Resolutions

It's that time. It's New Year's Eve. I hate this day actually. I hate looking back at the year that passed and saying "Man, I just didn't do anything that I wanted to do". This year, it seems to be a lot of that. But, I want to look forward. But looking forward right now doesn't seem that cherry. Each time I see my mom she talks about another food that is going to be eliminated from the house for 3 to 6 months as she takes on chemo and radiation. She says that I can still have it, but that's entirely wrong for me. What if I'm making chicken one day for myself and its the one thing that she wants to eat. I can't possibly bring chicken in this house if she can't eat it.

So, before I get off on another topic, here are the resolutions:

Work:
- I will clean my desk by the end of January.
- I will get one training and/or test for certification
- I will realize that I'm doing my best and that's all that I can do.

Personal:
- I will no longer wink in the online dating. Everyone winks. It's time to write emails.
- I will do whatever it takes to get my mom through all of this and I will not physically harm my sister in the process (although I'm sure it is going to be damn tempting).
- I will go on vacation, even if I have to go by myself and be bored out of my mind. I cannot wait until September when my mother "may" be able to go on vacation with me. I'm getting out of here. I need away from all this craziness.
- I will continue on my diet, no matter how many dietary restrictions my mother gets and no matter how many nights she craves things like Burger King Whoppers (which is what she has been talking about for two weeks!)
- I will exercise, whenever I get the time. It may be dancing with the Wii, but it counts!
- I will try to take care of myself as well as I can. It's going to be hard while taking care of someone else, who isn't going to slow down at all.

Ok, I have to stop this list before I get even more depressed. I feel like I can already chalk up 2008 to being hell. I thought that life was going to get better at some point, but right now, it's just one thing after another. It will be even more difficult if my sister gets the job closer to our house. She'll claim that she is around to "help" but I know my sister. It will be about "free food" and other things. I still can't believe that my mom gave her money for parking at the hospital!

Need to Vent

Maybe I haven’t been blogging just because I haven’t been able to do anything at work about my current situation. Maybe I haven’t been blogging because I’m sick of every entry sounding like a complaint – they aren’t supposed to be, but they just are. Maybe I haven’t been blogging simply because there are hundreds of things to do and simply not enough time in the world to do them.

 

But today, I just needed to blog to vent. It has everything to do with a person named Texas. (Of course I can’t use her real name). I was friends with her when I worked retail and brought her over to my real job with the retail store went under. At first, she did anything I asked, which was nice. I had true help. But then, the ugly head of Texas was found (I like to call it Bush). Bush is an evil person. Bush is a liar. Bush is a manipulator. Bush uses humor and jokes to turn the power in the agency towards thinking Texas is nice. Bush backstabs you a hundred times before you even know that she has started.

 

So, about two months ago, the PG (being a brilliant boss that he is) asked me to “Just keep the peace” and not to “make her be Bush”. So basically, this means pulling back on asking her to do *ANYTHING* of work for me. So simply, I’m doing all the technical support for the entire agency without anyone to rely upon. In fact, it has gotten so bad that the PG has gone back to being my backup. So much for the whole days worth of training we gave Texas with a board member and then with a technician for our support company (whom she has equated to the anti-god or some other evil spirit thing – although he is a sweetheart to me and does me extra favors all the time!) The PG being my backup isn’t working out too well, he isn’t here half of the time.

 

So, Texas/Bush has gone and tried to make friends with other coworkers, but it’s almost sad. She hangs out with the Hoove-er, who is almost as creepy as the name sounds. He cracks jokes about movies that aren’t even funny and if there is a pun in the world, he says it over and over again. And he just stands there and watches people. Yuck! So he has become her new best friend. Which I don’t really care about – it keeps her away from me.

 

However, when we were getting our new phone system, Texas made the decision to tell everyone in the building to come to her first with problems, that she would help them first. Well, that’s all find and good, but most of the time the problems are not user-based it’s more technical end. I have to change a password or for some reason our phone conferencing went down. Well, they all go to her first and then Bush arrives because she can’t fix the problem. I’m not going to train someone on things like this if they aren’t going to do simple things like peel the labels off of printer drums because they bought cheap-crappy labels. So, naturally it takes three to four times longer to get the problem reported to me because Texas/Bush has to pretend to know what she is doing.

Then, usually when it finally gets to me, I get hollered/snapped at/hissed at/complained at by Bush about how long it is taking and how she doesn’t want to ask me to do anything. Well, isn’t that funny... I can’t ask her to do anything and she doesn’t want to ask me to do anything. Well, I didn’t start this craziness. I’m not the one with the mood swings that would cause any swing to spin around the top bar at a rate too fast to watch. I’m always the overworked techie. I’m always on edge because there is always something breaking.

 

But holding my tongue as Texas turns into Bush in front of people that I respect and I care about what they  think about me has come to an end. I’m done with it. I’ve told the PG this too. He is the one that created this mess by never addressing his lack of ability to control and manage her. He had held the peace too long and never did anything.

I have too many things to do around here in the next month to sit here and take this abuse. I’m heading towards hiding in the server room (although it’s like a freezer in there) and only coming out when I have too. It’s awful that my work environment has become so hostile, but this is what it has become. I can never know what kind of person is arriving at work for the day... is it Texas or is it Bush. One can never tell. One can never tell how quickly Texas can change into Bush.

 

My bets are on that the PG doesn’t do what he said he was going to do. He said that he was going to sit her down and talk to her about these things. I’ve heard these promises before. I always hear these promises. He hates conflict and he hates making someone do their work. He isn’t going to address this – I’d bet money on this!  He is just going to hope that this blows over, that I get used to doing all of this extra work and that I don’t turn around and holler/snap/hiss/complain back to her someday. Of course, if that happens, I’m sure that I’ll be the one that is wrong. I’m always the one that is wrong. And the PG has no problem when it comes to telling me what is wrong and what I have done wrong.

The best training conference yet

Did you know that 30 million people that mobile blog? Yep - that's me today!

The head of homestead.com is here and is great. He has these myths of the internet and blowing them away.

I need more trainings like this.

Plus they have great coffee.