Busy Work Revisited

So last Friday I had a REALLY bad day at work (another “listen to Eminem” kind of day) that I really wanted to talk about, and haven’t been able to until now. If you are a faithful reader, you will recall that while Satan (my boss) was on vacation, he left me some busy work. Busy work that took me FOREVER to do, and wound up being about 25 pages long. A nice little chart listing all the court documents for an old case, chronologically, with all the necessary details in separate columns. When I had finished it, I joked to my coworker, “He’ll probably STILL say it’s all wrong.” Well, guess what? He basically did.

TWO FULL WEEKS after he came back, this past Friday, at about 4:00 no less, he calls from his office, “Dasi, where is that spreadsheet I asked you to make? What did you save it under?” I told him, and he came storming out of his office. “Why isn’t it in EXCEL? I NEED it in EXCEL!”

Ok, besides the internet and typing basic documents, I am COMPLETELY computer illiterate. I do not know Excel, or Power Point, or Outlook. I know Word. That’s IT. And I have never misrepresented my computer illiteracy. In the over four years I have been here, I have NEVER used any program other than Word. So when he started screaming about Excel, I kind of gave him a “what-the-fuck?” look and said, “Satan (yes, he is called ‘Satan’ behind his back, because what else would you call the boss when you work in HELL???), I don’t KNOW Excel.”

Well, THAT went over well. Next I had to listen to a tirade of how he needed to SORT this material, didn’t he tell me it needed to be SORTED when he asked me to do this? Patiently, I replied, “Satan, even if you HAD told me it needed to be sorted, I would not have known that meant Excel, because I DO NOT KNOW EXCEL.” I felt like I was talking to a four-year old (albeit a four-year old ASSHOLE) and could feel my face flushing and my temples pounding. “Then you should have ASKED!” he said condescendingly. Ok, ASKED WHAT?? If I had zero knowledge of something that someone made reference to, how would I know to ASK about it? Am I crazy? Because he was making me feel as though I was. And yet I knew that since he had not SPECIFICALLY said Excel, and I had never used the program, there was no way I could’ve known what he wanted. Honestly, I thought my Word table was very well done. It was neat, chronological, and had taken me frickin’ FOREVER to do! Twenty-odd pages typed and formatted perfectly. But in the end, he told me, “Well, I guess you’ll just have to do the whole thing over. In Excel.”

Which I STILL didn’t know. I was so mad I was seriously afraid I was going to either knock the shit out of the little weasel or say something I may regret, so I grabbed some papers the other attorney needed copied and left for the copy room. Of course, when I finished, Satan had left for the weekend. My coworker M tried to show me Excel, and help me maybe transfer some of my Word table onto an Excel document, but I was too frustrated and angry. Besides, by then it was almost 5:00, and I had no desire to hang out there any longer than I had to.

So I hopped in my car, and blasted (what else?) “Puke.” Over and over and over again. To the point that when I pulled up in my driveway, my neighbor (the nice one) laughed and asked if I had a bad day. And invited me over to drink and watch the Cubs. Which was very nice, so I took Roxy over to her friend’s house and did just that. I felt a little better, but I was still really aggravated that I now not only had to figure out a whole new program, but had to re-do a project that was really time-consuming and bottom line – a pain in the ass.

The rest of my weekend was pretty uneventful, except for when I took Roxy to Septemberfest on Saturday and saw Officer Friendly – who was REALLY HOT. Problem was, I saw him while Roxy and her friend were in the fire safety house, so I had no reason to go over and check him out more. And he was in the middle of closing his booth. Roxy graciously volunteered to barrage Officer Friendly with questions when we returned on Monday so I could stand there and flirt. Unfortunately when we went back to Septemberfest on Monday, there was a new Officer Friendly who was old and not very hot at all. So that plan totally flopped. I’ll have to start speeding down the streets of Schaumburg hoping to get caught by the Hot Officer Friendly. But back to my work issue.

I got to the office early on Tuesday, armed with useful information from helpful friends on how to possibly transfer my table from Word to Excel. However, when faced with the actual program on the screen, I was at a loss. I did remember certain key words, though, and tried typing them into the Excel “help” section. Through trial and error, I was able to transfer the whole thing at once, and only had to make some minor adjustments to make it fit better.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure at all if I had done it right or not, but I didn’t care. It looked ok to me, and when I saved it under Excel, it worked. So I printed it up, put it on Satan’s shelf, and waited for the fallout. Guess what? I got NOTHING. No “Gee, Dasi, you finished this quick!” or “So, were you able to transfer any of it, or is this all re-typed?” or heaven forbid I get a “Sorry for the trouble, but thanks for putting this in Excel after you busted your ass on it originally.” He made NO COMMENT at all. So technically, it COULD still be all wrong. Since he said NOTHING. Unbelievable.

Which is why for the most part my job SUCKS. Then again, Satan does take many vacations throughout the year, and the pay is better than I would get anywhere else in the burbs without a degree. Tolerating his shit comes with the territory. And as my brother points out, I DO manage to blog on a daily basis, and check e-mails, and goof off when he is on the phone or out of the office. So I guess it all balances out. Besides, where else can I talk to someone who wants to sue his boss for stealing his girlfriend and who then lost his home because he lived with his girlfriend and she threw him out? (Oh – and he wanted to sue as fast as possible so he could get enough money to quit his job so he wouldn’t have to see his boss every day.) Not many other places, I tell you. But I still wish Satan wasn’t such an ass.