Just Another Battle

I finally decided to stop doing things that were distracting me from sitting down to write.

First thing: work is really getting on my nerves.

I really don't like being set up to fail. It would be some kind of anomaly to do that. We're wired otherwise. That said, that seems to be this whole week. I'm tired of fighting at work. Here's what a day looks like in narrative-ish form:

9 – 11AM: Reply to emails from yesterday. Get asked to be in an impromptu meeting at 11AM. Refuse to comply because we have a company-wide calendar that should have been checked before inviting me.

11 – 12PM: Have a demo. Take notes.

12 – 1PM: This should be my lunch break, but I'm asked to join another impromptu meeting. I do this to be helpful. That leaves me no time to go to lunch. I move on to my 1PM meeting. 

1 – 1:30PM: Get a handle on customer requirements. 

2 – 3PM: Have another demo. More notes. 

3 – 4PM: Deal with impromptu client calls. Get asked more questions. Get looked at for being on the phone. Get asked why I didn't take a lunch break. Get told I need to manage my time better and that my current schedule isn't sustainable. 

4 – 5PM: I see that there is a proposal that needs to be written. I start to write. 

5 – 6PM: My boss asks if I can have an impromptu team meeting. I calmly, but sternly, reply that I have a proposal on my desk that he needs to review so I can send it off and I will not be doing anything resembling another task until this one is done and off my desk after which point he is welcome to any other part of my time he would like. He seems blown away by my response and immediately fulfills my request. He then says that I need to spend less time talking to clients to resolve issues and focus on more sales-oriented activities. 

Then I get home and have to figure out what part of this I feel like dealing with and for how long. I ponder that I'm clearly being set up to fail here; I'm being told I need to leave time free in my day, then I am thrown into this thing and that that I haven't scheduled by people that should be far more prepared to handle what they are asking me to. I'm being told that I need to spend less time supporting customers on the phone, but not given any power to reassure clients that we can respond to problems in a timely fashion. In this case, the rest of the support team that isn't me is in Milan which is +6 hours from Eastern Time. This is not okay as I have to deal with people that have very real problems and can't see a way out.

This isn't okay.

Then when I get home, I'm dealing with the fear and joy of repairing a friendship that the other party is actually being very proactive in trying to repair and trying to do all of my artwork and trying to sleep.

The sleeping is the hard part; it is filled with landscapes of things present, past, and future. Some of it I'm sure has yet to happen in this world. On top of that, it's filled with arguing and fighting.

Just another battle out of the hundreds I'm going to have to fight by the hour and I'm just tired. I want things to work as they should and I want to have a team of people that want to help me succeed. I'm tired already at the thought of another week where I will have to yell at my boss from across a desk because he's mad about something I didn't do only for me to have to correct the fuck out of him for (1) thinking erroneously, (2) not articulating his desires well instead of expecting me to read his mind, and (3) asking me to do what cannot be done.

That last one... man, I have lost my shit more than once this week because of things he said where I finally just snap and go "fine then, give me something I can do right now. The phone is ringing and they have put in five tickets LAST WEEK and nothing has been said and they are freaking out and they are a paying customer. TELL ME WHAT THE PROTOCOL IS WHEN THE PROTOCOL ISN'T WORKING." and watch his stunned silence when he realizes he has no other answer to offer me.

I'm tired of having to prove myself and fight and fight and fight to keep everything in this balance that is entirely to delicate in the first place. It's tiring trying to do all of this and be okay, too.

On top of that, I work with a person that I helped get a job only to have my boss who, for all his annoying habits is very loyal, email me a comment this person made about a particular demo I did. I don't have a problem with his thinking that something could have been done better, but a paragraph to my boss in an email? You couldn't have just told me or brought it up in a team meeting. No. You decide to shade me thinking I wouldn't see it.

Fuck you.

Did I mention how much easier it is to just cut people out of my life these days than to even try to forgive them? I've not said a word to this person since then outside of work. They've been trying to have normal conversations and wanted to go to lunch with me last week. I walked and ate in silence. They asked why. I can't even mention it because I don't want to bring tension to the workplace; I've no patience for that level of drama.

They are moving to my neighborhood. They don't know what I know. They don't know my boss told me. They don't know that they are see-through. They haven't even thought of mentioning it. When I'm at work, you wouldn't know that I'm angry because I'm so professional about it. I have to be.

I always have to be. Polite. Professional. Kind. Thoughtful. A listener.

Then again, I am these things genuinely. However, I am also tired of masking my anger as calm content and pretending to be millions of times more interested than I ever will be with things for which I have no passion.

At least I got to hear a new tune today that I like...