Labor Woes - Cont.

It is escalating.
I get this pressure in my chest sometimes, as if I had forgotten to breathe for a long time.
And maybe I have. Sometimes I stop breathing when I feel particularly upset.
I don’t know what to do! I cannot play this game!
And it pisses me off because for the first time I felt well in a job. People were nice, there is a nice “rapport” with my coworkers. They tease each other in a harmless way, and there is a sense that you can count on them to help.
And I remember when I was working at Hell Hotel. It was a nightmare; pure, unadulterated misery. My boss hated me and made no effort to conceal it. He took every opportunity to demean me. I was in anguish everyday, because I really, really was afraid of going to work.
When finally my contract expired and they did not renovate it, it hurt economically and I cried all the way home. But it gave me such an enormous sense of relief that I know, positively, that I should have been gone from there long before that.
And this guy is turning this job now and poisoning it for me.
(I suppose I better name him; I cannot keep on calling him “that guy”. I could use his office nickname of The Cookie Monster, earned for his eating habits. But what he really reminds me of is a Vogon, from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. So from now on, he will be known as Mr. Vogon.)
Stupid things will set him off, and keep him in a dark mood for days, and I know Mr. Vogon is plotting against me as he plots against so many people in here.
Yesterday I was at the company building very early in the morning. I am always the first there, and everybody knows it. I live by my husbands schedule, which means I am at work at 6, even though work starts at 8. They practically open the building for me!
And I was on my cubicle working on an assignment for college. It was 6:30 or so. I was very concentrated on what I was doing; I did not hear Mr. Vogon coming until he slapped the wall very hard to scare me. And scare me he did. Pissed me off, because I almost had the perfect idea to convey a meaning in my translation, and he had made me forget it!
Mr. Vogon said: “Wow! You must get up very early! You get here before I do!”
And I said: “Yes, I do.” I was trying to remember the way that sentence was supposed to go and I had no time for pleasantries.
And he got pissed, and said: “You want me gone! OK, Ill go!” He turned and left He did not speak to me for the rest of the day, but I caught him giving me dirty looks whenever I turned.
And then, today, after I sent him some documents he had requested to his e-mail, he tells me to print those documents and give them to the temp that is working for him now. I ask if I could forward the e-mail to her, so she can print them herself, (as this is what they hired her for and I did not have time to do this right now). He went into a hissy fit, and said : “I will print them myself, then!”, and stomped off my cubicle.
And I’m like, it’s not that big of a deal! You want me to print them? I can print them! I just think that since it’s her job to do this thing, she should do this thing, and their project should not affect in any way my regular functions.


But I am not truly sorry it worked like that.

I am anxious, worried and just plain scared.

I know he will use this in his war against me.

Yet, I want him to understand that he is not my boss and I am not his assistant.

I am not there to satisfy Mr. Vogon’s needs, nor is he there to satisfy mine.

I can help with stuff, just as I help those I can, but I am not here to do his work for him.
I am not here to keep him happy and contented. I am here to do a job, and if his stuff interfere with mine, his stuff will have to take a hike.

I had hoped this temp worker would keep him distracted and away from me. It does not seem to be working out.
And anyways, I ended up printing those document, just because the temp asked nicely. I was handling the phone lines, writing an e-mail, preparing a quotation and searching part numbers, yet I printed those documents and explained them to the girl, because she was polite.

Labor Woes

I am worried.

There is a situation at work that I don’t feel emotionally prepared for. It engages my want-to-escape mode. Most of my co-workers have dealt with it, but some have been fired because of the depredations and malicious rumors created by an older colleague.

This guy has been working in the company since forever. He is firmly entrenched in his position, and has actually been ready to retire for years. Yet he remains.

I entered the company as a temp to help him on a special project. Two weeks turned into two years and counting, and eventually I turned into a regular employee.

The thing is, this guy likes to have someone to boss around, and since I was hired to be just that, he feels entitled to make me do his stuff. He introduces me to people as his “assistant”. Good goddess! The Managers of the company don’t have assistants!

Every chance he gets, he makes a mention of how “he hired me”.

And, no, he didn’t!

The company temp-hired me to help him out in a special project; then real-hired me to work in something else, unrelated to him.

Now, I don’t have the time to do his work for him. I am not paid to make copies for him, or to redact his correspondence, or to simply listen to the stupid sexist jokes he tells. (How do you say “virgin” in German? Gudentight! Got it? Good and tight!)
And he is taking this badly. He feels I am being disrespectful.

He has complained to my boss (who knows him already, so he isn’t taking it too seriously) and to the boss of my boss (who doesn’t, so he might be doing some damage.)

I tend to not complain to my boss, because I feel that being manager must be at times a bit like being a schoolteacher. “Miss! He is pulling my hair!”

He must be beyond tired of listening to complains from both costumers and employees. I try not to add to his blood pressure. I really like my manager. I have had some really horrid bosses in the past, and I appreciate what a luxury it is to actually like your boss.

And there is the thing about the sexual harassment.

They tell me that he has caused three girls before me to be fired. All the three had in common was that they did not respond to his sexual innuendos.

So three girls before me lost their jobs to this idiot because they did not document his behavior.

But he has sent me e-mails asking me out. I remember last October, as I was working on the geisha costume, he was quite insistent on taking me out for lunch. He kept telling me that my costume was pretty sexy (Ummm… not.). And once, he went as far as telling me that he thought I was gorgeous or something like that. I maneuvered and mentioned my dear, dear husband. (Have I mentioned that I love him very much?) Then he went all weepy, and said that now that he was old, no one found him attractive. I mentioned his wife. That particular conversation, I printed and showed it to a coworker and to my husband.

Coworker said to use it against him.

Husband said to tolerate it; it was inoffensive.

I should have listened to her.

I quickly went through my e-mails yesterday, after one incident when he went all belligerent on me, and searched for my own harassing history.
FUUUUUUDGE!

I don’t have proof. I lost the e-mails when I closed my temporary outside e-mail account in favor of the permanent company one. I don’t even remember what the address was, so I can’t have it reopened. I have no proof!

And now I have lost it! Goddamit!!!

Damn all these e-mail changes!

Now he has been attacking me behind my back. I have been warned by sympathetic coworkers. And I feel like a sitting duck, unable to respond, defenseless and vulnerable.

I am not made for this! My personality makes it hard for me to engage in workplace guerrilla warfare. All this intriguing behind people’s backs, all these conspiracies.