Work Nonsense
2002-10-30 � 9:22 a.m.

Beware: I am now going to kvetch about werk.

When I started my current job, I was responsible for half the managerial duties of a staff of ten to thirteen people (it changes from term to term), and the maintenance and upkeep of one hundred and fifty computers, plus being on call for emergency technical support.

Now, just over two years later, my responsibilities have shifted somewhat, as they are wont to do. Now, of my managerial duties, only the most difficult and unpleasant are left to me: discipline and firings, confronting unruly clients, and anything else that gets left undone (overhauling the employee handbook, etc.). My stable of support has grown to two hundred and thirty-five machines scattered across six buildings.

I'm not complaining, exactly...okay, I am. My coworker's responsibilities have remained almost static, except for the managerial stuff, which is really just clerical paperwork like scheduling and payroll paperwork. I have assumed a number of her technical duties either because she was unable to fulfill them or because my own perfectionism was dissatisfied with the manner in which she was going about them. So I guess not static -- they've shrunk. Plus *I* have to work on Saturdays, and have had to do so for the two years I've been at the job, just because she was unemployed when she got hired so she was able to start sooner and got to pick what days she wanted. I had to put in my two weeks at my previous job, so I got the dregs. How does that work?

I can't tell you how maddening it was last month, while I was working overtime everyday, to come by and see her playing fucking Freecell at her desk (a thing she does compulsively and mechanically, apparently taking no joy from it).

Last week, at an impromptu staff meeting, we were discussing the division of duties in our department, because it has become apparent even to my boss that things are disparately distributed between us (and he's afraid I'm going to quit, which would be very, very bad for them). This meeting was prompted by the fact that the Computer Science Department is pushing for a lab upgrade before next term (either dual- or triple-boot systems, which, though they refuse to see it, would basically double or triple my workload for that room). Plus the Science and Technology Division (also under my umbrella of responsibility) want to add a lab over in their building. My coworker was not present for this meeting as it was her day off, and when I suggested that she could take over some of these new duties, the rest of the staff actually laughed. The discussion seemed to be centered on deciding which of my current responsibilities was the least amount of work, so that I could turn them over to her.

Argh!

Then there's my boss. I'm not actually sure what he does -- maybe go to meetings. Mostly he seems to sit at his desk, listen to the radio, and flip back and forth between the department calendar and the spreadsheet with our budget on it. Oh, and take vacation, of which he has about a year stored up.

I'm probably being unkind, but my annoyances with him are indeed mounting. Like this new push from Computer Science. He is, rightfully so, the contact point for their inquiries about timelines and technical feasibility. My problem is that he's a former tech himself, and he has the Geek Disease: he refuses to admit that he doesn't know things, and so pretends he does. Instead of asking me, or even inviting me to the meetings, he just talks out of his ass, and I'm the one who's going to have to end up implementing whatever garbage he agrees to.

Normally, he does know what he's talking about (mostly), but he knows linux about that much, that it's called "linux." Now we're talking about dual- or triple-booting a lab into multiple OS-es that he isn't familiar with, and I don't even get to be part of the conversation. I was at my desk yesterday while he was meeting with some CS faculty, and I was gritting my teeth in frustration hearing just the bits of conversation I could catch. The faculty were talking about the partitions and file systems and kernel versions they would want, and if was going to be possible, and he wasn't able to tell them anything concrete, but just talk around it in a really unconvincing way -- which just makes us all look bad. He wasn't asking them *any* of the questions I would have asked. Why are we talking about this when we have a perfectly good server that anyone can have an account on? Is it so you can run Xwindows? Is it because you want everyone to have root access? Is it so you can look cool? (I wouldn't really ask that question...at least not phrased that way.)

I'm dreading this, even though it's more in line with what actually interests me (though it comes at a bad time -- I actually got the systems administrator to ask me if I wanted to take over admin duties on the linux server, even though she was joking at the time; if she thought it even to joke about, she still thought it). No doubt the Christmas Holiday will be full of cold weather, good cheer, and more overtime for Yours Truly.

I've made some tactical errors at work lately, due to this frustration. Saying things to people I wouldn't normally say...my temper has been short, and I've snapped at people and complained out loud about things that I should just keep my mouth shut about (or bitched about here on DLand).

Sigh.

I have to keep my eyes on the prize! NaNoWriMo starts soon! My Regrets plays Tiger Bar on Thursday for Halloween! Aubrey's band plays at Reed on Friday! The goddamn Dismemberment Plan next week! Plus Hey Mercedes, Andrew W.K. and Glassjaw all next month!

It all seems flat somehow.

-t

Currently Aurally Inducing: Daisy Chainsaw, Love Your Money
Selection of the Lyrical Vocabulary: "You'll sell worldwide, we mean it really; shape your image and we'll all be wealthy."

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