Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Miss Dilbert, Reporting for Duty

I have a job I love, editing a magazine with a great designer and publisher.
Alas, I have a boss who should be working in a mid-level management civil service job somewhere in Del Rio or Waco. She has zero experience in publishing or journalism, yet she gets to be the boss.
She loves for me to write reports for her.
Like she doesn't know quite what an editor does, she needs fucking reports that say what I do all month.
She always requests them when she thinks I am having too much fun at work, or when I am so busy with my REAL job that I haven't got time to pee.
She also likes to spring stupid questions on me, knowing I have no idea what she's talking about. Sample:

"Karen, have the metropolitan health status reports come out for this year yet?"
"I don't know."
"Well, you NEED to find out!"
"Is that Clark ____'s department at Metro?"
"Yes, and tell him we need several copies."

next day

"Boss, Clark said the reports aren't out in CD form yet, except they do have them on their website."
"Those aren't the reports I wanted, you need to call Nicole at Health-o-Metrics and ask for the health consensus reports."
"Who?"
"You mean, you don't read her e-mails!?"
"I read hundreds of e-mails, her name just doesn't ring any bells."
"Well, she's very important. You NEED to know her."

Later I ask around the office. Nobody's ever heard of Nicole or her fucking agency.

Call me snippy, but if Miss Dilbert wants to know about a report or some such nonsense, she can pick up the damned phone and ask for it herself. I'm not her secretary.
Ain't that the way it always is? You have a job you love and there's always that one asshole paper shuffler who outranks you and takes sheer delight in fucking with you.
I swear, when the woman takes a few vacation days she spends the whole time working and going to her beloved committee meetings.
Who the fuck can stand committee meetings? I'll tell you who, the chronically mediocre mind, that's who.

Please join me in praying that Miss Dilbert either gets offered a great job elsewhere, or gets embroiled in a tawdry sex scandal that causes her to leave town in utter disgrace.
Thank you.

7 comments:

nobody's fool said...

I can't believe you haven't shoved the health-o-metrics consensus reports up her ass yet.

You're right; you're not her fucking secretary. Does she have an assistant? I'd tell her, "sure, I'll let blah-dee-blah know you want those reports" and let the assistant take care of her mediocre-minded boss.

Sheesh. I'm so sick of asshats who get management positions and then act as if we should be genuflecting when they pass by.

Anonymous said...

Miss Dilbert didn't show up all morning- seems her kids' dentist had an opening and she thought she'd skip her busy morning schedule of reading the paper and making new stacks of paper in favor of schlepping them to get their teeth checked.
For such an avid fan of *The Rules*, she sure loves to break the ones that don't suit her.
Oh well, small comfort in knowing that nobody else at the office likes her either.

Lulu Maude said...

"You NEED to know blablabla."

I can see the cheek muscles under her blush pulling toward her ears as she intones the words.

I have known some real jerks in management who seem to believe truly that their ascendance is tied to their superiority.

What is really true is that once you are on the management track you can only move to better jobs as long as you regain your sense of entitlement. Nothing short of an Enron-type collapse need interrupt your grab of the tarnished golden ring.

Look at Nardelli--from Home Despot to Chrysler Corp., and the guy's a disaster.

Fuck 'em all.

Lulu Maude said...

p.s. It's so good to have you back. Unfortunately, much of your best stuff, like Dilbert's, is lampooning the pointy-heads of the world.

Anonymous said...

Insecurity/lack of confidence in a man gets him moved up the food chain, but its not tolerated in a woman, unless she's young and hot, which Ms. Dilbert is NOT. She won't last long.

I love my job and my boss is very nuts too. He also loves meetings in which he says such untruthful, crazy shit we all dare not look at each other for fear of busting out laughing. I've advised everyone for their own safety that when he goes off the track they should visualize their dog's nose (or kittie's), so as not to reveal our shock and awe at his performance. So there we are, trapped with blathering Captain Queeg, all of us smiling like Mona Lisas.

Come on, that's some funny shit there.

Take if from a life long bureaucrat, a bad boss is like being force fed lsd.

dguzman said...

Holy crap, I think I worked for this lady! The reports to justify your own existence, the contradicting orders, the "no, YOU obviously made the mistake, not me!" revisionist history, all of it. Gee-sus, working for a bad boss is the worst thing in the world. I just got out from under one, and the sky is bluer, the grass is greener, and the air smells sweeter than it has in years. Good luck, man.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, well, I think I've figured out how to turn the tide a little.
I gave her all the stupid ass reports she wanted, including the "activity report" which describes for her what I do as a fucking magazine editor. I made sure each month was very repetitious, but I used different adjectives and adverbs to show her just how creative I can be with her stupid request. And just to be a bitch I also included everywhere I went, everyone I talked to and every reason for everything I said and did.
By this afternoon she was a little nicer (she actually said hi once) and I continued my moratorium on any conversation beyond strictly business.
But I was very chipper and funny and charming to everyone BUT her, making sure she could tell what a grand mood I was in.
Like the brat she is, I could tell she felt left out. GOOD!
The she tried to be chipper and chatty with the other staff but none of them trust her or like being around her so her attempts were not warmly received.
HA!