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OK, so this is at work -- you know, where I bought the donuts. For the past week or so I have seen some commotion regarding three co-workers in the room. Two of them were in the same row as me, so I saw their mannerisms and tics every day when I sat down. Don't know why I add that; guess it doesn't matter. Both of them also seem young and thus probably have had less time working here than I did.
This test scoring project has had a reputation for being finnicky. They have much more stringent standards of accountability than others. It really freaked me out when I was told I was going to be scoring that project. For example, I heard that there was the possibility of what I call "re-education," Communist China-era style. Also, I have heard that people who don't do a good enough job, whatever that means, get fired.
I don't think I've been doing a good job. Grading essays is tough. Reading whatever kids write is tough. And since these could be upwards of three pages, I have to go through paper after paper of these poor students regurgitating the same thing over and over and over and over again. My day actually gets made when I can read a clean paper that is actually talking about the topic that the student is supposed to be writing about, and does so in a clear and organized way. But 99% of the time you have kids that are just trying to do the job the best they can, and sometimes they cope and sometimes they don't. Add the awful handwriting -- maybe penmanship needs to be taught in schools again -- and my eyes glaze over. And then I have to re-read the whole paper again. That's what I usually do, and that slows me down and cuts into production. I've been lagging, basically, and I don't think I have been accurate as compared to the room.
However, while I have been given papers of wrong scores I've given, I have yet to be "re-educated," or at least I think. Don't know how, but I guess I'm staying in my lane. But these three ... I was guessing that was what the commotion was about. Maybe? I couldn't tell. All of this happened, like, a couple weeks ago, and they seemed to be doing fine, so why did they need remedial education?
But then I thought, Wait a second ... they aren't being punished. They were given these new folders and things. Wait, they're not being ... promoted, are they? I don't get it ... they started off just like me, and now they're getting singled out for special treatment? I've never seen that before. How is that possible? How is that even acceptable? But then I thought, No, no, no -- I am just being paranoid again. They are being "re-educated," repeatedly so; after all, the supervisors keep going back to them, again and again. I really just gave them more credit than I should have. They are actually doing worse than I thought. Besides, people can't be promoted after the project has begun! That's silly!
But then Friday morning came. This babe, you know, the one I keep talking about? She comes up to me and hands me our daily statistics sheet, which tells us what and how we did the day before and for the whole project. She has given me this before as we pass it around from teammate to teammate. So I didn't think anything of it.
But then I noticed something. Under the header on this sheet it said: "[redacted name]'s team." Wait ... I'm on her team??? Then, later in the day, she came up to me again and gave me a paper I graded incorrectly. Other people -- actual supervisors -- give me papers I graded incorrectly, not someone who started off on this project at the same time as me. But now she's giving them to me. Moreover, this woman, who has barely made any eye contact with me, all of a sudden is approaching me with some sort of authority. She, who was just another chump getting schooled on how to answer a question, is now acting like she's the boss of me.
I don't want to spill all the beans of what exactly was said, but she said that she was the boss of me. A person who started alongside me is now above me. And frankly, even though I didn't say this out loud, the only thing I could think of, and what I was saying through my body language, was simply and loudly: "How dare you???"
This is the rare, if not unprecedented, case where I should have been paranoid.
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Like I said before, I don't think anybody else is as bothered, as insulted, about this promotion as I am. I think they should be. I think people, especially the other people in the room who were not promoted, should be fucking up in arms about this, so mad that they can't get their thoughts straight.
I can't get my thoughts straight. But I'll try.
Let me start off by emphasizing this: It's not about Her. Well, it's not specifically about Her. She is the manifestation of a process that's gone absolutely fucking screwy, a breach of protocol that I thought was sacred in all my years of scoring and should still be sacrosanct. I don't know her, so I don't want to cast aspersions about someone I don't really know (although I still think she remains a bit cold to me, but I am now back to petty sniping). She could be an absolute angel and I still don't think she should get this job.
My problem is the decision to select a few people who were in the same level as me and then telling them, "Yeah, you get a promotion and a raise and you get to lord over all the people you were once learning this stuff with." Yeah, let's start my grievances with that. You cannot tell me that over the course of, what, 2 1/2 weeks these three people (there were three people that suddenly were "called up" to this position) have achieved such mastery over this question that they can tell the rest of us what's going on. Therefore, as good as she or the other two might be with this, I cannot and will not recognize their legitimacy in their new jobs. If you think they would do a good job with this project, call them up next year. Not this year. Because I cannot and will not respect their authority now.
Another thing: I have done their job once, and it's stressful as fuck. There is so much more to prepare for when doing such a job, and there is a bunch of administrative work that has to be done that I liken to cleaning up after the parade horses shit through a parade. You need time to understand and process all of that, and to talk to your supervisors, and other people who will work with you. Do these three know all the ins and outs of the answers? Have they gotten into agreement amongst themselves about how to score the particular nuances and any weird tendencies these kids are exhibiting? Do they even know how to work the new damn programs they will have to use now that they've been promoted? It's not rocket science, sure. But I had two or three days to figure out what I needed to do in my brand new job and I had time to ask questions from my new co-workers and supervisor before the project began. Two, three days -- that's all I ask for full credibility in my mind. Instead, these three are being thrown into the deep end of the ocean, and I'm sorry, I don't care how good they might be coping or how well they're picking things up. You cannot convince me they will do as good a job as they would have if they were properly trained before this whole goddamn thing began. And I'm not going to be a part of such a mess.
But what I guess pisses me off most about all of this are the messages that this move sends. The optics of doing this absolutely suck. If they think somebody can be experts about this question to the point they can supervise others in the span of just 2 1/2 weeks, then they're saying that what they're doing is a half-ass operation and they'll call up anybody with half a brain to be a supervisor. Again, this isn't brain surgery. But these test scoring projects, and the protocol I had been following for the past six seasons, had things you had to do and had to not do. This place had standards. And just calling somebody up out of the blue and assuming that I and other people will recognize their authority even though we were in the same goddamn boat as we were on Day One is an utter perversion of those standards.
The higher-ups could say something to the effect of, "Who cares as long as the job gets done?" If that's the case, why in the hell are there supervisors at the beginning of these projects at all? Let's just wait a week, find somebody who's fast and right, and just hire them on the spot! They'd be saving a hell of a lot of money on training on the front end. Of course, if you're saying that any dumb shit could do this, the message you're sending then is that you don't care about the integrity of this project even though you say you do.
Also, I don't think I'm alone in being blindsided that scoring scrubs were suddenly graduated to supervisors. (I might be the only livid person, though; that's the difference.) How come they were selected for these new responsibilities -- and, by the way, for the raise that goes along with it? If I knew that people were going to be promoted soon after the project began, I (and I might be outing myself here) would have worked harder to get noticed and possibly tapped for this job myself. And I think others would have been more motivated to do the same. The company seemed to have hid this from us. And I really don't like shit that's hidden from us.
Finally, and most important of all, promoting from within on the fly like this is divisive. Fuck merit -- I do not appreciate being minded over my shoulder by someone with whom I was standing side-by-side. Why do they get more money and we don't? Why are they entrusted with more responsibilities and we aren't? Why do we have to hit production targets and they don't? How does it look that people get to supervise other people for something as important as tests after just 13 days? And if this is just a way to stoke competition and thus increase production, well, that sucks because all you're doing is sowing resentment, confusion and humiliation ... and I'm feeling all of that right now. This isn't fucking Thunderdome. We're supposed to be on the same goddamn team.
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OK, I've been trying to avoid an excuse that might be raised against me: Seniority. Simply, that I'm bitching about this because I was passed over for someone who (if I'm right) has been at this place for fewer years than I.
That's not the case. Or at least I hope that's not the case. The third new called-up deputy has been at this company for longer than I have. I think, in fact, he's worked on this project before. And I would like to think that even if I was working under him, he would have zero credibility to look over my numbers like this supervisor has zero credibility to look over my numbers. This old vet still is forced to get up to speed on his administrative duties while in the middle of the project, and he still had to go through the same training for this like the rest of us did (otherwise, why can't anybody just be deputized into this role? Shit, why can't I be deputized into this role?). Anybody who goes from entry grunt to supervisor in the same project, in my not-so-humble opinion, is someone who doesn't deserve my respect in that capacity of supervisor, no matter how much seniority he or she may have with the company.
Saying that, I have to say that something I see every day makes my blood boil. It's bad enough that I basically replied to this woman showing me my numbers with a look akin to, "Who are you judge me?! I've been at this shit longer than you have!!" I admit that I am relying on my years of service to this company when I look at her with such contempt. But it's more than that. Now she has these administrative duties that get her and these other two dudes doing extra stuff, stuff such as going up to the printer, bringing this binder out the door, and, presumably, going to this company's back office.
The young dude who was promoted has a tic. I noticed that at certain times of the day, he would get up and use the bathroom, where he would be for about 15 minutes before coming back. Three times a day, each at pretty much at the same time. You know what? I don't know why I volunteered this information; this has no bearing as to why I find his promotion to be illegitimate.
Anyway, I remember being an equal to this guy, and to this woman, as we literally were on the same row. It was the front row -- right where the printer and the binder and the front door to the back office are. So I get a front row seat every single time this whippersnapper woman or this young dude or the old vet exercise their new-found responsibilities and grab a printout or the important binder as they leave. Every. Single. Time. And all I can think of is how goddamn unfair it is that they suddenly got a raise and a guy like me, someone who has just done his job for six years, doesn't. I am so blinded with rage whenever I see them walk up to the front that I lose my train of thought and have to re-read the essay I'm on.
Moreover, if I am right and that these two young guns are in their first season scoring tests, that means that I have been passed over for supposedly important duties by two people who not only haven't worked on this project ever before but haven't worked with this company ever before. I have never been in this back office! Where the fuck is this back office?! Why can't I take a peek inside this back office?? Meanwhile, these two fucking n00bs get the keys to the kingdom because their numbers over a 2 1/2-week sample size are good? What kind of an amateur shitshow is this?
My visceral reaction to this, the reason I erupt with anger, may be because it looks like I've been passed over. I give you that it looks bad. But I swear my real issues have nothing to do with seniority. This simply is not the right thing to do.
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Maybe I'm overreacting. I will allow the possibility, however remote, that there is some rational explanation to all of this, even though I can't think of one. Maybe they really didn't want to do this, but they needed to promote people. Maybe these three guys were going to be supervisors all along and were just being groomed to start off. Maybe we're all going to be supervisors at some point, fuck if I know. But here's the deal -- no one has told me, or anyone else, about why people have suddenly become kicked up to supervisors over other people who are doing as good of a job. I have never seen people called up in-project in my six years of working there. If this is a special case, somebody has to communicate just what the fuck is going on. Where is the transparency? Where is keeping people abreast of all the changes that are happening? Because what I see is somebody who should be at her fucking work desk, where she started, like I still am, who now has some ordained authority over me. And I'm supposed to just accept that? Fuck that. I don't like that. At. All.
I am so offended by seeing people being placed above other people without any reason that, as soon as I had free time, I called my temp agency and asked if they had any jobs open. I can't stay in a situation like this. I won't be forced to knuckle under a half-ass operation where people are given jobs that not only are not deserved, but should not have been offered in the first place. This insults everything I knew this company to be, so much so that I think I am going to leave.
I am sad. I like it there. The commute's good, all of the people (well, most of the people) there I like, they seem to like me, I can come in dressed however I want, etc. But I didn't sign up for this cock-up. And if this is how things are going to be now, well, I am going to be a pissy little bitch about it and walk away. I have principles, and they were thoroughly violated the moment I realized that woman, that rookie, has now become my fucking boss. At the end of the day, I have got to look at myself in the mirror and be OK with the person staring back at me. I can't look back at myself now. I can after I
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I changed my subheading to the above -- "Remember that after a Friday evening must always come a Sunday night" -- Friday evening. I knew that even though I could decompress and get away from all this bullshit for two days (and get a good handjob at this party that evening), the weekend will be over and I'll have to face all my problems again.
And so, as I write this late on a Sunday night, I am very depressed. It's a different type of depression from the other times I say I am depressed. I don't necessarily feel screwed. I didn't get screwed out of a job because I didn't know there was a job to get screwed out of. (Plus, like I said, I am not necessarily angry that she got this job ... no one should get this job once the project gets underway. There should be no job like this offered after the project gets started. That's what I'm trying to say!) However, I am very upset that what was a good and safe atmosphere for me is suddenly not. I can imagine that a place where I felt comfortable has become one that feels hostile, cold and uncaring.
This takes me back to my days as a supervisor at the flu biller place in 2014-5; I dreaded waking up, dragging my ass out of bed and going into that fucking disaster every morning, and now I am reliving that here. Funny how one moment changes your perception of a workplace you grew accustomed to. (By the way, I want to note the big difference that in the flu biller place I actually had credibility as a supervisor because I had done it for two years prior and I prepared myself a month before all my employees were hired. These three new hires definitely were not. I wasn't the greatest supervisor, far from it, but don't you ever fucking tell me I didn't pay my dues.)
Look, I can tolerate a lot. But every person has a breaking point. This one is mine. I am depressed because I never thought that this company would do something so stupid that it would turn into a breaking point for me.
So now I have to get the fuck out, and I'm scared that I can't find a way out. Unemployment is not the answer -- that's even worse than staying here. So I am praying to Buddha and God and Allah and every deity above that I find something else that's close enough in pay and length of work to this project. I'll be spraying the want ads with my resume hoping to something else. I just have to find one.
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Thanks for listening. I hope you understand what I'm going through.
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