My morning so far:

:)


Blue skies, the hopeful lure of Guys and Dolls, wearing my favorite heals (because its sunny, and so I can!)... sipping my coffee and walking the 6 blocks from my stop to work.

:(



Every morning the size of the stack of "files" to close or send letters, or etc... has doubled. This is a task on top of my normal responsibilities, one that used to be done by an outside person (originally what I was doing before I was hired). Apparently, he has been trying to make the person who does my job do them for a couple years now. After telling him several times I was willing to do them, but it would require me to work more overtime and it would be more cost-effective if they continued to have the other girl do them. Well, I'm not sure what his thinking is, but he started just sticking the files on my desk with a note each morning, dated, telling me to get them closed. We've had a short low in some of my responsibilities (not too many seminars), plus I HATE my desk being messy, so I started doing them. Kristin said "uh oh. you're going to let him win?" Because she knew what was coming. Every day the stack has doubled, and I've been working up to an hour and half of overtime each day trying to keep up. Finally, this morning, I walked in to this! I had a minor anxiety attic. I kid you not. My desk- covered! A MESS! And I realized, this is never going to end?! Every day I am going to work late, and work like crazy throughout the day, to get my desk clean, and every morning I will return to it covered, a mess, myself disastrously behind before the day has even begun! AWWW! My boss walked out just then and I told him he was out of control... and reminded him that on top of the 20-some hours of work he has stacked up on my desk, I also have 2 coursebooks (over 500 pages total!) to edit and recompile for our Spring supplements, and we have 2 in-house seminars I need to prepare for next week!

It was then that Kristin brought me wisdom, "Right now, you are Rumplestiltskin. As long as you keep spinning it into gold, he is just going to keep giving you bigger rooms of hay. Leave it on the desk! It will annoy you incredibly, but if you keep this going, he's just going to keep increasing it!"

Shortly thereafter, my boss returned to the front and asked me "Did you ever see Metropolis?" No. "Oh, it was one of the greatest films of all time." He then proceeded to tell me how it was all about the dehumanization of factory work. And after some dramatic reinactments and historical reconning, I asked him "And you think this is a good thing, don't you?" He responds with a smile, "Yes." "Are you saying you want us to march in here like Nazi soldiers every morning?" "Yeah, this is how I picture you out here. It's good for you. You are too free-spirited." I reminded him that for the past 5 months, he's been telling me I'm too "rigid." He likes to refir to me as "a cold intellectual." What that means, we aren't quite sure.