Disillusioned....or Enlightened?
I don't know what category I rightfully belong to; do you? One may ask what the hell are you doing online at 4.33 am in the morning, BLOGGING?? I do ask myself the same question as well; the fact is, I am terribly ILL...sore throat, blocked nose, pounding headache...been like that the whole of yesterday...managed to endure the whole day & night of it (meeting lasted till 8.30 pm) and when I got back, most clinics were already closed. Was still contemplating whether to take MC or not, since the work I have is mountainhills-high..and there is no way I could clear it..and there were so many things I have had to sort out and do. Normally, I would have cheerfully stayed back to do it; and I have to go back on Saturday, totally warped, I know, take MC on Friday and go back on Saturday to WORK?? NOt that I have a choice...But what got my freaking pissed off and mad was the bloody bitch of a boss I have, 'boss', if you can call her that. It's a known fact that my boss has blacklisted my dept...so when she intercom me to ask me to lunch, to get some feedback, naturally, my fellow co-workers were curious about what it was about. One even told me, I know what she is gonna ask...etc, you could take the chance to tell her the truth abt the current working situation and that we are really understaffed (at least for my dept) and u know, maybe she'll give us the autonomy to hire a temp staff....
FAt hope...first of all, she was pathetically miserly; I offered to go dutch, but she insisted on treating.So we ended up at this spanish restaurant...where there were a few choices of set lunches - approx $7, $9 and $15...before I could even say what I want to eat..she had already made the decision for me..."let's order salad, shall we?" or something to that effect, which 'COINCIDENTALLY' was the cheapest thing there...
Fine...then she went on to ask abt my job, whether I'd prefer to move to another dept, if I'd like that dept's job..and I told her frankly... I can't compare cos I haven't done both..and she went off a tangent, about how there is always room for cross-training, or switching the staff's job scope..citing how one colleague went over...(but she forgot to mention that THAT same colleague requested for a transfer back within the SAME MONTH).
Then she went on to ask about my current work, if I am coping; I told her it's still ok, just that with the meeting around the corner...I have been really bz...ANYONE can attest to that, I have been going back to the bloody office every Saturday till 8-10 pm for the past 1.5 months (not including the weekdays when i stay back as well) - WITH NO time off, NO OT pay and not even transportation claim..fine, whatever...I mean, at least recognize my effort right?
No...this bloody idiot of a boss went on about how she doesn't understand why OUR dept couldnt be more efficient or productive...etc etc and that she has also done conference before, for 700 pple in her OLD job and no one had to work OT, and everything was settled way before it started...She even didn't know when my event was...When i told her the date, she immediately said "oh, I have a Meeting at MOH that Saturday"...so I told her it's a 2-day event and that she could come join us. She then avoided that question...then I brought it up again, told her that we have a full day programme on Sunday as well, then she went. " but it's social right?" TOld her it's not, the social programme was to be on Sat night...and hence she can still come and take a look....and she avoided the question again. 'Winner' right?? For the so many months she has joined the company...almost 1 year already..she has NOT been to a single event yet...despite the many invitations...
Then she asked about how I think each conference /meeting could be made more commercially viable...aka, making profits. I then told her, if the aim is for each event to be a profit generating unit, the directive must coming from the OC itself. I mean, I can only propose certain things, but it's up to the bunch of doctors to see what they want. If they insist on giving out gold -plated pens as souvenirs, what can I say? Tell them that it's too expensive and that we want to make money? Please, all these doctors would rather try to make each event grander and bigger than the last, and their main aim is definitely NOT profit making. I told her that exactly; dunno what shut her up...
Then she went on about saying that the Accounts dept is having a hard time closing accounts, cos many doctors attend the meetings without paying...(accounts dept is basically her pple whom she brought in) and she asked if in the registration Database, we do have comments like whether they have paid, and if we have already sent reminders to ask them to pay...Aduh, I am rushing like crazy already and u expect me to send reminders to ask them to pay BEFORE THE Meeting??? Think postage is free? time is abundant? THen i told her that we have a remarks column where it is indicated if this person is sponsorsed, or to collect a certain sum of money from him/ her. Then she proposed that there will be this new accounting programme or whatever, where both my dept & the accounts will have access to this database to see who has not paid , etc..then i asked her, if she wanted a more seamless integration of the accounts & the conference dept, to make sure pple pay..and she went..erm, this programme can solve that. So the main question is, who keys in the stuff? Answer...ME, then i asked her, so who chases the pple for payment...ME again. Then WTF is the accounts dept doing??? Basically its a case of me, myself and I on the job lah...Bloody bitch. I then shot a question to her...then we are basically doing everything lah..and her excuse...of cos. you are the secretariat for the meeting mah..of cos must do everything. (WAT A BITCH; if there is any other derogatory terms anyone can think of...PLEASE let me know....)
Then she asked how I felt about the finance committee's decision to NOT pay us OT / money for having to do meetings onsite..(on weekends). I said there is nothing I can say abt it, but its not the case for my other frens..(her excuse, they are in pte mah..) THen she went on about saying it's not like there is no compensation....you get time off wat....and the meetings, it's not that often, so it's just a few weekends, not that big a deal...etc about what it's part of the job scope, must take it like that.
Then she asked me abt the duty list (a list of duties delegating who to do what). It had been decided by that committee that due to the difference in the workload, everyone in my company shall take turns to help out onsite....so I acted blur and asked her, " I thought u are allocating?" and she went, " no, you are..you are in charge of the meeting mah..." [yeah, i also bloody know...then why else would i need a sucky boss like you for in the first place?] Then she said that if i needed more pple, I would have to ask her in advance...and apparently, I have to exhaust my whole dept first..before I ask anyone else for help. Then I fired back at her, doesnt it mean that my dept is burning every weekend then?? since we are the first on the list , we end up doing every meeting...on weekends..with NO monetary compensation!!! [If looks can kill, she would have been dead MANY TIMES OVER!!]
I was totally pissed off by then...and the worst thing is..when she tries to defend herself..she doesn't look at me..she looks at the bloody table and tries to draw watever diagrams with her fingers...esp when she was trying to explain that whatever staff costs i accumulate under my own event (even when my OC can decide what to spend, etc..and is financially accountable), she said, no..all the staff costs is reflected under the company's accounts..and that I don;t know accounts well. BullShit...I may NOT have an accounting degree, but I do know enough of the BASIC accounting rules that if you count your staff costs once at the individual unit level and again at the parent company level, it's called DOUBLE COUNTING!! and you are overestimating your expenses!!! And all this time, she DARED not even look at me; I didn't care, I just leaned forward, chin resting in one hand and GLARED at her.
What Really made my blood boil was when she said "So, what do you think can make your dept more productive and more efficient?" That was the FINAL STRAW, I am telling you...I have been going back, staying back to do work...and this is NOT due to my being unproductive or inefficient....but because the bloody idiotic BRAINLESS BOOTLICKING SNAKE refuses to allocate the work accordingly...I have received praises and thanks from more than one doctor....people are still amazed that this is my first job! [either cos I look damn old or cos I don't seem to be that green; i have repeatedly asked - it's the former] And while my whole department is slogging out guts out, picking up calls for the WHOLE company, while the people that BITCH hires is having tea every afternoon in her office, can even go out in the middle of the afternoon to buy tea time snacks, ok?? While everyone in my dept basically eats at the table during lunch!
That was a personal Insult, BIG mistake for her. I mean, who is she to tell me that we are not efficient, productive....SO I questioned " so you are saying that I am NOT productive, am NOT efficient..., because I have been hearing from many other doctors who beg to differ..." then she went, 'no, no, I am not saying that, I duno why you are so defensive...mebe it's because you have been under the influence of Marianne & Michelle (the 2 v experienced pple in my dept whom she views as a threat and totally hates)". FINE....now she was trying to tell me that I have no mind of my own and can be easily led around??? (I had to clench my fists to stop myself from saying that out)...then she went on about " It's just a normal conversation, I am trying to find out what is the problem as there is a lot of unhappiness"...so I went.."PROBLEM???"
That is it; she just views my whole dept as a problem for her...the faster we are gotten rid of, the better! So basically the whole lunch was a pathetic, horrendous, irksome experience, with a 'BOSS' who cannot even look at me straight in the eye when she is trying to tell me somehting...no, she doesn't scold you or tell you the bad news in the face; she cannot take confrontations. Which is why such discussions is done during lunch times, where she can stare at her food, draw circles on the table. What kinda freak boss is that?
I was so freaking upset and Pissed off and really boiling mad..IF i did not have any events coming..or under my care, I would have walked out on her and QUIT! seriously..! This is 'A-class' shitty treatment. It's not that she is not nice to us that makes it harder to bear..but rather, the huge disparity in the treatment she gives other pple and my dept that makes it really hard to swallow; we are at the losing end ALL THE TIME! Now for meetings, I can only take a cab back to home only if my meeting ended after 9 pm...and most meetings start at 5.30 pm. Which doctor doesn;t want to go home n rest? It's already rare for meetings to end after 8 pm (that was the former guideline), now it's 9 pm...and the only dept who is really severely affected is still mine, cos we are the only ones who are in charge of events (OC meetings) and chapters (Chapter Meetings)...the rest of the staff don't have to give a hoot about this!
This just worsened my mood for hte day, was already feeling under the weather; no voice...stuck nose..but this really killed my mood for working...And I couldn't even take leave, or see a doctor, cos I had a bloody meeting in the evening..and I was still contemplating going back to the office after that, cos the work to be done is just endless....I didnt even want to stay at home n rest today... But that was it, I blared out to my colleague...just that I couldnt talk, i h ad to msg her instead. [if i could have talked...i would have called SO many pple to vent it off already..instead of keeping it pent up inside me..] Really, I was so determined to write a cover letter and apply for another job. So my illness worsened...i mean, after abt 2 months of rushing work, not having enough sleep, irregular meals....I am not surprised....but the lack of understanding from the 'boss' side just made it so much harder to swallow.
And while my dept is taking calls for everyone else, no one else bothers to answer the phone... they are happily having tea. I was waiting at the accounts dept; one of them, a newbie, who joined us for less than 1 month, was eating her TEA - curry puff...(which another colleague- from THAT dept- had gone out to buy ard 3 pm....and I thought we had fixed / regular working hours???). And the main line rang....it rang 2 times...and she was eating her blasted curry puff..NOT even doing work..and my dept colleague took the call. WTF is that?!!! Got so furious that i marched back to my dept, told my colleague to NOT take anymore calls ; cos that blasted dept is so free that they can eat currypuffs while we are up to our necks in work....and we still have to take calls??!!!
Really wanted to quit....if I could, I would have walked into watever council meeting they were having and tell them straight in the face, the reason why staff costs are so high is not due to staff working OT or whatever, but rather cos of the fact that THAT bloody dept just employs pple who are NOT NEEDED and have a stupid system of sending out mail , etc! Cos every doctor is telling me that this bloody boss is telling them that staff costs are HIGH...but that is not the truth...she is the ONLY bridge to them..and she's so damn crooked and shrewd and SCHEMING!!! its so scary! But i can't burn my bridges...even if it were true, they would probably resent me for having such a 'dramatic' entrance...even when it the truth... not that I care for what they think of me..just that the good reputation I have worked so hard to get for myself will go down the drain....and it's not worth it...I probably have burnt the bridge with this 'boss', bombed it with a nuclear bomb is a more accurate description...but WTF; I already don't give a damn what she thinks abt me...and that mentality was not recently adopted... Way back in the past; I already knew that wahtever she thought of me, i don't give a f**king hoot!
ARgGKKKKK, cannot blare this out over the phone....I have already lost my voice...it has happened before; the last time i was involved in the Loreal Marketing Award competition, the morning of the competiton itself, I sounded like a frog with sore throat....and i lost my voice completely for 2 whole weeks, had to go ard with a clipboard, paper and pen...Won't be surprised if it happened again; just that now, no one will be as forgiving or tolerant towards me as my classmates & lecturers had been.
I came back at night ard 9 pm; told my mother everything....told her that I really wanted to quit and I would have if I didnt have the project...she told me, after this event, just quit lor, i mean, you are so unhappy over there...and take a break and then look for another job lah...A Really understanding mom... but I have indeed been working very hard...and it's not that i crave credit or recognition that much...but support from one's boss would have been the basic criteria that other pple are getting in the course of their work... and it is so lacking in my case....
Seriously thinking of quitting after my project...but then I realised...after my project i am not that bz anymore....should STAY and earn's my salary for doing less work...or having a less hectic schedule...until the next project comes along.... I seriously don't know...yeah, one must have a clear mind and a clear head to be logical, rational...but I have always prided myself for being emotional, irrational...it's one big cause of my downfalls in many situations...and there are times when I look back and think, 'if only...', but to keep it pent inside and try to think straight....that's torture....others should have to see my outburst....they deserve that shock, that scolding, that eruption of pent up anger...cos I do try to keep it under wraps, under control and when I really burst out...it's because I've reached the pinnacle of my tolerance already....and THAT's it! I have to put my foot down or at least make those parties hear me stomping my feet!
So exhausted....have spent so many tears over this...so many sleepless nights....am convinced my astigmatism has gone up by leaps and bounds....after staring at the PC screen from 8.30 am till 11 pm..more than 12 hrs at one go...day after day, till my vision is blurred... why make myself so unhappy? I also ask myself...anyone with solutions to my problem (S)? Desperate help hotline needed....really.... :(
