Random Crap

I know I haven't written in forever but I've been busy having my ass handed to me by my Big Boss and dealing with the fall out of all of that shit. A few months back I was foolish enough to thing that if you work your ass off, that good things may actually happen for you. BAH! After much effort and a possible promotion dangling in front of me, I was called into the Big Boss' office and told that while my work is great my people skills sucked ass. I added the ass part. He did say that they sucked though. I apparently pissed off the wrong people when I told them that they can't have everything for free and that if the quality of their data looked bad they might want to run some quality controls prior to giving the samples to me. These incidents occurred at a couple different times but whatever. I sucked. I was too aggressive according to the Big Boss. Would they say that if I was a guy? Maybe I don't know. I was bitter (ok still am) and depressed for a long while. I was told that I needed to meet with the head of HR and learn how to deal with difficult people. BAH. Ok I have done these things because if the boss tells you to do it, you do it. But in the process my self confidence has plummeted into the toilet. I've grown bitter about having put in all the effort only to feel like I was shit upon. Yes I am using this information as a learning experience but it still sucks.

So instead of writing, I sat and have read about other peoples lives. At the end of the day I still have my job but the shine is off the apple a bit. They haven't officially hired someone for that promotion yet but I doubt that it's gonna be me. Maybe I shouldn't even want it. It will require working with those people that are the most problematic.

When I was in the fourth grade I transferred out of Catholic school to the public school across the street. There, I was a virtual rock star. Ok I was teacher's pet but to me that was a rock star. I got away with all sorts of shit, mostly because I finished my assignments before everyone else. I would schedule Mr F's tennis appointments and vet appointments and all sorts of crap. Yeah I was basically his secretary but no one else got to use the phone in the teacher's lounge. When I was in the fifth grade, I was no longer special. Mr D made sure that everyone got a chance to do something special. He used bingo chips. We were all assigned numbers at the start of the year and when he wanted something done he shook the container (ala Vinnie Testa's) and if your number was picked you got to do something cool. Ok I got over that disappointment because I knew that I was really smart. Smarter, in fact than most of the kids in my class. Yeah I knew I was near the top of my class but I was proud of that. I knew that I could lead people. Until one day when we were split into groups. There were four of us in a group. Ann G was in there. She was near the top of the class too. I actually wasn't sure which one of us was smarter. I always hoped it was me because Ann was in the popular group and thus I disliked her.

When you transfer schools and you don't come from some sexy new location (i.e. the West Coast or even Pennsylvania), you either have to be really pretty or really to get into the popular group. Although I'm really cute, I have an overbearing mother and a long series of hand-me-down clothes. I was never going to fit in.But I knew I was smart so it was something. How2 stated these feeling much more eloquently in her Queen Bee post. Anyhow, there I was in a group and it was some sort of mapping project. Everyone sat down and started talking about how to address the task at hand. And when they were done I pointed out that they were wrong and that there was a better, simpler way of doing it. Well Mr D pulled me aside and told me that I wasn't allowed to do that. I didn't understand why. According to him I needed to do what the rest of the group said even if it was wrong. To this day I don't get that shit. Either let me point out how to fix the problem or let me do this by myself.

I bring up this incident, which obvious still bothers me, because in the office with the big boss, I felt like I was in the fifth grade again. If I can't indicate that certain actions are going to compromise the results, because somebody else's feeling may be hurt what the hell is the point? No one cares that my feelings were hurt. I was told not to take it personally but when you are told that YOUR people skills suck, it is personal. Basically you are told to sit there are take it even if it's wrong and then take all the blame when the people are pissed about the results. I need this job so I take it. But it sucks balls.