I am really only writing this post for myself, because it’s highly abnormal that I would arrive home after a hard day at work and not be excited to crack a beer and play my favorite online game. So, in order to get this dark cloud off of me I am blogging, which I have done very little of lately because I have not had anything interesting to say and even CNN has resorted to two or three headline stories about frozen or otherwise distraught animals.
Work has recently gotten so out of hand that I feel brain dead. I sit down at my desk and look at stacks of complex or annoyingly stupid fraud claims to investigate and get the same feeling I get when staring at a pile of laundry that you’ve let collect until you have nothing clean to wear except the clothes that no longer fit you. People are quitting, or just going MIA and then looking very sad upon return, or having babies. One of the people, who birthed a child right around the time I passed out drunk last night, was a file organizing machine who made my job painless. Her absence feels like what I imagine it would feel like to suddenly lose a limb. Not just a foot or a finger, but one arm and the leg on the same side of your body.
Actually, that is all wrong, because in all reality I am working very fast at tackling impossible mountains of chaotic nonsense. So I suppose it is more akin to taking speed when you would rather nap. Which, is not really that bad, but the exhaustion and anxiety are beating my soul in the face with an industrial three hole punch.
Now, aside from the boring gripes about job stress, which is utterly too common in entry level corporate jobs, I have also potentially fallen out of my supervisor’s good graces by reporting three instances of racist, sexist and otherwise innappropriate comments made by the same coworker. It was A. who had the first run-in when overhearing this person tell an African immigrant that they are no longer in Africa for whatever reason, and then adding that she wishes he would just go back. Now, the person she was referring to is intolerably obnoxious, granted, but you cannot respond to said obnoxiousness with throwbacks to black inferiority, segragation, and slave ships. It’s just not ok. Even if the receiver of this sentiment was not hurt or offended by it, my work environment and feelings about my job, which I spend way too much time at, are highly dimished when faced with the knowledge that my cowerkers are racist overgrown children. I debated with A. about whether or not the incident should be reported. It’s a tricky thing.
Then today I had the displeasure of hearing this coworker referr to another employee as a cocky asshole and “if there’s nothing swinging between your legs he will not listen to you.” Again, I will grant her the possibility that this employee may indeed be sexist, but please leave referrences to genitalia, the image of a swinging penis, and the phrase ‘cocky asshole’ out of any situation which requires me to be sober.
I had enough, and brought it to my boss’s attention. There was a formal meeting in which she took down notes and had me write a signed statement and then thanked me for bringing it up. However, later that afternoon (after hearing my coworker call another customer a persistent bitch, which, even if true is sometimes necessary for our customers to get their claims resolved) my boss came to my desk and informed me that the issue had been forwarded to HR and that there would be a sit down the following day. Good, I thought. I am now percieved as a competent, hardworking employee who also helps maintain professionalism and avoid lawsuits.
Ugh. In the same conversation my boss also managed to imply that my concerns were possible petty and that I was likely the only person in the office bothered by my coworker’s conduct. On top of that, I was informed that our company’s harrasment policy encourages employees to respectfully confront eachother before filing a complaint. Upon hearing this I had to will my mouth shut. I wanted to ask my boss if she was aware of my hourly compensation and the fact that personnel management and maintaining a non-hostile work environment is not in my job description. Instead, I meekly nodded and said “okay, I will keep that in mind” when what I meant was “Shit, if I’d known I would be risking becoming an annoyance over this I would have just saved it for smoke-break bitching.
So tomorrow I am going to have such a wonderful shit fuck of a day trying to keep my cubicle from going nova while also worrying constantly that three people in the office suddenly think I am a prude crybaby who will tattle if you say a naughty word. Of course, I realize that the law is on my side, but up until today I had been so consistently impressing my boss and winning various flavors of brownie points that I am really saddenned to think I would suffer adverse effects over this, and I now fully understand why A. was hesitant to pursue the matter.
I really do not wish this to be lumped into the general personality conflicts our office suffers from.
Finally, and most upsetting, this situation makes the fact that our employees are the bottom of the banking barrel glaringly obvious. The simple notion that this type of conduct would even be considered tolerable only reinforces the fact that I am surrounded by juveniles who are going nowhere fast.
Thankfully, none of them read my blog. And even if they do, I am right, and I don’t care.
Thanks WordPress. I think I will go crack a beer and play Xplorers now.
