Caterwauling

I’m hellbent on maintaining my good mood, so let this crab blow off some steam and she’ll go ease herself into a vat of butter, and we’ll call that my happy place. 🙂

I got an e-mail from someone I haven’t yet met in my new surroundings, asking me if I “wanted” to work on a project that includes who-only-knows-what. I loioked at the project overview and said I wasn’t certain it was as urgent as they conveyed and that if they could wait till later this summer, I’d be all over that hot mess. I explained that my time was stretched at this juncture and that, from the looks of it, nothing had really changed and I was quite confident that it was OK to keep using as-is for another two months.

So I get this e-mail back basically telling me that it wasn’t a question — it was a directive. And that it was due this week.

OH HELL NO, Homey don’t play that.

I harnessed the magical power of the delete key because the reply was altogether too tempting to make. And I know this ain’t over, but honestly, there are ways to talk to people. I’ve gotten too old and set in my ways. If you approach me to say that this is WHY this project needs priority status (and I happen to agree with that logic), I will work with my team to ensure that my priority duties get taken care of so that I can handle another project. But at this time, I’m short-staffed and, quite honestly, short-tempered when it comes to people absolutely disrespecting my time and devaluing the contributions I am making without any added “you must do this now” bullshit.

Besides, why ask if I wanted to do it when I was nominated or, worse, ordained? Not to mention, I’m in absolute crisis mode. I’ve got one on vacation, one on bereavement, one on sabbatical and a couple who are on the road. Yes, it takes the secret handshake at this point to get me NOT to bop an unruly brat upside the head.

But I’m not letting this bother me. I am not a fan of games but I assure you, I don’t lose them when I do play.

Speaking of “Generation Whine,” as I like to call the “Y”-ers, I was always the youngest person on my teams, even if I was the supervisor. Now I find myself, at 33 years, 11 months and a handful of days, in the “middle-age” category. Yikes. When the hell did that happen?

I remember when there were a billion news articles on dealing with the arrival of Gen X. Here we are, not necessarily as disenfranchised with reality as y’all thought we would be and certainly more-committed to excellence than those who are thisclose to retirement. But man, I’m scratching my butt over “these kids today.”

Gen X is too busy spinning plates and simultaneously juggling an entire set of cutlery — these whiners (er, Y-ers) seem to expect that you will tap dance for them, too. If their parents never told them no, they aren’t receptive to so much as a “maybe” — much less a “no” from anyone who didn’t birth them.

Don’t get me wrong — my immediate team is Teh Awesome. I don’t know where these folks came from (heaven, apparently) but I demand and receive excellence, and they’ve proven that it can be done.

Since I’ve become sort of an old fogey, can’t I just spank some of these kids and send them to bed without dinner when they disrespect mah authoritah? O HAI reality! *thwap*

All right, I’ve had to finish out the workday at Corner Bakery, after this morning’s emergency run to Panera. Time to go buy some fewd and justify the hours of chilling out for free at this hotspot. What an expensive day this has turned out to be, but it sure beat staring at my half-walls. … 😉

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 1:29 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.