Now that I know my boss is a hydra...

[lioness70]

After that whole baby shower mess played itself out and came crashing down around my boss, the office manager, I found that she's not a person I really want to deal with.



I think it was awful that even after people called her on being so insensitive, she remained hard-nosed and tried to defend her position.  I'm glad now that I didn't suggest that other people carry their fair share with this phones stuff.  To you and me, I would have only been asking to play fair, but to this hydra, it would have indeed been "shirking my job."



I now have a big philosophy difference with her (I would have handled this MUCH differently), and I am very upset that she had this "hidden agenda" with only one person providing ALL backup phone coverage.



I rarely see her during the day.  Mine is not a closely supervised position (thank God).  I'm just going to go on extra-low profile for a few weeks, smile, be professional, and pretend that this never happened.  Forgive (on the surface for the sake of office harmony)...but NEVER, NEVER forget.



Manners of a wolf, indeed.  Honestly, I would be THRILLED to answer the phones on Admin Professionals Day.  Now, in light of what happened, I really DON'T want to be lunching with her and be all phony for an hour or so.  It'll feel like 24 hours to me.    

[goldenearring]

Lionness:

After reading and mulling over all of this, I have to ask you, ***in ALL sincerity***, why do you work at all?  You say you miss your baby.  We understand that your job situation upsets you terribly, and you say you are part-time.  To me, part-time is 15-20 hours a week.  I can't see where the little bit of extra cash would be worth all the duress this job seems to be putting you through.  By the time you deduct a babysitter, if my calculations are right you may not be bringing home more than $300-400 a month.  To me, that's like getting 15-20 bucks a day to be annoyed and inconvenienced minus the wear and tear on the car.  I'd rather find another way, if it were me.  Granted, there is probably something I don't know about your situation, but I ask you again, if it bothers you this much, why work outside the home at all?

My two cents' -

GE

[lioness70]

My MIL watches the baby, so I don't have to pay any babysitter/day care costs.  Take-home averages around $900 a month (minus the gas for the car to get me there).



If finances didn't dictate otherwise, I would be home with the baby.  This money I make covers a lot of bills.  They're your basic household bills.  We were barely making it on one salary.  We don't have any credit-card debt.



I don't like all these office politics, power-posturing, and hidden agendas this group seems to have (when I was there only a month, someone got HR after me because I was wearing sneakers-I simply forgot to take them off).  I thought I would avoid this crap because I was only part-time.  WRONG.  I think there is some resentment about my position.  I think they also thought it was going to be a "dumping ground" for whatever these other admins don't want to do (hence the baby shower mess)-and it's coming out in these little games.



I wish I could quit.  But we need the money.  My only choice now is to stay out of these games and "fly under radar."  I don't have the energy to put into a VA business or home business because the baby is still small (he turned 1 in January).  I think I should be friendly and attend some of the office social events, but for the most part, take the money and RUN.

[goldenearring]

Hi, there:

Glad you typed your response while I was mulling over an addendum to my other message.  Why you work there now makes perfect sense.



You will do well with your new plan.  And, if you can, have some empathy for that office manager who seems to bear the brunt of a lot of the politics going on and who is just doing her best to make the office run as smoothly as possible.  "Hydra" seems like an awfully strong word for her, but I can understand why you would feel that way.



My best advice is to accept your lot in this job, make it easy for everybody else to do their jobs, support the office manager instead of trying to avoid her, and I don't think you will have anything to worry about.  Nearly a grand a month and part-time hours is a pretty sweet deal.  No wonder some of the admins (and probably other full-timers) resent the set-up.  I still strongly advocate chatting with the office manager.  She could be a strong ally when future events come up.  Plus, she's far more likely to see that you get more of the things that you want to do rather than just "the garbage" if she knows that you're on her side.



Have a good week; I'm going to bed! GE

[yankeestarbuck]

If you really want, that is.  We DO have a Virtual Assistant forum and the lady who moderates can help you "tellecommute" to several lucrative positions from home. ANY position from home is somewhat worth it, if you work it right.  There are tax breaks, like part of the mortgage or rent, part of the phone bill, or all of a separate line bill, part of the electric bill, and if you keep you eyes on the "self-employed" taxes you have to pay, you CAN make that work.  Obviously, you're incredibly smart and hard-working.  Why wouldn't you want to use all of your time to your advantage?  It's something to think about, because no one deserves the hydra you have.  She's not nice and it's not fair that you have to do all the "S" work no one else wants to do.  I hope things ease up.

[andrea843]

Where is it written my Lion maned friend that you do not have the same rights to feelings simply because you are part time?



You are obviously unhappy, I understand your need to work, but is this part time job the only game in town? Working part time gives you the perfect opportunity to slowly start "dustin off that resume" and ciruclating it.  Setting interviews for your offtime and being selective about taking a new postion until you are ready.



We live in fear, many of us.  And it really bothers me.  There ARE progressive workplaces, there ARE places that will value you for your contributions to the company, whether they are made in 20 hours a week or 70.



Now that being said, and hopefully with you knowing that I value YOU, and that my comments are not directed to you personally, Im going to say something that will upset some who post regularly.



This whole phone incident? Bogus.  Someone has to answer the phones.  It's unfortunate that it's fallen to you, but the employer is well within their rights to ask you to do it.  Could it have been done more nicely? you bet.  



Is it a commentary on your job,or on your value to the company?  Nope.  Not in my opinion.  Putting the phones on nightring, from a management point of view is unacceptable.  Period.  It leaves customers hanging, allows possibly important messages to be put "on the back burner" while office personnel persue what is, in essence a bit of personal time.  A little vacation in the office.



The whole shebang should have been set for after hours in order to include everyone. Now don't everyone post at once when they go to flame me okay?



Lioness, you've had your share of problems with this office, and I'd like to suggest that you take a hard look at how you handle some of these situations, so that you're sure you're coming from a place of personal power and not a place of resentment.



Do you often feel left out of the loop? That happens with part time employment. It's a matter of simple time.  If you arent there, when something occurs you hear about it after the fact, and this, at least in my experience with part time work, can cause a feeling of resentment. That old, "I never hear anything til it's over syndrome", often manifests itself in being just a bit oversensative.  At least it did with me. For me the key was acceptance.  I traded full involvment in things for part time freedom at one point in my life.  And once I had accepted that I would be just a tad out of the loop, I became much happier.



Part time employment often becomes a dumping ground, and where is it written that you can not have a job description ? It's NOT written that way.  Your job should have a set of values associated with it like everyone elses and until you ask for that definative bit of info and determine if this is a place you want to stay, you will continue to have problems, at least I think so.



So Im going to duck now for the angry tirades that are sure to follow, and Lioness my comments were not personal, they were figurative, not directed to you personally, but to the workplace in general and workers in general... in short... I LOVES ya!



Andrea puttin on her flame retardant suit... in Charleston

[goldenearring]

. . . I'm goin' with ya' Andrea.  What you wrote is similar to what I had started last night, before I saw that Lionness had responded to my first post.  I relaly don't have anything to add to it, but if anybody has anything to say, they're saying it to both of us, as far as I'm concerned!  Life is made up of a series of choices.  Lord, how I love AND hate choices!!

[lioness70]

Why?  BECAUSE YOU'RE RIGHT.  If this thing was set after hours IN THE FIRST PLACE, I wouldn't be posting about this mess!



It was hydra's idea to have these things at lunch, because she reasoned, there would always be phone coverage.  Well, the women decided that leaving people out wasn't fair, and they're going back to having these things after work.  (The mother-to-be said OM's reasoning was b.s.)  But my point is, why didn't OM tell me that this was in my job description BEFORE I took this job?  Why the secrecy?  I could have handled it better if I knew what I was getting into.



I picked this job because it was 5 minutes away from my MIL, who watches the baby for me.  I wanted to leave the baby with someone who loves him, not in a daycare center.  Personally, I'm opposed to daycare centers.  I understand that a lot of people are in situations where there is no option but daycare.  I feel bad for those people-NOT those who can well afford to stay home but choose to dump their kids in daycare.  A child's well-being is more important to me than a fancy home or a new SUV.



The big problem with this job is it never was and still isn't very clearly defined, and one of the results was this mess.  I think I'll take the money and see how things play out over the next 6 months (and if I post more problems!), to see if I really want to stay here until I have my second baby.

[adassistant]

I've wanted to say it from the beginning, but I just really didn't want to get anybody angry at me for having a different opinion.  



Lioness (nickeymommy), I wish you the best, I'm sure everything will work out in the long run.  I admire you for putting your baby's happiness before your own.  I'm not quite sure what my husband and I are going to do once we have a baby, but hopefully we'll be able to be as unselfish as you.  What a great mother you are!!



I hope you have a wonderful week!

[goldenearring]

OK, I'm stumped!  What does ITA stand for?  I, too, am?!

It's time, as******?!  I tried and . . . ?!  It's the answer?!  Fine, you can leave me like this all day long.  An-dre-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[craftygirl]

I totally agree?



just a guess

cg

[adassistant]

Sorry about that, yes, it means I Totally Agree.

[goldenearring]

Thank you.  My face is red.

[solargal]

Don't worry about not knowing what ITA meant I didn't know it either and it took me forever to figure out what LOL stood for!  Sitting here looking out at a beautiful sunny day and the temp will be in the 70's!