Don't Be A Complete Tool

I'm a crab.  I mean, worse than usual.  I'm developing a cold, which I think is worse than having a cold.  Being almost sick, you know the worst is yet to come.  There's really not much you can do about it, but try to head it off with sleep and pills.

This stupid thing is taking its sweet time too.  An almost cough one day, an almost sore throat the next, a semi-stuffy nose in the meantime.  So, right now, tuning it all out is much more preferable than focusing on it and wallowing in my misery.

I think I'll listen to music:

Mr. A: You're just wearing your headphones so you don't have to talk to me.
Me: Yup, pretty much...
Mr. A: What are you listening to?
Me: Whatever I want.  It's a 60G iPod.  I have a lot of shit on here.  Right now it's Disturbed, but I think I'm really in a Sarah McLachlan mood.
Mr. A: How can you listen to Disturbed and then Sarah McLachlan?
Me: Fucking talent?
Mr. A: That's why you don't control the radio.
Me: Can I put my headphones back on now?

So, maybe I'll read:

Mr. A: What are you reading now?
Me: A book. Shhhhhh.
*5 minutes later*
Mr. A: Are you still reading the same book?
Me: Yes.  Surprisingly, I'm not getting very far.
Mr. A: What part are you on?
Me: The part where I slam your head in my book.

Or, perhaps I'll blog:

Mr. A: Who are you chatting with now?
Me: No one.  I'm trying to update my blogs for once.
Mr. A: Oh.  What are you writing about?
Me: I'm writing about what an annoying ass you are.
Mr. A: Ha ha!  You're a funny guy.

MisManager.  You've kept yourself out of my line of fire for over a month now.  That's got to be some kind of record.  Especially considering the fact that you've only been in the office for about an hour the whole time.  So, really, you've made it a whole hour without being blogworthy.  I think that's still a record.

It's performance review time.  Time for all my little work girls and boys to find out if they've been naughty or nice this year.  It's a fairly easy process, since we meet weekly anyway to discuss their performance.  There's only one snag: EmployeeVonMunchausen.

She's been a shitty mess the whole year.  When she does show up to work, she's a whiny, mopey, backstabby migraine-waiting-to-happen.  She's driving me to drink.

(Ooooh.  Fair warning:  I really, really mean that.  I'm sorta half gone already and I plan to kill more brain cells.  Like, the ones that are in charge of storing memories of her.  They need to die.  Violently.)

So, all the warnings, write-ups, calls to H.R. and the frustrated meetings where we mutually stop each other from choking every ounce of life from her body means exactly nothing when it comes to an actual formal review?  Isn't this supposed to represent her overall performance for the year?  So why are you telling me to improve her ratings in areas that she is a cunthair away from being fired over?

(Firefox is telling me that cunthair is inappropriate.  I apologize.)

Attendance:  she is on a final written warning.  Final, to me, says "Fuck up one more time and I'm going to shitcan your worthless ass."  Final, to you, apparently says, "You only need some improvement and we're very disappointed, but we're behind you 100% sweetie!"  I'm not changing her Unsatisfactory rating.  I'm not going to postpone the process for another week so we can consult H.R. after I've already spoken to no less than 2 H.R. reps, one of which was the head of H.R. herself.  You're not winning this one.  Get the fuck over it.

"B-b-b-b-but, it's like we're punishing her twice for something she's done."  Hmmm.  Except that a performance review is only a discussion tool.  It's not like court where you have to worry about double jeopardy.  We can totally talk about a horrible performance more than once, cross my heart and shit.

Time Management: she's the laziest piece of crap I've ever had work on my staff.  She also likes to throw everyone else on the staff under the bus because she can't get shit done.  It's evidently everybody else's responsibility to make sure that her work is completed in a timely manner.  Her biggest problem is that she volunteers to do every little shit project under the sun -- so long as she can avoid her assigned duties.  You say that this Meets Expectations.  On what planet?  We've had to strip her of all responsibilities with the exception of one report every Monday and 2 reports on the 16th of every month.  Last time I bitched to you about her, what was it in regard to?  Oh yeah!  The fact that she still whines about not being able to get that done.  Unsatisfactory.  I had to remind you that she just pulled that blame-shifting bullshit on you this morning before you left the rating alone.  You really do have the memory of a gnat, don't you?

Communication:  She won't talk to me unless it's a complaint about you.  She won't talk to you unless it's a complaint about me.  She tries to assign me her work.  She sends 'all employee' instructions to the staff.  Unsatisfactory.  After pulling out copies of all the memos and other documentation of every instance of this over the last year, you stop fighting me on the rating.  Good girl.

Self Development:  Again, we've had to strip her of almost all responsibility.  She's sort of anti-learning right now.  Unlearning.  Whatever.  This would be the opposite of where we should hope the staff will go. Unsatisfactory.  I felt bad for you at this point.  I mean, I was seriously kicking your ass all over the place on the rest of the ratings, so I let you have this one Needs Improvement.  I'm such an awesome person. 

(I don't even remember where this is all going.  Vodka, you've done your job.  You get an overall rating of Outstanding.)

*with extra exclamation points, to make sure that Wen is paying attention*

Motorcycle riders of Phoenix, hear me now!

From this day forward, no one gets to whine about us car drivers that don't see your dumb asses until you clean up your act.  This would include the following:

1. Stop riding the solid white line between the carpool and the 'fast' lane. 
2. The emergency median is not your private lane.
3. Do not cut across 5 lanes of traffic at 96 MPH.
4. Racing....seriously?  There are tracks for that all over the valley.  Go find one.

Until this stops, I will not shed a tear for the smear you leave behind.

Yeah, I'm talking to you assholes.  The ones blocking all the parking to the office I worked out of today.  You're very lucky that it A) wasn't my office and B) MisManager was afraid of you or there would have been a swarm of tow trucks out to haul away all 7 of your work trucks and (if we could somehow manage it) your steam roller and cement truck.  (Oh, and the cement truck -- double parked in the handicap spaces.)


Don't think I won't.  I'm just as douchey as the manager from Waiting when it comes to that shit.  Just ask the manager of the apartment building next door who told 15 of her tenants to park in our lot when they repaved.

I made some tow truck company very happy that day.