I don't know how it is at your job, but not too long after I started at mine, a "reign of terror" began, and it wasn't uncommon to come to work only to find that yet another co-worker had been booted out the door for no good reason. It was the same at my sister's job, worse actually. Her boss believed that it was good policy to fire people randomly (and often), just to make sure nobody slacked off or tried to cross him. Anyhow, things have been much better at my job over the past few years--no one has been fired since at least, oh, 2003--but I still unconsciously brace myself for a trip to the unemployment office whenever the boss seems unhappy or wants to see me in his office. Imagine how I felt at lunch one day last week, then, when my supervisor came in to the breakroom and announced (in front of three of my co-workers and a volunteer) in an unhappy-sounding tone that he wanted me to be in his office at 4:00. "Four o'clock?" I thought, alarm bells ringing. You see, that's the end of the day. And the end of the day is when they fire people. Actually, the end of the day on Friday is when they usually fire people. "Oh, well, at least it's not Friday," I said to myself and then immediately began to panic as I realized, "Holy *%@#, it's Friday!!!!" [Pardon my bad language. I'm not usually prone to swearing, but, I'm sorry to say, when I panic, sometimes the bad words just come out. Anyway, I was sure I was going to get fired.]
I hurried back to my office in order to clean all of the personal messages about of my e-mail account. There's nothing obscene in my e-mail, mind you, it's just that I don't want my co-workers reading about my diet failures or my occasional "digestive difficulties," which I am prone to discussing with my close friends via e-mail. I opened up my "saved messages" folder and glanced in horror at the number of messages I had saved there--more than 4,000! "That can't be right," I thought to myself, but yes, it was. I hastily began forwarding them to my personal e-mail account, but didn't have time to forward more than about 1500 before my meeting rolled around. My left shoulder muscle got all kinked up from repetitive motion.
As it turned out, my supervisor just wanted to make sure that I knew that I have absolutely no decision-making authority whatsoever. Apparently, I had made a decision about something without consulting him first, and that just will not do. So I learned something that day. It wasn't a good day, but it was an educational one.
6 comments:
Phew! You had me worried there for a little bit. And 4000 emails???? Geesh! Sounds like alot of gastro-intestinal problems to me! >:p
Glad to hear you are still in the land of employment.
Do you have a CD burner on your computer? Because you could just burn all those saved messages on a CD, rather than clogging up your home e-mail account. :-)
4000 emails does seem rather shocking. I realized that I suffer from a similar problem when I tried to clean out my gmail account. I think I was better off in the days of 2 Mb email boxes.
Anyhow, I'm glad you have a job. But your pessimism is laudable - it's always better to be pleasantly surprised than disappointingly surprised.
I agree, Lia. Best be prepared. :)
HMC, I thought about doing something like that, but I don't have Outlook at home, so I was afraid I wouldn't be able to read the e-mail messages on my home computer.
AM, they're not all about gastro-intestinal problems, silly. Sometimes they're about bad hair days and uncomfortable clothing. >:p
Oh, how joyful! To know that you have absolutely no power or ability to make a decision in your job, to know that your employer trusts you so little with such decision-making needs, to know that your boss is a micro-manager!
love your job! embrace it! give it hugs and kisses!
hmph. or not.
Oh, Pops...
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