I've had a spectacularly rotten week.

On Monday I had my usual case of, and was feeling low. Then at 3:30pm, Boss Lady informs me that she's going to train me to do the invoicing using a software package I had no familiarity with. Sounds like fun. If by fun I mean hell. Anyway, the training went on for hours and most of it consisted of me entering the information while she dictated: "Now, click there. No, not THERE, THERE. No, that's wrong. Click THERE."

You get the picture.

In situations like this I have a tendency to get flustered. I held it together for a few hours but then I started sinking into non-comprehension, which wasn't helped by Boss Lady's increasing impatience. So I got a little flustered and frustrated and it showed. I quickly managed to bottle it back in and sucked my impending tears back into my tear ducts. I went home afterwards and cried and raged and then I was okay-ish.

Until Tuesday. On Tuesday at exactly 4:55pm, my boss called me into the conference room and proceeded to bitch me out. She said I was "wacked" and that my behavior had shocked her and was "totally unprofessional". (Hello, Kettle? Yeah, this is Pot. Did you hear the news? You're black.)

I sat there taking deep breaths and silently chanted "mortgage, mortgage, mortgage" in my head. I have never been so close to quitting as I was in that moment. She continued on about how I "freak out� and hesitate every time I'm given something new and how it has to stop.

Wow. Just.... wow. Here's the thing. If your general method of assigning new tasks is something along the lines of: "You're now doing this new thing that you have no experience with or training on. Go!", maybe you should expect a little hesitance. Maybe? Maybe it's just me.

So on Tuesday night there were more tears and rage and anger and some self-doubt too. Then I got over that and just got pissed. I guess I shouldn't have put "capable of acting in the manner of emotionless robot" on my resume, huh.

So yes, I'm still frantically looking for another job, but it took forever for me to find this cruddy position and I'm really truly hoping something will come through for me soon.

In other workplace news, things have gotten hilariously Office Space due to the efforts of one of the newer employees who has a Very Corporate Background. This is the woman who is so used to delegating that when the printer runs out of paper, she'll just stand there in front of it, confused, and say, "The printer is out of paper!" rather than put paper in the damn thing. She's hopeless, and the small office "do it your damn self" attitude confuses her a lot.

But she is a big corporation's wet dream. She's IN, man. She's 100% dedicated, part-of-the-system Team Spirit IN. I also honestly believe she missed her calling as a motivational speaker for troubled teens. Back when I was demoted to receptionist and was complaining about the phones she leaned over my cube, looked me deeply in the eye and said, with complete seriousness, "Your job is the most important one in the company... because nothing happens until you pick up the phone."

Wow. Holy condescending! She must think I'm a complete rube to buy a line like that. What a freak. She'd be perfect at Bank of X.

Anyway, Boss Lady put her up to the task of creating an employee incentive program and holy crap; it's funnier than anything I could have ever imagined. Here's a sampling:

Team Spirit � Spring Into Action "Team Growth"

All projects will be posted on a board. Each time a lead is achieved, the rep places a dot (flower) on the board under the project. The team with the most dots(flowers) for the week will receive a lunch for the team. ( In case you don't understand the complexity of the dot system, DOT = FLOWER.)

Sunshine Award � Recognizes the person that demonstrates the most team spirit during the week. Receive: 1 hour off with pay on Friday.

Monday Madness � 1st Attain the 1st lead for the week and receive � � hour off and a $5.00 lunch voucher

Green Grass Award � Recognizes the first lead on a new project. Attain first lead and win a chance for a $25.00 gift card. Drawing every two weeks.

I actually laughed out loud at the last one. Dude. Duuuuuude.

I wanted to ask her if there was an award for Most Disgruntled and Apathetic Employee but I figured I'd already offended her enough when she gleefully pounced on this motivational poster that's hung behind my cube and said "We need to hang this by the front door so everyone is motivated when they walk in!" and I replied "Really? I hate that poster. I am not motivated by a poster." Ha! She gave me a sad, shocked look and mumbled something about her team spirit before walking away. It was awesome.

So now it's Friday afternoon and I'm blithely ignoring the list of tasks that I've been assigned. Hey, I'm done, man. I stopped working a few minutes before lunch. Work is too boring for me to be bothering with right now.

[YOUR RACE HERE]

Above was the space I'd reserved to tell you about the race last weekend, but there wasn't one. The namby-pamby organizer cancelled it at the last minute and rescheduled for this Sunday. A lot of people showed up anyway and were pissed. So then we planned for this Sunday's race and today he posted a snotty message about how, due to low attendance last year and poor pre-registration for this season, the race is cancelled.

Dude, I know last year was bad because of the weather, but if you want people to pre-register for this year, you might consider POSTING AN ACTUAL SCHEDULE. Loser. So now there aren't any other races until May or June. Fine, fine, the suffering can wait.

That's all I've got. Have a good weekend, monkeys and don't forget to earn your dots (flowers)!

PS. My boss is working from home and just emailed me a 32 page proposal to proofread and send out TODAY. Thanks, lady.

6 chatty monkeys