you may or may not recall, when I was hired here, I was hired to answer phones. Phone calls do not pile-up as such, but since I started i've picked up some other odd jobs around the place because, frankly, I was bored. I'm still making the same salary, mind you. But, back to today.

Still a bit upset and completely exhausted, I arrive to find my pile oh-things that need to be entered, changed over, transfered, and completed and promptly sit down to do them a mind a moat of condolances only to find that my computer doesn't work. *shakes head* Apparently the new server changeover didn't appreciate my PC and, since I wasn't here yesterday, Jan (IT) took the opportunity to ignore it. (We'll just neatly brush aside the notion that if I were the IT department and I knew server changeovers were going to be fussy, i'd be sure to do it while I knew the person using said computer was out of the office.) As i'm putzing around waiting for him to give me my chair back, my boss comes to me and says "Hey, can you do me a favor. Those last four purchase orders you made for Carlson? The fax machine screwed up the prints, find the prints and send them new copies via mail." Not a problem, says I and off I go to find the job tickets, grab the prints, make copies and stick them in an envelope.

Oh, how wrong I was.

First, I ask Scott what he did with the job tickets. Oh, well he gave them to Char. Now Scott is a nice guy, so he goes out onto the floor and retrieves the tickets to give to me. I open the tickets, make the copies and proceed to realize that one of the packets has no print. Now, i'm running around chicken sans head trying to find the print. I can't find it, but, apparently that's okay! Or so says my boss when I ask him if he has any idea where it is (he loses things on his desk very frequently.) He doesn't actually need the last four purchase orders i sent to Carlson, he needs the last for Job tickets to Carlson that I made purchase orders for. Well, yippy-dippy, I just wasted 20 minutes, but what the hell, they're paying me for it. That just means its 20 fewer minutes I have to sit here twiddling my thumbs.

As said boss is flipping through the prints he does need, he suddenly points out that, hey! these aren't the right kind of prints! You can imagine the expression of the girl in the pink sweater who was hired to answer phones when she realizes that there are two types of prints in an envelope that actually only contains one print. Apparently when I ship to Carlson, i need to ship Blank Prints instead of regular prints, which probably have a name but no one here has seen fit to tell me what that is yet either. Although, really, I don't need to know since I answer phones. The difference between a blank print and a regular print is, well, one generally has fuzzy fax machine lines on it and one doesn't. Nope, not kidding. I mean, don't get me wrong, the drawings are different but they're different for every part, for every customer, for every order, so there is not constant there. They don't say anything different on them or have any mitigating factor other than that the blank prints come off of the printer, not the fax.

Off I go in my pink sweater and cute non-manufacturing friendly shoes to go find the blank prints that aren't in the job packets. Wait a minute? I'm in the master files and, yet, there isn't a single blank print in any of these folders. Why not? Linda? No. Ronnie? No. Scott? No. Char? No. Glen? No. Well what the hell, where are the blank prints? They're on the bosses computer? You mean to tell me he sent me off to find a blank print and the only place they are in existence is his PC which only he has access to and I was just in his office and he knows I don't have the blank print? Oy vey.

After a little poking and prodding of one of the few females in the office I discover that they've already made copies of the proper prints, which they had my boss print for them, attached them to new copies of the purchase orders and placed them with the material in question. Now, naturally, they're not going to tell me this because my boss wants me to learn how to do this.

Now, pardon me, and half of the office, for saying so, but I the only thing I learned here is the difference between a regular print and a blank print. Don't get me wrong, this will doubtless prove to be a valuable piece of information if I continue working here, however, I'm a fast learner - he could've just held up two prints and said this is a "blank print" this is a "regular print." Carlson gets blank prints. If you ever need one, come and get me so I can print it because I'm far to lazy to give them to Linda to put into job packets. The problem here was not with my faxing skills, nor my originzational skills, nor my looking skills. The problem here was with the fact that my boss never gave me the proper print. A more seasoned employee (someone who had been told the difference between the two types of prints) would have realized the print was missing and gone to ask for it immediately, but as I had no idea, I didn't.

Things like this happen every day to the girl who answers the phones.

Sensing my disgust with the entire situation, my exhaustion, frustration over certain family members putting certain deceased family members in certain plastic containers with blue lids that can be purchased at the grocery store 10 for $2, and massive caffeine consumption over the last 72 hours, others seemed to anticipate that the odds of me walking into said bosses office, throwing the job tickets down on his desk and launching into a tirade about how backwards this company is run and that if he did his job in the first place and gave that print to Linda when he gave her the purchase order for the tooling, like he is supposed to, this could have been, and would have been, done correctly, (I probably also would have finished in a lovely flourish of throwing my morning coffee at him as I walked out the front door) Linda went into Colin's office whilest I was doing my job (remember, I answer phones) and had at him about a) trying to teach an intelligent person a lesson as if they were a four year old and b) not doing his job in the first place. Linda can do that - she's the owners sister-in-law.

Now, I'm not only midly depressed, over-tired, coffee-less, and hungry, but I have a horrible migraine and in addition to the remaining funeral arrangments and assorted things I need to finish in conjunction with that tonight, I have find a new job because I'm having visions of growing up to be Linda. (She's worked here for 12 years and she's constantly about two seconds from quitting because, apparently, everything here is run like this and always has been.)

Oy vey.