The warm and fuzzy feelings of last night were immediately shot straight in the ass today when I went into the office, straight from the print shop, to fix something and re-send it.
Town Crier accosted me immediately. Those who remember TC recall that she’s not my favorite fruit loop at the Veggie Patch.
Apparently my workplace is having a massive meeting next weekend (um, the holiday weekend, for those calendar-phobes out there). It runs from Friday through Monday. TC had asked for me to be present for the miserable mess and to take photos of it. I had told her that I have a lot of plans that weekend (yes, weekend — remember those? yeah, me either) and that I wasn’t promising anything.
So my staff writer and I were skulking in this afternoon, trying to fly under the radar and escape being seen, but god damn it all to hell anyway, TC jumped right in front of us (yes, physically blocking us in the hallway) and said that, if I’m not available, then Cruise Director wants Staff Writer to be available.
I stomped off.
Perhaps it is my own fault that I do work during two to three weekends a month — by rights, work should only consume one weekend, if that. I blame it on some of my own poor planning/execution skills, but I share that blame equally with ridiculous, time-consuming e-mail arguments and contradictory mandates from the Upper McManagement.
At any rate, I’ve given up enough weekends this month — not that any of them knows this, because I go in, do my work and leave. I don’t brag about it — I do what needs to be done and I go on with my life.
And that’s where the anger arose within me again today — it’s not just any ol’ weekend — it’s friggin’ Halloween. I have plans on Halloween (Shawn, what’s the scoop?). I have a housewarming party at my abode on Saturday (nothing exotic, but I’ve got a buttload of shopping, cooking and cleaning to do, so time is precious here). I plan to be hungover the next day — or, at least, really fucking exhausted.
But, alas — that’s my choice. Because it’s MY TIME.
Work doesn’t really demand a lot of me. But when they asked me to work, I said I had personal plans. And the neat thing about them asking if my staff writer could shoot these stupid photos — of a weekend-long TRAINING SESSION … how fucking BORING is that?!?! — is that she can’t because she’s Pagan. Yes, Halloween is a religious holiday for her, and she has events going on the whole weekend (like coming to my soiree, for instance. LOL).
I zipped off a quick e-mail to my supervisor, who responded with a terse, “We’ll talk.” Fuckin’ fine with me — am I going to get overtime for this? Or comp time? Looks to me that every second or third paycheck is short $100-plus because of our fucking furlough days, and I seem to recall doing some work-related activities during those unpaid adventures. All I have are my weekends, damn it.
And seriously, this weekend-long fiesta would require me putting some miles on my car (because they can’t host these meetings locally or conveniently for drones like me), and it would take me away from either preparing for, or recovering from, the plans I’ve had for two friggin months now.
Can’t these losers take their own cameras? The people at this meeting are of little interest to me anyway. We supposedly have a P.R. staff (read: supposed to be Town Crier and her septogenarian assistant) — do they seriously think I want photos of people sitting at tables and lining up against walls for my paper? I hate that shit.
I mean, really, to look at this month’s issue of the paper is to know what phenomenal photography was. And let’s just say that I didn’t take any of the photos. They were supplied by my ridiculously talented designer (and I’m not just sayin’ that ’cause he’s reading this!), or they were professional shots taken of the people profiled in the stories we ran. I have voiced my opinion till I’m hoarse that I just don’t get why I have to attend retirement parties and going-away parties and meetings, meetings, meetings just to be the staff shutterbug. What do I do with these photos? I develop them and shove them in a drawer. And if I can find one to run, I can never get much help with the cutlines, so I end up running something bland and barely coherent, just to fill up the space beneath each photo of some dickhead holding a plaque.
*sigh*
Fuck them — they’re not going to ruin THIS weekend! And hopefully not the next one either.