Monday, November 10, 2008

Life would be so much less stressful if I were thick-skinned and cocky

Halfway into the morning, I got an email from the-woman-who-hates-me, telling me that she'd taken over my documentation project (which I'd handed over for approval last week), because it was full of spelling errors, incomplete sentences and inconsistencies. At first, I thought Yeah, there probably were a couple of spelling mistakes that I missed; after a week of poring over the type looking for grammatical errors and URLs without underlining, there was bound to be something. No big. Though I was a bit pissed off that she didn't tell me on Friday and give me a chance to fix it up myself.

And then, the bomb hit.

Just before I left work, I got another email from her, casually mentioning that she's spent all weekend fixing my work and that certain people were "not happy".

Well, that was a whole new bucketful of downers.

For the rest of the afternoon I stewed over it. What could I have done to make people actively unhappy about my work? Was my pimp regretting that they'd ever taken me on? When I got home I ate a packet of Rocky Road Mallowpuffs and sat down to re-read What Color is my Parachute? 'cos, you know, maybe I was heading for a much longer break than I'd planned for.

When the boy got home I told him everything, and he was a veritable Mount Everest of support and solace. He also told me to get on the phone to my pimp and get it all sorted out. So I did.

And it all turned out to be an itty bitty anthill. The-woman-who-hates me wasn't fixing a shitload of shocking errors; she was just put my document through routine quality assurance (which, I admit, I was remiss in forgetting to do myself). People weren't unhappy with my work; they were just unhappy that they'd have to wait a little bit longer before seeing the completed document.

The-woman-who-hates-me was just f***ing with my mind, and doing a pretty exceptional job at it. I told my pimp that, in my defense, my co-worker had been less than helpful. She told me that she'd already suspected that the two of us had "issues", and that I needn't worry about my rep; it's still solid.

But y'know, if I wasn't such an oversensitive little flower with less self-confidence than a beneficiary in a Rogernomics economy, all this angst could have been avoided. I could have just told my pimp within the first week that a certain someone was out to get me.

Ah, we live and learn.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd be absolutely SEETHING if someone did that to me. Although I think I would have them point out where the errors are for me to correct and then make the 'corrections' myself. I find that people make 'suggestions' about things that need to change on my work all the time (they would say improvements) and I tend to often not agree that the changes are necessary. Lawyers are the friggin worst. Or when you put something to finance (to look at the financial implications) and they start re-writing sentences. Don't get me flipping started on that!

LK said...

What a hassle and what a royal pain in the ass this woman sounds like. Thank god you have a reasonable sounding pimp - there's something I didn't think I'd be writing to anyone.

Violet said...

donnasoowho: yeah I reckon a fair proportion of her "corrections" will be, not because the original work was actually wrong, but because they weren't to her specific liking. It sounds like some of the finance folks were you work are wannabe editors...

leo: the worse thing is that she's absolutely lovely to everyone else, so if I complained it would just look like I was off my medication or something.

Angela said...

I guess there is always one of those people at any workplace. It just doesn't make life any easier.

I guess she just likes you to stress.

Hope this week gets better

PBS said...

What a piece of work she is! Good for you to talk it over with your pimp. Why do some people just like to cause trouble and stress others out? She's probably jealous/envious of you, if that's any consolation.

Violet said...

angela: yeah this week has improved, but in the way you'd expect...

pbs: yep. I've discussed it with a small number of friends and they all think she's being insecure and threatened (of moi?!).