I attempted to Xmas shop today, with some success. Got a gift for my grandfather, who’s always the hardest to shop for. He spends most of his days in bed, so I got him a comforter. 🙂 My mom had mentioned wanting to buy him one, but as he’s always with her when she’s shopping, she saw one she liked but couldn’t buy it without him noticing. I happened to be at the INS tonight (oops, I mean Wal-Mart) and saw the comforter. There was one left, in the right size, so I confirmed with Mom that she didn’t buy it, so I got it. Whew.
Christmas is going to be lean this year (unlike my ass, which is fuller and more festive than ever. argh), but at least I have one more person to buy for, and I’m done! Yay!
I also did a little bit of shopping for me. I have this ever-growing list of cleaning products that I’ve been needing, and today, I crossed most of those items off that little list-from-hell. Woo hoo! I see a lot of scrubbing and scouring in my future, but what else is new? 🙂 I resolve, for the new year, to get back to the level of cleanliness that I usually kept up at my old apartment (I’m no pig, I’ve just been slacking a bit). I think that might also mean packing away a lot of stuff, but that’s okay — less to fuss over. 🙂
I had just arrived at Springfield Mall today to pick up a table I saw yesterday that I wanted for my office (and I had found a coupon for 20 percent off, which made me absolutely want that table instead of just sorta-wanting it). I was walking the four-mile trek (it seemed) to a mall entrance when my cell phone rang. IKEA Boy was at work, asking where I was. He sounded distraught and wanted to meet me. Of course, another major disappointment at work occurred (no surprises there) and this time, he was the one standing in front of the fan when the shit hit.
OK, let me preface this for those just tuning in: The Veggie Patch — a.k.a. Club Med(icated) — is a 14K fuckup of a company. I don’t know where their money goes (it certainly isn’t into salaries and benefits), but they never seem to have any cash (although I know what’s in reserves, and believe me, it’s not a bad number). Last month, we were told that we weren’t getting raises till June, particularly those of us (i.e., Shan and me) who are due for raises in January as a condition of six months of new employment. That was clearly aimed at us, and while we’ve been angry and hurt and frustrated over knowing that we’re staying at our current shitty salary levels, well, we’ve accepted that we work for assholes.
Well, IKEA Boy has been OK with his salary, particularly because he just started grad school and was getting tuition reimbursement. Unfortunately, today, he went to Frosty in H.R. and turned in his grades (an A and a B+ — woo hoo!!! Yay IKEA Boy!!!). He also submitted his paperwork for next semester’s tuition reimbursement.
Oh, but wait. Or, more appropriately, “Oh, but no.”
Frosty informed IKEA Boy (in her usual flippant way) that the money ran out for tuition reimbursement, so he was SOL for next semester. Funny, but he’s the ONLY person in that loving atmosphere who’s in school, just like Shan and I are the only ones scheduled for six-month salary adjustments. Hmm. I can’t see how she “ran out of money,” as she claims, when we all know that it makes employers look damn good when their staffs are well educated.
He was furious, of course, used the word fuck a number of times, and had a meltdown with P. Demure (his boss) as well as with Frosty. It reminded me of the time when Frosty told us in the manager’s meeting about the no-raises till July bullshit — how she said, “Well, you just tell your staff that they’ll get a nice retro check when the new fiscal year rolls around.” I wanted to pound her face in at that moment, and IKEA Boy was furious on my behalf but was also calm because, well, he wasn’t surprised.
So now that it was his turn to get fucked up the ass without a reach around, well, that did it. He went over the edge. What Shan and I have said since the no-raise fiasco occurred was that our associate executive attention deficit disorder esquire directors are living comfortably on their salaries (and they all have two-income households, too), while the rest of us are single and struggling every day to make ends come close to meeting (or at least, prevent those ends from fraying too much).
And grad school isn’t cheap. And as far as Frosty indicated, she’d had no plans on informing IKEA Boy that his check for the past semester was his last. Nor did she believe that she even had to tell him at all. She said that flat out, to his face, that she shouldn’t have to inform him of anything, if she doesn’t want to.
He’s pissed, obviously because that’s a lot of money he was counting on, but secondly, the “leadership” (gag) reinforces how we all need to communicate better, to all “sing from the same sheet music” to the staff, to disseminate information fairly.
There are days when it’s difficult to keep inside everything that I really know about the inner workings of the savage beast (work, silly, not IKEA Boy!). But all I can actually say tonight is that those assholes need to watch their steps, because a lot of people are steaming, for different reasons, and shit’s gonna blow — sooner rather than later.
If I may pitch my own bitch about the raises/tuition no-gos, let me just say that we have people who have worked at that place longer than it existed (it went by another name before that), and nobody’s messing with those people. I see so many ways to improve efficiencies there (which would save tons of cash), but nobody wants to hear from me. I’m just the writer who hides in my office and does my thing, which is write stuff. 🙂 I have a great resume that is NOT bullshit, I have contacts and skills that I am NOT allowed to use, and I suffer with pay that IS NOT and WILL NEVER BE commesurate with what I have to offer. And likewise, so do IKEA Boy and Shan. That’s about it, as far as I can see, for the talent pool there. I think some of the better leaders there are burned out, and the other top performers (the rest of them are in Finance, and they keep that place afloat) are continually shat upon. I never dreamed I’d work for an employer that was more messed up than Two Strikes, but at least they paid me for a great deal of my agony. 🙂
I also set up a blog for IKEA Boy this evening as well. It’s nothing much yet, but he needs to blog. Trust me. 🙂 And I’ll be working on the template a lot more and eventually, I’ll most likely move it over to the Caterwauling server. But that’s a New Year’s project. Right now, I just have to get through the rest of this damn season without shoving a Christmas tree up Frosty’s ass.
And as for me, my day wasn’t all stressful and chaotic, though. I got an oil change and a 10,000-mile checkup for Samantha, and she’s purring like a kitten as usual, but feeling a little sassier than she usually does. I love my new auto place, CXL, because they vacuumed my car, washed my windows and told me the next type of work I’ll need done. The guy who waited on me was friendly and knowledgeable, although I had to laugh when he said, “Everything in your car looks almost brand-new.” And when I told him the car is a 2002, he quipped, “And that would be why.” lol. They gave me a cherry Blo-Pop and a candy cane, both wrapped with ribbons, and I thought that was a sweet little gesture. Yes, I’ll be a customer there for life. 🙂 And it didn’t hurt that the guy was just a total cutie, too!!!