Megsie

Someone asked me yesterday how I’ve been. The succinct answer is “I’m boring and bored” and perhaps I should stick with that; but four words does not a blog entry make, so you shall be regaled with the extended edition (four word blogs shall perhaps be forthcoming, followed, of course, by four-letter blogs). I’m boring and bored, as aforementioned. I haven’t been doing much. I look for jobs for a few hours every day, until I am too frustrated to continue. Most of the rest of my time is occupied lying in bed, trying to sleep, and thinking. Or playing Freecell and thinking. Or taking solitary walks and thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking.

Thinking about my life and how this is not where I want to be right now. Not locationally, but vocationally. Thinking about words, like how I just made an internal rhyme in the last sentence and I’m not sure if either of those words should take the adverbial form, but I like it, and I’m not going to change it. Thinking about things that scare me, like unemployment, and family problems, and a body that feels like it’s falling apart. Thinking about things that make me angry, like my last job, or things that people did to me years ago that I really should forget, or Republicans, or people who drive too slowly, or crows’ incessant cawing, or my own apathy.

Thinking, thinking, thinking until my thoughts swirl and glom together.

Thinking that, with all this mental energy expended, I should have solved the mystery of the universe. Or, at least I should be able to solve my own fucking problems.

Thinking about conversations I have had, will have, or want to have.

Like yesterday, when my boyfriend discovered that I had been smoking again, even though he hates it. Even though a lot of people hate it. Even though I hate myself for it. I was only smoking because I was drinking. Well, because I was going to be drinking, and then because I was drinking, and then because I damn well wanted to. I wanted him to be angry, because then we could fight, and some of these thoughts could come tumbling out in words and they wouldn’t be in my head anymore; and all this animal aggression that kept my ancestors alive but is making me crazy would be released. I thought of what I would say and what he would say, and how I would respond, and mapped out the whole argument. I was excited. I haven’t had a good fight in ages. But we didn’t fight. We had a civilised discussion like adults.

How crushing; how dull.

My life is a Virginia Woolf novel. A phrase I found inscribed in green gel ink under the table of contents of my used copy of To the Lighthouse sums up my present feelings suitably: “Pointless, all pages”. Thank you, disgruntled anonymous reader.

Note: This is the third and final part of this little series. Strangely enough, it seems to have worked and I find myself having trouble summoning the rage necessary to motivate me to complete this. Not a bad thing. Before delving in, though, I would like to express my sympathies with the irate flight attendant who made such a spectacular end to his career at Jet Blue. Sometimes going down in flames is the only way to go.

Monday morning, after working 21 hours of over-time to complete The Move, I awoke to angry emails from the CEO: Why aren’t the networks up? Why was this couch moved? Why weren’t those pictures moved? Why aren’t the phones working? Where is my trashcan? Why wasn’t this done? Where is that? Why was this moved? When am I going to have this? WHY ARE YOU ALL SO INCOMPETENT?! By the time I got to the office, the angry emails had doubled, mostly with demands either beyond anyone’s control or in direct contradiction to what had been communicated before.

Never mind, I thought, he’s just stressed.

I quickly came up with a plan that met all of his demands which I had any responsibility over at all and emailed it to him. I would load the infamous couch into a company truck and return it to the old office building (never mind that two weeks prior I was told to bring the couch, and never told anything otherwise); I would get all the pictures and bring them to the new building (never mind that I was told that I had a week to move such odds and ends); I would get him a trashcan (never mind that he, his wife, and a friend had come in over the weekend to set up his office and insisted that they needed nothing else from me when I asked them). I sent the email. His response? Not good enough.

Very well. What would his lordship desire?

I located a trashcan and marched into his office.

“Here you go.”

“That’s not MY trashcan. Whatever. It will have to work.”

Exasperated to the point of sarcasm, I said (with all the semblance of sweet sincerity), “Oh, I’m so sorry. Tell you what, I will order you a gold-plated trashcan with your name engraved on it. Will that be sufficient?”

Three days later, I quit as his assistant (though I was still working for the company). He said I was a disappointment – not to my face, through the medium of my supervisor. In fact, he did not speak to me for the following week unless he absolutely had to. He would walk the long way to his office just to avoid walking past my desk, which was at the top of the stairs. When this was too much hassle he had me moved downstairs. I was laid off the week after I resigned as his assistant. I can’t say I miss it.

Ode To My (Former) Employer

Well, my dear, it’s been a year
And what a year we’ve had
I’ll fare you well and wish you to hell
Though it hasn’t been all bad

Some say you’re a dick, and you act like a prick
But I’d rather not dwell on your nob
Instead I prefer to calmly demur
And just say you’re an arrogant snob

Well, my man, I can’t say I’m a fan
But I don’t really wish for anything bad
I don’t hope you expire, or die in a fire
But I can’t say, given the news, I’d be sad.

With love,

Megsie

The Move had been looming on the horizon for quite some time, but no one, not even the executives, knew when it would happen. It was the brainchild of the ego-maniacal CEO, and neither financial instability nor logic, nor anything else in all creation would be able to separate him from this plan. In his mind, all things were possible, and he did not care how insurmountable the project was, it would be completed. (Put another way, “your sleep is not important to me” – direct quote in a phone conversation to my co-worker while we were at the office at midnight on a Saturday night, day 2 of The Move).

The Move was to consist of relocating three offices into a single building, this meant moving about 50 office personnel, including most of the desks, files, etc. and 100 field construction staff. We were told we would move in June… Or maybe July… Or possibly August… Or the whole thing might fall through, who knows?

In mid June, after weeks of back-and-forth, I was told one morning, “oh by the way Megan, we’re moving on the 25th. Please start coordinating everything.”

“Wha…? You mean the 25th, as in, 10 days from now?”

Yep, that was exactly what they meant. The next ten days were spent in a frenzy of organizing, working up agendas, calling moving companies, holding meetings, delegating and doing and trying to map out every tiny detail, with plans changing hourly and almost no communication from those in charge. (Conversations with the moving company went something like, “Okay, we will definitely need you to move this and leave that.” An hour later: “Never mind, leave this and move that. Oh, and I just got an email asking about this other thing, can you add that into your quote?”). All this while trying to manage the other daily operations.

The day before the three-day move was to occur (each office was moved on it’s own day), I spent half the morning wrapping up hundreds of army man figurines in bubble wrap in the CEO’s office because I had been told that under no circumstances were the movers to TOUCH his office. Instead, I was expected to pack and transport in my own car all of his stuff. “Don’t worry, Megan” he assured me, “the revolvers and hand grenades from World War I are completely disarmed and won’t detonate.” Oh really? That’s a shame, because I’d really like to blow my head off right about now.

Meanwhile, I was also attempting to field questions from my co-workers (“Where are the boxes?” “Downstairs, same place they were when you asked ten minutes ago”), the admins from the other offices (“Are we moving all the desks?” “No – do you remember those fifty emails where we discussed NOT moving all the desks? Yeah”), and the movers (“Everything will be completely ready to go by 7am tomorrow, right?” “Of course!” …not), convincing people to actually pack their own stuff and not wait for me to do it (this was accomplished by many threats of, “If it’s not packed in the morning, I WILL throw it away. Yes, I am a bitch, you’re surprised?”), issuing last-minute instructions (“No, do NOT lock your office if you want it to be moved, I don’t have the key”) and simultaneously helping my boss with travel arrangements because he and his Vice President HAD to be upgraded to First Class on a completely booked hour-and-a-half flight that was leaving in two hours (he got First Class, the VP was stuck in coach. I’m good, but I’m not that good). By 7pm my own desk still wasn’t packed, but everything was nearing completion. Some of my co-workers helped me throw the majority of my stuff into boxes, and I called it a day.

I spent a restless, sleepless night worrying about details. (This had some benefit, because at 3am I remembered that one of the desks had a panic button that needed to be disarmed before it could be moved). I got up at 5am to a car that was completely dead, and, after getting a jump-start I headed to the office an hour later than I had planned, with only thirty minutes before the movers arrived. A quick walk-through of the building showed that people had NOT actually packed completely, and a number of the offices were locked, despite my explicit instructions to leave them unlocked because I DON’T HAVE KEYS. I placed a frantic phone call to a co-worker who lived just down the street from the office who brought keys, all the while frantically throwing stuff in boxes and labeling it. Crisis averted.

The rest of the day went by in a blur of hurry-up-and-wait. I went home at 3pm, slept for a few hours, and then went to the new office from 7pm-11pm to help Brian, the IT Manager. On Saturday, I again went to the office to help Brian with the MASSIVE technological clusterfuck which had ensued from the move. I was mostly moral support, particularly when the CEO became rabid and demanded that everything work! RIGHT! NOW! MINIONS!

On Sunday morning I met the very disgruntled movers at the new building. They had only two workers and one van, whereas on Friday they had had ten workers and two vans. I asked what was wrong, and the mover, who, just two days before, had been friendly and joked with me, grunted angrily and gestured to the inside of the van which had every inch of space crammed full of desks, chairs, file cabinets and boxes.

“We were told half of this stuff wasn’t even moving,” he snapped, “but when we got to the office this morning, everything was labeled to move.”

Flashback to earlier that morning, when I had called our contact at the office that was being moved:

Him: “A lot of these desks aren’t labeled, should I label them?”

Me: “No, absolutely not. If it’s not labeled, it stays. We are not moving everything. Okay?”

Him: “Okay.”

So he labeled EVERYTHING.

I apologised profusely to the movers, and managed to make them relatively happy again. Crisis averted.

By the time I went home on Sunday I was feeling pretty damn proud of myself. Inevitably, though, things fell apart.

To be continued…