Less “Office Ninja” – more “Drunk Ronin”

So, where was I…? This is the way my friend Tony put it, “Shit got real, huh?”

And then I realized that shit really DID get all kinda REAL. “Real” in that morale-annihilating way when some moron slams into you on the street, whacks your morning Starbucks out of your hand spilling it all over your flip-flop-clad feet and you say out-loud to the crowd who has no fucking idea what in sevenhells just happened, “THAT DID NOT JUST HAPPEN!”

Except this DID happen & it’s a bit more serious than sticky, coffee-drink toes and a waste of close-to-if-not exceeding $7.

This could be a great “What NOT to do at Work“ series but for some reason Office Ninjas did not seem the least bit interested in any of my brilliant ideas for a “Bad Secretary” column for their site. Frankly they seem a bit too “The Gentle Gestapos of Work-Ethic” for me but you have to respect their mission. When you’re not snickering about it, that is. They sure could use a little “dark” in their shiny, happy, pink office-bubble. S’all I’m sayin’…

In a nutshell my annual performance review blew chunks. It is basically what happens when your boss ignores you for the better part of 7 years; or pretends to and only takes the problem-that-is-you head on when the last straw has broken the camel’s back… or the camel-toe or whatever-the-hell.

His faulty memory says the following is true – that the work isn’t getting done (not true); that I don’t realize how my work or lack thereof affects others (N/A); that I spend way too much time on the internet (uh-oh), that I pawn my work off on others (not true) and that, according to my task list I am lying about being “overwhelmed”. Honestly, it was less about the number of tasks and more about the percentage of menial monotony. Let’s be clear.

He forgets that I turned down that Health Center spot in 2011 out of loyalty to him, the department and a project that I was sole lead on for 4 years.  That and he might be paying more attention to the Internet Usage Report IT gave him than I thought (Jinkies!)

I don’t ALWAYS do stupid things at work, but when I DO…  

Holy. Fucking. Hell. The ONE THING that might be kind of true, and by “kind of” I mean totally fucking-FUCKED true, is the thing that can actually get me fired on the spot.

All I know is that when you pseudo-demote lunatics and give a pass to every bird-lady and lunchtime walkaholic it makes good people just a wee bit bitter. And when you make unreasonable blanket-statements like “the work isn’t getting done” it is basically giving me license to:

• Make you a list of everything that has gotten done this year; or
• Do absolutely nothing until you grow a pair and fire me

So I decided to do a daily task log which details EVERYTHING done each and every day. It will NOT be padded with meaningless drivel like “Typed message from golf-buddy” or “Replaced tissues on my desk”. There is really no need for that since my 3-day average is about 21.667 meaningful, involved tasks per day.

How different would it be if I wasn’t doing any of those 21.667 things every day…?

Referring to myself as “ROGUE SECRETARY” colors me a bright shade of DRUNK-RONIN

I also decided NOT to let being in trouble get me down. I even made the boss laugh: In true dumber-than-I-look form, I entered our campus lot through the “OUT” driveway on Tuesday since summer traffic was clogging up the entrance at 8:56 AM. Summer-Program Wench now seeks blood so our facilities assistant gave me a courtesy call. Boss asked what it was about so I relayed the tale and punctuated it with, “‘Rogue-Secretary’ is at it again, right?”  He laughed, but note that this is 4 days after my damning review… Brilliant!

I also dropped it like it’s hot. During a filename search that had absolutely nothing to do with the recent drama stew I found a report/letter written by me in 2013 detailing my then 5-year ordeal existing under the thumb of the Jar Jar Bitchface. I never showed it to anyone and had completely forgotten about it.

So I emailed it. To my Director. And, I blind-copied my Administrative Manager, Mrs. O’Connor. This is what happens when you put an Administrative Assistant in charge of hiring her contemporary – you create an awkward alliance which will probably result with at least 2 people screwed in the end.

My summer uniform

Although my motivation, my professional fulfillment and a good portion of my work-ethic have definitely atrophied, you better believe I can still find the double-negative in correspondence written by a pedigreed professional with more degrees and licenses on his wall than I have posts about sunshine and fucking rainbows. Damn straight!

As for WHAT happens next, your guess is as good as mine.  Perhaps I should get some legal advice, just in case…