Drama at work is wearing me out.

[easjer]

It's nothing that involves me directly, but the result has been a mixture of gossip and endless revolving speculation. And while I'm as scandalized, and thus illated and a gossip , I'm also getting tired of it all. Because it inevitably leads back to the same old thing, which is that nothing here changes and it never will and I'm not happy here.

I guess it's getting to be time to go looking again. What an exhausting thought.

[Old School Chic]

It's nothing that involves me directly, but the result has been a mixture of gossip and endless revolving speculation. And while I'm as scandalized, and thus illated and a gossip , I'm also getting tired of it all. Because it inevitably leads back to the same old thing, which is that nothing here changes and it never will and I'm not happy here.

I guess it's getting to be time to go looking again. What an exhausting thought.

I have so many wishes
That I've stored up in my heart
Today I sit here thinking-
I'm not sure where to start.

I wish to send you Smiles
So that all throughout your day
You'll think of only happy things
And life will go your way.

Next, I wish to send you Hugs
The warm and snuggly kind
You'll feel them with you constantly
More sincere hugs you couldn't find.

Of course, I wish you lots of Love
Forever and especially for you
A heart filled with love so sweet
Never-ending and oh so true.

Sunshine, Laughter and all Happy things
I wish for you today
And all God's Blessings be with you
Forever and in so many ways.

[spurs_fan_in_exile]

I say go in there Disgruntled Postal Worker Style and start mowing some es down, then plead insanity. If a Houston jury could let Andrea Yates off then I think you could pull it off. Your coworkers make far less sympathetic victims than her kids were. And then there'd be some better paying positions open in your office.

I'd wait for you to get out too.

[angel_luv]

It's nothing that involves me directly, but the result has been a mixture of gossip and endless revolving speculation. And while I'm as scandalized, and thus illated and a gossip , I'm also getting tired of it all. Because it inevitably leads back to the same old thing, which is that nothing here changes and it never will and I'm not happy here.

I guess it's getting to be time to go looking again. What an exhausting thought.

You need to find a job in San Antonio and move here.

[Vashner]

All jobs have a water cooler....

So share the dirt?? We want to know.

[IX_Equilibrium]

I am very thankful I do not work in an office environment. I would go mad.

[ShoogarBear]

It's been awhile since we've had a update. Details, please. I need to finish my screenplay.

[easjer]

Shoogerbear

Sorry for being away so long, I just had an impromptu three hour meeting with another colleague touching on this whole mess but also on a myriad of other issues.

So, the dish. I'll try to make it brief, so it probably won't sound nearly as scandalous as it has been. Basically, we held an event on Saturday which was a recruitment effort to get the premier students to commit by offering early advising and registration (typically happens over the summer - the earlier they do it, the better the class selection). Because it mirrors what we do over the summer, we used student volunteers to advise the students and the staff registered them and double checked their schedules for errors before they left. With me?

OK. One staff member, H, was unable to be there early due to a conflict. Because my colleague and myself were set to register students and we used student advisors, and the asst. dean was personally checking schedules, we didn't need H to be there. The asst dean told her she could have the day off, but she was affronted at the suggestion. So the asst dean told her she could come back and register students with me and our colleague (who holds a higher position to her, while mine is comparable - so it's not like it was total degradation and grunt work).

Instead, when she showed up, she went into the advising room. We purposefully did not have a staff presence, instead playing up the student to student involvement (we had failsafes if someone did wind up with an inappropriate schedule, we'd catch it). So she starts interrupting students and picking apart schedules and basically insertin herself brusquely where she was neither wanted or needed. It made the students look bad to the prospective students and parents and it made the incoming folks question our set-up (did the students really know what they were doing if this advisor here is changing everything?). It basically undermined a lot of what we were trying to do. And further, H has a very bad habit of overanalyzing. A student may need a visual and performing arts credit, so they are advised to take an art history course, since one fits in their schedule. A good advisor will further ask if art is of interest and offer a couple other alternatives. That's as far as it needs to go. H will get into 20 minute conversations about which era of art history they would prefer to study, and convince them (while 20 students wait in line behind the one she's dealing with) that they'd rather take art history 2. Which unfortunately conflicts with their entire schedule and they end up in a tailspin because they have to rearrange everything to fit in the art history 2 they've been told to take, when art history 1 fit their schedule and the core requirements, etc. Fine thing to be that involved when you've got 1 student in your office and unlimited time. Problematic when you've got 20 students in line, everyone in a rush and then demand more of your colleague's time to 'fix' these schedules that are perfectly fine as is.

So. Saturday. She's not where she's supposed to be, she where she's not supposed to be, and starts picking at things. She nitpicks a bunch of schedules and comes around to one student advising session. The parents were with the student and made it clear that the student was not to take any classes after 3 pm. So the advisor was having a difficult time creating a schedule, due to lab conflicts. H inserts herself, and without knowing any of the above, decides that the volunteer is taking up too much time and starts YELLING at the student. She calls her incompetant and slow, and talks down to the student, all of this IN FRONT OF the prospective student, the student's family, and every other student volunteer and prospective student present. The volunteer ended up leaving the room in tears and was consoled by the mother of the student!

This is wrong and inappropriate on so many levels. If the student was truly incompetant and wrong, then the appropriate thing to do is take them aside or follow up later, not yell at them. And under no cir stances, yell at a student who is volunteering her time. And never, ever, ever, ever yell in front of prospective students and parents. It makes the college look bad, it makes the student look bad, it makes H look bad.

The result was that people were so angry about this, that it spilled over into the post-mortem meeting (which I unfortunately missed) and blew up. H started talking about how she 'never quite made it back to the registration room' but was instead 'helping answer tricky questions in the advising room.' The asst dean looked at her point blank and said, "You think making a student cry is helpful?" and it went downhill from there by all accounts. They had another meeting about it and H met with the dean about it as well (and he almost never gets involved in anything anymore).

But that has brought up all these other issues that I can't even get into without loads of backstory that would bore you to tears. My boss told me Tuesday to find another job, because she thinks I'd be happier elsewhere, being more challenged and making more money, and she can't give me either. My coworker today told me to get a master's, because I can teach at the community college level with a master's ( , with 18 graduate hours in history), and that would at least give me options. And it turns out that the staff scholarships have gone up, and would cover a full class (and fees) and I can take a class as a post-bac and up to 6 hours will count towards graduate studies. So I'm seriously considering that right now. I want a PhD anyway, so . . .

[angel_luv]

Team assignments can be relly hard- depending on who you end up working with. I hope your next project is more pleasant.

[ShoogarBear]

Hmm, not quite what I had hoped. Needs some punching up.

For the movie, I'm going to change the art history class to "History of Sexual Deviance". Also, I'm going to make H the psychopathic ex-girlfriend of the father of the kid trying to register.

I see Kathy Baker as H and Paul Giamatti as one of your co-workers. Who do you want to play you?

[easjer]

Heh. We are a small group - we all work with each other on nearly all our projects. Glory be.

It should mean something when your boss (as hers did) says during your review that you should look for another job because you are getting blamed for everything that goes wrong. When you've been around for 9 years and have only gotten the state-wide cost of living raises (no merit raises). When someone who used to be your assistant is promoted, given 70% of your job, and is given a job reclassification (when you've been asking for one for three years) and makes the same salary in three years that you've acheived in 9.

It should mean it's time to start looking elsewhere, don't you think?

[ashbeeigh]

I'm sorry to hear about all that stuff. Good luck on the future! Graduate school is such a crazy adventure.

[easjer]

Sorry, Shooger. However, your adaptations are terrific, and right on. I should, in reality, be played by someone very large with long hair, but to fulfill my husband's fantasies, let's go with Angie Everheart.

And, for kicks, make the business administrator out to be stealing from the college, and that should help (he's not stealing from us, but hey, I'm not overly fond of him anyway).

[ShoogarBear]

Okay, but then you get to cast your husband, too.

[easjer]

Totally Keifer Sutherland. Well, he's a little old to be playing my husband, but I can live with that, you know? Acting is never perfect when portraying real people.

:wink

[spurs_fan_in_exile]

Cast me as me! I'm the only one who can possibly truthfully portray the depths and complexities of myself. Sutherland, while talented, doesn't have the skills that I do to accurately portray a man who deeply loves his wife, but still wants to get naked in a tastefully done sex scene with Angie Everheart.

[easjer]

Ahem.

No.

[spurs_fan_in_exile]

Fine, but no one in there right mind is going to buy me being played by Jack Bauer. If Jack Bauer ran the UH info center it would be a dismal failure, because no one gets information out of Jack Bauer.

[ploto]

I'm sorry to hear about all that stuff. Good luck on the future! Graduate school is such a crazy adventure.

Graduate school is great!!

[ShoogarBear]

Fine, but no one in there right mind is going to buy me being played by Jack Bauer. If Jack Bauer ran the UH info center it would be a dismal failure, because no one gets information out of Jack Bauer.

I'm starting to think maybe Jim Carey.

[easjer]

You wouldn't be far off there. . . my husband is a very handsome man, but what attracted me most was his incredible (and varied) sense of humor.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

You think thet's bad

our secretary got fired for credit card fraud at the boss' expense.

[easjer]

Ooooo. That's bad.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Now we're all ed and have to get there 10 minutes earlier!

that's ten extra ing minutes I could be using to play The Sims: Ghetto Drama

[ShoogarBear]

10 minutes early stops credit card fraud?