Anyway.

It's been a rough few weeks over here. Work has royally sucked and made me miserable at home because I can't sleep or stop thinking about all the crap I have to deal with. But I'm hoping the worst of it has passed. My right hand man guy who quit? I got him to stay. I'm not even sure what happened - whether I convinced him or if he decided he was nuts and was waiting for a chance to change his mind. In any case, he's staying and that takes enormous pressure off of me. We went back and forth all day, and literally minutes before the happy hour we scheduled for his send off, he came in my office and put out his arms for a hug, sealing his decision to stay. After that, I dragged him to the bar and forced him to buy me a very large Goose & 7, and watched in delight as those who came to the going away party harrassed him unrelentingly for giving me more gray hairs than my 3 year old.

With that behind me, work is slightly more tolerable. My boss is a jerk and I'm not sure how much longer I can stand to work for him. I'm going to update my resume and start looking for another job. Boy that feels so good to "say" that out loud. Last week in the midst of everything I had a little mini breakdown and was so happy that my parents and husband were supportive. I expected everyone to tell me to just suck it up and be happy I have a job in this sucky economy. But they didn't. So I'm going to take it slow and see what I can find. Maybe nothing, maybe something, we'll see. But I've been at this company 10 years and I think it's time.

A funny little thing happened which also convinces me it's time to go. CrazyAuntPurl had a little post about signs the other day, so that concept was in my head. After a particularly crappy work incident (which involved my boss saying "sorry', me saying "no you're not" and him saying "you're right I'm not" hello are you twelve) I was in the car, stuck in traffic and thinking about my job situation and if I should really leave. All of a sudden I look up and see a billboard that says: "Recession 101: Self worth beats Net Worth". It was so weird because there were no other words on the billboard and you couldn't even figure out what the ad was for (turns out it was from here). So I'm taking it as a sign, literally!

Now when I say my boss is a jerk, I am not kidding. He's not usually a jerk to me, just a jerk in general. But he's quite arrogant and competitive (which he freely admits) and most times I just deal with it, and sometimes even use his rough personality to my advantage - I talk to him like he talks to me and he seems to appreciate that he doesn't have to be all prim and proper with me. But lately it's been too much. He's been dismissive and inconsiderate and I'm tired of it. He allows a colleague to say negative things about me, tells me about it and then does nothing. He consults other people and makes decisions on my department without involving me. I complained about it the other day and he wasn't supportive at all. I said "so what you're saying is stop being a baby and just suck it up". His answer? "Yeah pretty much". Nice right?

But the last straw came the other day. We both witnessed a woman berating her husband in a public place. She was yelling at him about taking too long with what he was doing. When we were out of their earshot, he turned to me and said "Thats why women get beat".

Seriously.

Are you horrified? I was. Stunned into silence in fact - and believe me it takes alot to render me speechless. I didn't do anything about it. If I say something it will cause a whole big thing and it will just be worse. What would you have done? It's not me, right? That's pretty damn awful to say to a woman, let alone your subordinate, right?

Tell me it isn't me and that I need to leave.

Hellacious pressure at work these days, with lots of tough projects looming on the horizon and not enough hours in the day to get them done. On top of that, I'm stressing over the big birthday bash, since most of the cooking and preparation can't be done until the end of the week. The planning is slowly killing me.

On top of THAT, today, my personal friend and right hand man, came into my office and handed me the dreaded white envelope containing a letter informing me he is resigning. I am totally fucked. I don't know how I am going to be able to keep my head above water with him gone. Worse than that, I am so unbelievably hurt that he didn't discuss this with me, didn't give me any warning - just walked into my office like any other employee and gave me three lousy weeks. This weekend our families were together. He was teaching my son to swim. Not a word about it. I think he's crazy to leave for the opportunity he's pursuing. It took everything I had not to jump out my office window today. Everyone who heard called me to see if I was okay.

I'm okay. It's not a death. I didn't lose my job. My feelings are hurt right now, but I'll get over it. I'm good at getting over it. In the long run it will be better for my department because it will shake everyone up and get them to step up to the next level, myself included. I will learn alot. It will be good. But tonight I'm not going to sleep.

On the plus side - I got my blackberry back, I bought a fabulous new pair of shoes, the shape shift shawl is done and my son is tremendously excited about his party this weekend.

Perspective.

Priorities.

I'm okay.

But the kicker was yesterday. Our communications department was sending out a new issue of the internal newsletter, which included a fluff piece about my department. It is a serious slow news week when you have to tell people what I do, as if they don't already know. The week before they had asked me to take a "head shot" for it. They picked the worst day to photograph me. It was a rainy day, so after my hour and a half commute I looked like a drowned rat. I wasn't wearing a suit but instead was wearing one of those "it's clean and relatively unwrinkled and I'm late as usual" kind of shirts. With big flowers on it. Don't judge, you have one of those shirts, don't make me come and look in your closet.

So you see where this is going. When they sent me the draft of the newsletter, my picture was literally taking up half the page, and what was supposed to be a HEAD SHOT (in my book that means a shot, or picture, of your JUST YOUR HEAD) was practically a full body shot with my hideous shirt and totally unattractive hair. So I responded back to the "communications specialist" that I totally hated the picture and it wasn't what I expected. You know what that beyotch said??

"I think you look great! :)"

I think it was the smiley face that put me over the edge. This coming from a young skinny little someone who's biggest professional challenge is deciding what font to put on the "please don't pee on the seat" sign in the ladies bathroom..... Harsh? Maybe. I suppose I could have been nicer about it, but then, I wouldn't be me. So I wrote back and said "While it may be that I look like an unprofessional slob in real life, I would prefer to change the picture".

I had my husband take one of me this morning, fresh out of the shower, and in a suit. We'll see how it looks.

Come on friday....

First off, I am NOT a morning person.  Unfortunately, my boss IS.  So this morning, like he does every so often, he asks me to be in his office for an early meeting.  It was only scheduled for a half hour earlier than my normal start time (8:30), but to get there a half hour earlier means I have to get up an entire HOUR earlier because of the trains, and considering my commute is already almost an hour and a half, well, "cranky" doesn't even begin to cover it.  To make matters worse, when I get there, he is on a conference call and promptly cancels our meeting. Grrr.  Off I go to sit in an empty room until the next meeting starts at 9.

By the time the next meeting starts I am really in a lovely state of mind, and I desperately try to stay awake while people with an inflated sense of self importance ramble on about insignificant mountain-like molehills.  This meeting goes on for TWO HOURS.  Honestly.  Toward the end, I get an email from my boss asking me to sit in on a meeting immediately following - apparently a potential client is coming in.  I speak to my boss briefly before the meeting starts and I ask who the client is.  "I don't know" he says, "they keep calling me and calling me and finally I just had my admin schedule a meeting".  Okay fine, so I sit in the conference room and await our guests.  Shortly thereafter, three folks come walking in and introduce themselves.  "Asshole lawyer, nice to meet you" (shaking of hands).  "Benign token woman, pleasure" (more shaking) "Potential New Client.  Charmed" (shake, shake....wait.....).  As New Potential Client (NPC) introduces himself, I start to shake his hand very slowly and blink at him.  This is because his name has just registered as the  INFAMOUS ARCH ENEMY of one of our most important clients (to be known as "Our Guy"). I mean seriously, if they developed a comic book about our industry, there would be Our Guy with his hands on his hips with a flowing red cape, and NPC twiddling his mustache and laughing maniacally over a woman tied across the railroad tracks.  This is a man who just last week was being given an industry award at a recent event and I wouldn't even look up at the podium lest Our Guy (who I was sitting with) think that for one second I supported the (blasphemous!) decision to honor this man.   I am wondering how the F my boss has allowed this man inside the building.  Now, my boss comes strolling in, and I watch him go through the same thing I just did.  And sure enough, I watch his smile fade as he realizes who New Potential Client is.  Right before NPC starts talking, my boss interrupts him and asks if he could speak to me outside for a second.  I follow him out of the room and the second he turns around I yell-whisper "WHAT THE HELL??"  to which he responds "I didn't know it was him!!!" to which we both repeat at the same time - "FUCK!!!"  We regain composure and go back in.

Turns out NPC wants to do a deal with us.  However, he knows that we have never done a deal with him in the past because Our Guy hates him.  We are not obligated to do a deal with NPC, nor do we want to because if we did Our Guy would blow a gasket.  In fact, as NPC and Big Asshole Lawyer are "giving us the background" (a background I know full well of because Our Guy professes his undying hatred for NPC on a routine basis) I am trying to calculate how likely it is that someone saw NPC enter our building, how long it will be until Our Guy finds out he was here, and which method I am going to employ to extinguish my boss for being such a complete and utter bonehead.  There is a lull in the conversation and I suddenly hear myself explaining that this deal doing is a tricky business, that involves uh, strategy and stuff, and that while we will certainly entertain any proposal you may have, we are in fact contemplating not doing deals with anyone in your particular line of work anymore....so basically - don't get your hopes up sweetheart, this ain't happenin'.  Apparently Big Asshole Lawyer didn't like that answer (cause he knows full well why we aren't going to do a deal), and proceeded to yell, pound the table and threaten us with lawsuits and the like, and it got really ugly.  So ugly we had to pull our lawyer into the room which led to a battle of the arrogant egos, which would have been entertaining if my heart wasn't pounding the whole time.  The clock strikes 11:30 and my boss decides that he must leave the room like RIGHT THIS SECOND, SO SORRY, TALK TO YOU LATER and leaves me and our lawyer in the room.  There is more arguing, more of them alluding to reasons why we wont do the deal and more of our bullshit explanations as to what the real reasons are.  We end it with our lawyer basically telling them that we can do a deal with whomever we want, or in this case NOT do a deal with whomever we want, but that we will review their proposal and get back to them forthwith.  I can tell you who is NOT signing the letter telling them we've decided to pass.  

This has thrown off my whole day, because now I am scrambling to speak to everyone involved with Our Guys account, to get facts for our lawyer on several accusations Big Asshole Lawyer made.  I finish a few conference calls, run outside and grub a cigarette from a complete stranger and make a few more calls on the issue.  As I choke down my lunch before my next meeting, my cell phone rings and it's my husband.  He just got rear-ended on the way home from the zoo - the police and ambulance are on the way.  Everyone is fine, but my son was crying so much the police suggested he get checked out as a precaution.  The back bumper and hitch are demolished which isn't major but it's a royal pain.  Fortunately, monkey was fine, and even enjoyed chatting up the EMT guys  and spending time in a real live ambulance.  

At this point my nerves are frazzled - I make sure my boss has Our Guys cell phone number and a script on how to tell him why we invited the devil inside, and I came home.  

My husband cheered me up with a good dinner and a visit to Best Buy to check out SLR cameras - I'm buying myself a good one for my birthday this year so we're doing our homework (more on that one later).  I knitted a bit, posted this and now I'm off to bed.

What a freaking day!!!