A different Friday

There are greater conflicts that come from my job– most obviously, that it's a gross mismatch with my personality and, as they say, "professional skill set." There are also a plethora of minutia that make my job frustrating. My peers are thirty years older than me. The company allows for training, but does not let you reduce your workload to make time. We are expected to work overtime when they want to unrealistically increase the quantity of workload, but we are not allowed to work overtime when we want to improve the quality. I have been asking for some basic office supplies for six months and still haven't gotten them– basic things, like a filing wallet, windowed envelopes, and a three-hole punch. The rationale is that since most of my coworkers don't use hole punches, there must not be a business need (my coworker Deb, for instance, has a large box in her cubicle, where she has a big pile of her pending cases, unsorted, no folders, held together with binder clips). In other words, they want us to mimic whoever in the office has the least efficient, least organized, most incompetent methodology.

But there is a certain tangible benefit to having a processing job– any moron can do it. It's not like I have a job classifying water samples or helping kids with autism, where I'd be completely lost and about six years behind of where I'd need to be. I just type shit into a computer and it shows up on the other end. As a matter of fact, they've created rudimentary computer programs—open source, even—that could do my job adequately. Fortunately, my company is hovering at around 1996-level technology. Their goal is to have 25% of their customers using an online system by the end of 2009, and even at that, the "online system" is a dummy system; it can't actually read the information that's coming in. So, in short, everyone where I work has absolute job security until at least the end of next year.

Which was why I was so intrigued by the conversation I overheard from the cube next to mine. My coworker Katy was just typing away, type type type, when her boss came over and said "okay, it's one o'clock." This piqued my attention, because this boss (also my boss) hasn't remembered an appointment once in the eight months I've worked there. Even when I'm sitting at her desk with a stack of documents to review, she's just as likely to interrupt to tell me she wants a new puppy as she is to actually address my work questions (true example). In short, she's a fucking eight year-old. Which is nice for me because I can manipulate the hell out of her, but makes it all the more surprising that she's actually being, well, bossy to one of my peers.

But get this– my coworker then says, "hold on, I'm checking my personal emails." My boss replies, "we agreed that you would have everything done by one o'clock, now it's time for you to go."

"I don't want you scrubbing through my personal emails," she says. "We're just going to erase the hard drive," my boss replies. "Nobody will read your emails. It's time to go."

"Just let me finish this," my co-worker says. My boss replies, "no, your time is up. Please stand up and step away from your computer." My co-worker keeps working on her computer. "Stand up and step away from the computer, now."

"Well, let me grab my things," my co-worker says. "Do I get a box, or do I just have to carry them?"

"We will have your personal affects mailed to you. Don't worry about those, it's time for you to go."

"I don't have that many things, anyway," she says, and starts grabbing things with her arms.

"Okay, we've given you plenty of time," my boss says, and with that, a security guard approaches and firmly grabs the employee's arm, and she is guided out to the elevator lobby.

A "short meeting" (hour and a half, and I'm still trying to get caught up after my training class) is called to announce that Katy is no longer with the company. That makes three employees in two months that have left and aren't coming back. One transferred, but it appears that the other two were assuaged to leave (one was coaxed into retirement, and now Katy was shit-canned). I think all three of them were positive losses. In fact, I could think of a few more that could be sifted out, who won't be. But then again, I've got my review soon. I have the worst accuracy rating of anyone in our department. I have the worst turnaround time of anyone in our department. I've taken more management training than any of our managers, I have more schooling than anyone in our entire business unit, I have actually gotten in trouble because so many people call me for information or advice from other departments that I've been accused of undermining my peers (for you see, expertise is a demerit where I work), and I have clients who absolutely love me and openly say so, leading management to believe I spend too much time making our customers happy and not enough time doing paperwork.

But I still need this job, and obviously, the job security isn't nearly as high as I thought it was. My weaknesses show up as obvious weaknesses. My strengths show up as obvious weaknesses. Why do I have any reason to believe that I will still be allowed to work here, once they're back up to full staffing?

After our meeting, I went back to my co-worker's desk to see what was left. While we were in the meeting, her cube had been entirely cleared out. When I left for lunch, she was there working, just like any other day. An hour before I went home, all that was left was a stack of folders, a few office supplies, and an ergonomic keyboard. So, I took a second to say a silent goodbye. I thought about how her being fired affected me. Then, I stole her hole punch, file wallet, and envelopes, and went back to work.