see previous entry re: losing mind

I currently am in the middle of about ten million gazillion things which are in stacks all over my desk, I am totally panicking over the fact that classes are about to start, we’ve got bunches of meetings coming up REAL soon, I’ve got a foot-high stack of paperwork that has got to go to DPI right now , I have so many evaluations to do that my head is spinning just thinking about it, I have three days worth of untouched mail in my in-basket – yet I’m sitting here doing this. Because New Boss is having a meeting in her office with the door between us open, and every five seconds I hear, "B, can you make me copies of this?" "B, when is fall break?" " B, look up these books for me and find out what’s the latest edition!" "B, find out how much they cost!" "B, see if there is a syllabus for student teaching on the website!" "B, I need a car tomorrow, will you get me one?" "B, when is the date for ____ (insert any / all meetings we have coming up for the next decade)…" All of course interspersed with "I’m sorry I’m giving you more work!"

Yeah, well, I’m sorry about it TOO and I’m also having to answer K’s phone because she stayed home with a migraine (shocking as it is that this place could give anyone a migraine, I know) and there’s also the flocks of people swarming in who are having every imaginable problem with classes, registration, their advisors, parking, housing, not being able to find green paper, WHATEVER they can POSSIBLY have a problem with. Because we apparently have a sign on our door saying, "If you’ve got bizarre crazyass problems of any sort imaginable, please come right on in and tell me all about it!"

And yeah, I’m getting just a wee bit cranky.

Oh, and it’s SO not helping that everyone in this sector of the universe is trying to use the copier beside my office, and the copier beside my office, which is separated from my office by a very thin door,  is having a meltdown and all I have heard all morning long  is  BEEEP!!!! BEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!! BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPP!!! SLAM!! SLAM!! SLAMSLAMSLAM!!! @#$@())*#@#*(*) &&#^^@^#!!!! SLAM SLAM SLAM  CRASH CRASH CRASH BANG BANG !!#!!!@&#$@#7)&)(&()%@~!~! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!

It’s kinda getting on my nerves.

So, I really can’t concentrate on anything anyhow, and all this stuff I have GOT TO DO RIGHT NOW requires that I give it a lot of concentration or I’ll be screwing up people’s lives! And they won’t get their license or it will be wrong when they do get it and they’re all already freaking all out because it’s taking so long to get a license to begin with that I’d like to avoid creating even more problems with them by screwing up their paperwork.  

And on top of that it’s past time for me to go to lunch and I’m not seeing any evidence that I’ll be getting a lunch break today so I’ll just use this time to vent and whine and cry and bitch, and maybe that will lessen the chances of my transforming into Trailer Park Boys Ricky next time New Boss opens the door, and telling her that, for fuck sake, I can’t do one more fucking thing, so she needs to just  fuck the fuck off. Or bursting into tears. Both options are generally frowned upon in the office environment, so I’d like to avoid doing either if at all possible.

On the positive side, the new position for our office was actually advertised last week, shockingly. On the negative side, there is absolutely no room to cram one more piece of paper into our offices, let alone a human, so … I get to share my office with them. My cubbyhole. I had the choice of a) sharing with the new person, b) sharing with two student workers who will sometimes both be here at once and will be changing every semester, or c) moving out into the front area with K and letting the new person and both students have my office. "C" was totally out, as it’s like sitting in the middle of LaGuardia out there and I don’t know how K has not gone completely insane trying to do her own work while dealing with the zillions of people walking in and the people in surrounding offices in and out and talking to her constantly and the people who just decide that in front of her desk is a great place to have their own little impromptu meeting. I sat out there one day when I had to let a supervisor use my office for interviews, and she wasn’t here – it was a nightmare and I ended up just sitting there trying to play solitaire. And not even being very successful with that. SO, no way am I moving out there for good. "A" just seemed the only reasonable option. And I’m moving kind of back into the back corner of the room, so the New Person will be right by New Boss’s door, and I’ll also be out of range of my main door as well. And if I can’t concentrate, I’m wearing my iPod and daring anyone to say a thing about it.  

Of course, I’ll probably be sitting in the floor since I’ve got to order a new desk but I can’t get it until some guy from the office supply store comes on Thursday to measure and order it for me. And they take something like six weeks. I can’t just order something from the catalogue because they have to match what we already have. Because we’re SUCH a coordinated and attractive office.

On the positive side, I’ll be getting rid of student teaching. Kind of. Maybe. Although it’s so overwhelming that I’m sure I’ll be helping out the new person with it for quite some time. I plan to do as little as possible with it, but I can’t imagine that the overflow is not going to spill onto me. On the negative side, K is ticked off because the New Person will be taking all the student teaching responsibilities off of me, but nobody is taking anything from her. I’ve said I’ll be happy, happy, happy to do all the licensure stuff – she’s doing half the undergrad licensure now – which, in my mind at least, would make our jobs as close to even as we could get. I’d also do all the transcript evaluations if I had to. She does half of those now. That would just leave her maintaining the undergrad files, really. Which is all the people in NORMAL offices here do, incidentally. The people who work in our counterpart offices, like Fine and Applied Arts and Arts and Sciences do nothing but maintain files. That’s it. We maintain files, plus student teaching, plus licensure, plus certification, plus everything else we’ve got going on. And there are more people working in each of those offices, doing nothing but maintaining files.

SO, New Boss thinks that won’t be fair, for me to do licensure and her to do files. I’m not quite figuring out who she doesn’t think it won’t be fair to, but her bright idea is for us to split everything alphabetically. Which means I get to maintain half of K’s undergrad files, which is something I’ve never done, something I’ve never had to do, and something I most emphatically DO NOT WANT TO DO. I’m kind of peeved about this, frankly. I don’t want to deal with all these elementary ed, middle grades and special ed students, AND with their advisors. I have always been SO GLAD I don’t have to do that. I keep secondary files, but they are just for our reference -the main ones are in Arts and Sciences and Fine and Applied. And we’ll split licensure alphabetically and we’ll split certification alphabetically. And that way we’ll be crosstrained to do each other’s work, because what K does is a lot different than what I do.

So. In short, I’m getting rid of student teaching, which I have come to completely despise, but I’ll be gaining half of K’s work. Which I can tell you right now I’ll ALSO hate. And I don’t know why in the hell I can’t just do licensure, for fuck sake. That and certification will EASILY be more that K has, with just files. Maybe New Boss thinks it would be unfair to me to do it that way – K often runs out of things to do, while I NEVER EVER EVER run out of things to do. So I frankly don’t know why the hell K was complaining about it being uneven to begin with. So, yeah, I’m also kind of peeved at K, as long as I’m being peeved at people. Who shouldn’t be fucking complaining anyhow because she’s the one who always runs out of stuff to do, and I’m the one who has been overloaded for six long years.

Well, I think the plan is for us to give her a detailed list of what we will both do with student teaching gone to someone else, so maybe she’ll see that her plan doesn’t make sense. And I think K will be mad about the new bright idea too, since K is inclined to be mad about just about everything imaginable lately. Like I’m not. Also I’m hoping the associate dean will think it’s crazy.  

Okay, now it’s nearly five. And I really really really don’t want to stay one minute past five or I’m really going to have a breakdown. I’ve already had one meltdown in Baker B’s office – I had to go up to the bookstore to pick up some name tags for New Boss and decided I’d just stop by his office and say hi since I had to go right by there. And naturally I end up bursting into tears pretty much the minute I step in. Yes, I AM a big pathetic whiney crybaby!!!!!! He was there alone, luckily. I think it did actually help a bit, though.

New Boss just came in to hand me a file for a drawer that she’s standing right beside. Why, sure, I don’t mind a bit getting up, coming around my desk, and putting away the file in the drawer that you’re standing beside!  The drawer you got it from to begin with, so it’s not like you don’t know where that file goes. Here, let me breathe for you too – I’m doing it for everyone else already, no problem!! I really think New Boss is used to having an assistant that did nothing but assist her. I had many complaints about Dr. Airhead, but he always did as much as he could for himself. Probably because he was afraid to ask me or K to do it for him. Well, that and he never did anything to begin with. New Boss is full of good ideas – and one or two not so good idea – but isn’t really getting that I have a lot of work to do that doesn’t involve her.

 I’m going home now. And having a nice cold beer. Or five.