Stupid Brother
I just got back to work today after a four day weekend. Last Thursday I stayed after work and finished up this huge order I had started because I knew that today (Tuesday) I was going to be swamped with work and there was no way I was going to have time to deal with it. So, no big deal, it took me an extra forty minutes, but my desk was cleared.Today, I get to work a few minutes late *due to construction traffic* and after taking a moment to water my plants I get to work. While I'm watering the plants my stupid brother walks in.
He was later than me. Also because of construction traffic, but that's not an abnormal thing these days.
I get water, turn on the computer at my desk, then go up to the front of the office to print some stuff I need off the Apple computer. Stuff I need to do my job, mind you. It might be 8:15 at this point.
The black ink runs out while I'm printing up the first of six documents. I manage to put a hold on four of the ones in the queue, but my Mac skills are really rusty. I look for some ink near the printer, but all the cartridges are color. I know that the spare ink is kept in a locked cabinet somewhere, and since my boss isn't in yet I ask the only other person who is supposed to have access to the ink. (No, I don't know why the ink is such a guarded commodity. It just is.) She grabs one cartridge, we try to figure out if it's the right one, and then she goes and gets another one. At the end of this process my boss comes in and we have to give him a precis as to what's going on with the ink.
Now I have to put the ink in. I put it in, but it doesn't detect a cartridge. I snap it in. Still no go. I take it out, take off the little piece of tape, put it back, wait for the computer to print its page of ink test, figure out how to restart the queue (and with my rusty Mac skills that took a couple minutes) reprint the two messed up orders as well as the four that I held, and then, at 8:50 I'm finally done.
Grr, but satisfied that it's over, right? Hah.
I walk into the will call area and there's this anonymous note. Rather vicious. "You think no one notices you screwing around on work's computers." Screwing was written with red Sharpie instead of black, so I would really notice it, I guess.
Screwing around? Excuse me? I worked overtime the (work)day before so I could get out of here as fast as possible and I tossed that to the side to screw around?
I take the note to my manager and leave it with him, since I really am getting out of there late and need to be going. I see him taking it around to people and asking if they wrote it.
I proceede to do more screwing around where I don't have time to take my break in the morning and get back to work after lunch has started. Normally my family goes out to lunch together on Tuesdays, so we all get in my brother's car and start to go somewhere. Now, I had managed to successfully ignore the incredibly hurtful note while I was out in public, but being back at work I was thinking about it again and having to deal with it. I was not in a happy mood.
About four blocks from work it comes out that my brother wrote the note. I demand to be let out of the car. He won't let me. He swings his car around and drives 50 mph in a 25 until we get back to work.
In a rare show of restraint I don't slam his car door when I get out. In the tense drive back I get the impression that he feels he did absolutely nothing wrong and that I should be fired for my screwing around on the computers, or at the very least severely reprimanded.
Yeah, well screw him.
Yes, I occasionally (ok, often) take about 5 minutes to browse the BBs and the odd web comic before going out in the morning. It's my way of separating the hassle of the commute into work with the delivery driving. Plus, work has a T1 line so it's super fast. And yes, this morning in between trying to get the printer to work I was surfing the BBs. But you know what? It took me no longer to get the printer to work with the surfing than without. The printer has lag time, and I had a decent amount of down time while waiting for stuff to print/the ink to arrive/the printer to initialize.
Week before last I came back from deliveries and noticed that the history was open on the web browser at the computer at my desk. I guess he's been "checking up" on me for a while.
Where I work, so long as you get your work done and don't slack off too much there is a bit of leeway. I don't write nasty notes because the guys in the warehouse spend a half-hour each day pranking each other. I don't write nasty notes when their breaks consistently run over the 15 minute allottment as they try to finish one last round of dominoes. I don't write nasty notes when they get into their weekly huge political debate, or when they fool around. But then, it's easy to see when they don't have much work left. It's really hard for any one who isn't me to judge my workload because I do so much in so many different places.
So now I'm seriously pissed off. Two of my coworkers were on vacation today, so it was quite busy. I didn't get either of my breaks and worked a bit of my lunch. My brother's afternoon break was 25 minutes long. Who the heck is he to write nasty notes?
What bugs me is that neither my boss nor my manager have informned me of any problem with my behavior. But my brother? My coworker, my younger sibling, and a guy who has been working there three years to my nearly eleven? Why the heck does he feel the need to chastise me? I was so pissed when I read that note, and I thought of all these reasons why he was entirely out of line. Then I thought some more. I don't have to justify my actions to him. He's not my boss. His opinion does not affect the way my job is managed. It's his opinion, and honestly? As far as my job goes it's not worth anything at all.
Yeah. Screw him.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home