That's because people, for the large part, better or worse, is what we ALL have to deal with. Family, friends, coworkers, associates, comrades, our community, our town, city, metropolitan urbanplex....its all people. And all the good, bad, and truly ugly they drag along with them.
I have been harsh on people, and i know it, often i regret saying things to people and apologize, knowing they probably don't hate me, but don't love me either. Some people avoid me, especially at work. I have been at my current job for 3 years. In that time I can think of two people, both men, who avoid having anything to do with me. One guy sees me, and averts his eyes and walks quickly away, in the direction of the nearest get away.
The other has that seething "I hate you" look on his face all the time, and has never EVER said hi, screw you or anything to me, even when i brought in a small cake on his birthday. This guy also wears the same clothes every time I see him - high top sneakers, black shorts, a t-shirt and a baggie black sweatshirt, and a university baseball hat (worn backwards). Doesn't matter if its 114 or 23 degrees outside, that's what he wears.
The other thing that gets me is when i wander around the building, I have never met an employee out of the 350 people working there, that either don't know my name, or when they are introduced to me, nod their head and say "Oh, so YOU'RE Canice..." I think part of that might be because all IT purchases go to me to be logged into our IT budget system, a responsibility I sort of inherited after it was introduced.
"We don't have a good handle on IT spending, so lets have someone track everything from mouse pads to entire new networks" is a entirely stupid thing we do, because someone somewhere decided it made sense.
It works like this - you fill out a form and send it to me; I take what you had on the form and add it to a bigger form with all the other purchases. Once a quarter, i send the form to the CIO's office. They look to see how much money the CIO/IT has to spend for the rest of the fiscal year, and if they think you item has merit, it gets a priority number. If not, you suck at writing purchase justifications. once you realize you suck at that, you call me for advice; which I supply by coaching you into writing what they want to hear. If you still SUCK at writing (and a lot do) then I write the justification, and you get what you wanted about 6 months after you wanted it...unless you convince me its something that is desperately needed, then I tell you you suck at writing and I will do it for you, all while trying yo still do my regular job of managing my unit, running projects, managing our projects budgets and schedules, meeting with contractors, vendors, and new clients.
Writing this makes me realize why I get frustrated sometimes...
PS- the picture of my office cube was when the building was new- imagine it looks the same only there are piles of papers in stacks about 6 inches high, and the laptop was ditched for a 27" widescreen monitor, to see the stupid eforms we use on...I haven't seen that much of the actual countertop since 2008.
Nice cubicle.
ReplyDeleteI was reassured when I got to the end of your post because my first thought was that desk is too clean. :-))
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