Much Ado

Well, a lot has been happening! Let's start with work.

We're on a non-mandatory mandatory overtime (that means we have to work overtime, but Boss² is not yet dictating when and for how long). As a team, my department agreed a minimum of 5 hours per week, which I don't think is going to help much. I put in eight this week, I refuse to work overtime on Fridays, and I'll do another eight next week.

For the first three days of this week, Adolf has been off. (I'll pause here for your cheers). However, Boss² (I mean Adolf's boss, by the way: boss's boss) discovered on Tuesday just how behind my work was. I had things that should have been completed in October still waiting to be done. There were more than 400 individual back e-mails sitting in my inbox, that had anywhere from one to twenty items to complete each. Before you start wondering why I haven't been keeping up with my workload, let me explain. The work that I do is an ongoing daily thing. Work comes in each day that needs to be completed in that day (they say within an hour). Yes, there are days when more work comes in than I can do in a day. If I take a day of, Adolf is the one who is supposed to do my work in my absence. The thing is that Adolf seems to think it's not that important, and so will complete only the work that is marked as urgent. Things that do not have a payment that need to be reissued get put aside for me when I get back. Remember all that mess where they have me doing entry level work? I get behind there too, because once again I am told things without payments can be put aside. More vacation days, more entry level work days, and pre-holiday halfdays (where I'm doing only the pressing ones to get other pressing things done) later, I'm looking at four hundered jobs waiting for completion. Did I ask for help before it got so bad? Yes, I did! Twice! Adolf said there was no help and, once again, put asside the things that were not currently attached to payments until I catch up. If I can only complete thirty five to eighty jobs a day, and that much or more comes in new per day, you can see that catching up is near impossible.

So, Boss² discovered this backlog on Tuesday, and had me forward everything to them. By Wednesday, we had a team of eight who was given a crash course in my job so they could help me clear out the work. Of course, I'm not looking forward to this because, once again, working on this project pulls me from keeping up with the regular stuff that comes in daily. However, Boss² did say to take whatever time necessary (over time, lunch time, regular time, whatever) to complete this project. Don't forget, my department is already working overtime for another project, but this one did take presidence. By 1630 on Thursday, we had caught up! My coworkers had no idea how good it felt for me to look at my inbox and see twelve jobs instead of four hundred.

I was really dreading Thursday, because Adolf would be back. I was worried that Boss² would yell at Adolf (Boss² did make it a point to tell my temporary team that it was not my fault we were so behind, but that I was told some misinformation) and then Adolf in turn would yell at me. Thankfully, that didn't happen. But I had a very stressful then happy Wednesday, followed by a stressful then ok Thursday.

Anyone want to know what the problem is today? I told you that I get my daily work through e-mail, right? Yup, the e-mail server is down. ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!