I woke up in a thoroughly foul mood today. It's all finally been just a little too much. I'm talking about my work situation, which I don't go into detail about very often because it would undoubtedly bore you to death. It's been boring me, I can tell you. But today was particularly bad. Because today I realized that not only was Agent A leaving on a ten day trip to Italy at the end of the week, but Agent B was leaving for Puerto Rico for the rest of week starting tomorrow. And Butch isn't due back until Thursday. There's only six agents total, plus Butch, our bookkeeper. And if you've been following this saga at all you know what that means.
This week I will be doing three people's jobs. For no extra pay, no bonus, and no raise in sight.
Now, I'm not the only one in the agency suffering from too much work and too few people to do it. The other four all work very hard, no question. And if it got ridiculously bad I could walk out of there tomorrow and find myself working in a day or two. There's that much work for an agent of my experience and skills. And I'd be making $5000 more a year more just to start if I kept on doing corporate travel. But I don't want to do that, I really don't. Before this year, everything was just fine. It's only since Agent A went on the no-typing schedule that things have become so difficult. I'm sympathetic up to a point, but she just would not take the disability leave she fully earned and get out so the rest of us could get on with our work lives. And I'm fed up. Because I've also had to do the bookkeeper's job part time while he's been out with surgery twice this year for a month each time. I feel positively violent every time I think about having to do the ARC report. I can't express how deeply I loathe that task. It's nothing but putting tickets in order and checking off lists of ticket numbers and tracking down details. It's math. It's tedious. It's soul-killing.
So today I did what I always do when a foul mood blights my outlook. I just kept my mouth shut and stayed out of everyone's way. I went into the back room and sat working on the ARC report, tears threatening while I mentally wrestled with an embarrassingly juvenile sense of injury. Life's not that tough, you know? I'm not suffering from anything more serious than overwork and tedium, but I've never been any good at putting up with those for long periods. I can't think of anything I hate more than being bored by my job, and to be both bored and slammed with too much work makes me want to scream with frustration. Luckily for me, my boss wandered over to see why I looked like a steam kettle about to boil over.
I told her I felt backed into the wall by having to handle so much. That I didn't object to working hard but there didn't seem to be any end in sight. That I wasn't enjoying my job anymore. That I didn't like feeling this way. And she took care of a couple of things right away which eased my mind somewhat. She told Agent A than when she got back from Italy it would be time to set a date for her complete, full return to work or she'd need to take disability. She made sure Agent B's work wouldn't all devolve upon me while I had to do Butch's work. And I felt a lot better just having expressed, however mildly, my problem with the way things have been at the office.
The black mood eventually lifted, but not before I reluctantly decided I was no fit company to go to the baseball game. Anyway, it rained hard all day, and there was a better than 50% chance they were going to call the game for rain. So I bailed out, and went home at the usual time, and made brownies at John's request, and now I am ready to go soak my head. In the hot tub, of course. A most appropriate activity.
Tomorrow, as Scarlet says, will be a better day.
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