Thursday 29 May 2008

Drowning Not Waving

I'm not been feeling the love for my job this week, I feel like I’ve been spending far too much time following up with certain more senior people who should be responsible enough to meet client deadlines when they promise they will and not call me at the last minute and bother me with questions they should have asked days ago. Grrrrr!!!

Do they think I don’t have enough work of my own to do? Are they labouring under some freakish misapprehension that I sit at my desk twiddling my thumbs waiting for their call?

The only good thing to happen this week was the arrival of a dozen bottles of sparkling rosé from Domaine Carneros vineyards in Napa. Not all twelve were mine; I’m not that much of a lush. No, five were for Emma, three for Debs and four for me. "This is the best thing that's happened to me all week" said Emma "we need to find a BYOB where we can drink them. Are you around next Thursday?"

To be honest I almost didn't make it as far as that evening, never mind next Thursday, my day became so much more stressful that by 4pm I was ready to pop a cork and drink one, lukewarm and straight from the bottle. Classy!! I resisted and instead coerced Emma into accompanying me to Starbucks for tea and cinnamon coffee cake as a diversion.

It’s funny; I took on a larger share of the workload on a particular client a couple of months ago as my boss needed to put someone in charge of coordinating the work we are doing. I agreed to take on the role only on the condition that my boss would hire someone to cover all the smaller clients I was taking care of, but yesterday - as I was suddenly bombarded with requests from all angles - it hit me...we haven't hired anyone yet and muggins here is now stuck working for seven clients.

Seven clients...seven!!!!

This Fish is not happy!!

Anyway at least this weekend I get to relax. I’m blowing this coconut stand to head down to Charleston for a dirty weekend with Catweazle :-) Fun fun fun. I’m also extremely happy to escape all the Sex & the City movie mania that’s everywhere in New York at the moment: hotels are even offering
Sex and the City weekend packages for the hoards of single women expected in town for the movie release. I’ll be glad when it’s all over. It’s not that I disliked the show, but that film is wayyyy too overhyped, still, I’ll probably catch it on cable when it comes out in a few months.

11 comments:

Sister Sassy said...

I get the thumb twiddling. My boss emailed me a doc to open, save, rename and send back to him. A little on the offensive side, don't you think??

Have fun with Cat!

Anonymous said...

Fish, I totally feel for you, hon!

Have been trying to keep my head above water, myself... But, as you said - the weekend's almost here!

Hope your visit with Catweazle is enough to melt your troubles away!

fishwithoutbicycle said...

Hi Sassy, LOL your boss has some cheek. I'd have been tempted to say "yes of course, and the next time you go to the bathroom would you like me to wipe your arse for you because you seem incapable of doing things for yourself" ;-)

Hi Spandrel, hang on in there. Funnily enough my client who is about 10years my senior said to me recently that if there's one thing he'd learned in the lifetime of his career it's that he could have worked 20% less hard and it wouldn't have been detrimental to his career. I'm not sure he'd accept that from me though ;-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Fish - you hang in there, too! I've got to say, that's good advice from your client!

It's times like this that I remember the words of another coworker, who'd been promoted to a very senior position... She always said "Think like a duck: smooth and calm on the surface, but paddle like hell underneath!"

fishwithoutbicycle said...

Hi Spandrel, that's a cute maxim, however I worry that if I maintained a calm exterior the powers that be would assume I can cope with an increased workload, so I'll continue to blow my own trumpet ;-)

Kitty said...

Goodness. Well I'm glad you have a wicked weekend ahead!

sounds like you're due for some major recognition, beyond employee of the month. Egad.

Karen ^..^ said...

Good God, your job sounds like stress times ten. Hopefully they will soon hire someone to take the extra workload from you. Hang in there!

I hope you have a great weekend with Catweazle! I love just writing that name...! ;)

Blur Ting said...

Yah, you little overworked fish. What you need now is a Catweazle! ;-)

Heather said...

send a subtle message to your boss...like...get a stick and tape a white flag to hit. hang it outside your office door or atop your cubicle. ....

blech. I'm sorry work is trying to kill you. Thank goodness for Starbucks, Napa and South Carolina :)

Sister Sassy said...

I forgot to tell you once that I asked my boss if he wanted the conference call to take place in my office or his bedroom. I was mortified! It just came out of my mouth for some reason.

It reminded me of your XX OO to your client.

Anonymous said...

what's the deal with sex and the city? i have to admit that i used to occasionally watch it on the gogglebox but now it seems as though some women actually believe they are characters in it. very strange.

aha, a dirty weekend (you can't hear me but i'm doing a french accent 'allo 'allo style). have the big fun, as they say in euroland.