measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jumping through hoops of responsibility I've noticed since I joined the business world that the concept of responsibility for one's own actions is blatantly avoided by most employees. Moreso even than the college student who stays out all night, gets sloshed, and then drags into class, clearly hungover, to tell his professor that he had a family emergency to go and was unable to complete the 15 page term paper that was assigned six weeks prior. One of my managers seems to be most adept at blowing off this responsibility. He's in charge of the math textbooks that we are working on--currently Geometry, Algebra 1, and Algebra 2, as well as the prototype for new Middle Grade Math books. He whines because there aren't enough people on his projects compared to the rest of them (fine, it's a valid complaint... he has a person per book where most of them have two or three). He wants to hire new people (again, fine... we have the money). He wants to have them start before the end of June (here... not fine. We're in the middle of moving over 150 people to various new cubicles within the building, 40 or so being in MY department... and we just don't have a seat for anyone until mid-July). He pitches a fit, demands that this person start before the end of June. In fact, no... he NEEDS this person to start no later than June 15th. I can't, I say. I have no room until after our department moves start happening, because all of those currently empty cubicles on the 2nd floor get claimed over the next couple weeks. Well, that's unacceptable, he says. I need this person to work on this project, and there has to be somewhere where she can have a desk and a computer, and until the moves are done, that's all she needs. Oh-kay. Fine... lemme see what I can do, I say. I jump through hoops. I pull in some cross-department favors with other admins. I somehow manage to get this person to be sitting at someone's desk (who is on vacation) for this week, and then she'll get her own desk as of next Monday. Get all the paperwork through. She's ready? Great. Good. Starts 9:30 a.m. Monday the 11th. Cool. Got it. Drop him an email. We're all set. You just have to meet her on Monday morning to show her what she'll be doing. Fine, no problem, he says. The bastard doesn't come in this morning. Lisa (the new employee) is in the lobby, and the bastard, after all of the friggin hoops I had to go through for him, doesn't even have the consideration or gratitude to bother to come into the office on time to get her set up to work, since he needed her to start YESTERDAY. How the hell am *I* supposed to know what project she's specifically doing... especially on her first day?!? And the kicker is, he did this two months ago with the LAST new employee on his books. And he wants to hire four more people for his projects. Asshole. I haven't chewed him out yet. I decided to mention it to Linda, though, and she agrees with me... especially considering his obnoxious behavior about the whole ordeal and how he NEEDED this woman to start right now. And I'm sure as soon as I confront him on it, he'll try to lay the responsibility on me. Because after all--I'm an administrative assistant, so therefore I should know everything. I push the paperwork and get the original paperwork set up. The rest is up to you, pal. My responsibility ends where your MANAGER title begins. --mel 12:59 p.m. - 11 June 2001 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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