Listening: Candyass, Orgy
Roseland, NYC Live, Portisehead
Mentally Replaying: last night's conversations

This weeks has been awkward and weird and left me feeling somewhat down. Early on I got sick and have been muddling through at work trying not to gross out my co-workers too much with mucous and phlegm. I'm tired and have come to understand more clearly just how the corporate world intends to suck the last bits of my soul from me.

Last night I decided, against all good reason to go out with folks from work and spend the evening drinking and smoking at Lucky Baldwins. It's a small pub and restaurant in Old Town Pasadena that only has a license for beer and wine. I don't really like beer so that meant I washed the mozzarella sticks that were my dinner with red wine. So as a culinary experience it wasn't the greatest, but it was fun to chat with people and bitch about work.

Personally, the cherry on top was when I was explaining the issues that I've had over the years with QC. I was trying to explain why speaking with QC felt like going into battle. ALthough it hasn't happened in a while I used to get into big arguements with them (I'm sure you're surprised) over different interpretations of our guidelines. They occasionally would play powergames with people which thoroughly disgust me and just strengthen my resolve to prove to them that I know what I'm talking about.

Two of the folks at the table immediately identified themselves as friends of most of the people who do the quality audits and were adamant that the system was changing for the better. I held my ground, explaining that while everyone hoped that changes were for the best, I'd heard it all before ("don't worry, this time it'll work and it won't screw people...").

These two people, I should point out, outrank me and are sorta halfway between an editor like me and a manager. (I don't really know why their position is necessary since the managers are supposed to be able to do their jobs, but since managers um... don't understand how *my* job works, maybe it's just as well.) But anyway, I was treading somewhat lightly when one of them, Jason, turned to me and basically said I had nothing to fear from QC.

Apparently when he was my lead and he was having issues from Sales people who were resolute in their refusal to understand our guidelines he would threaten to direct their queries to me. He explained to them that I would "argue them into the ground...tear them a new asshole...chew them up and spit them out... and be right the whole time."

heehee };>

I don't imagine myself to be so vicious in when I deal with people, but I do know I run out of patience when people are trying to demand something of my that is illogical or contrary to what I think is the spirit of the over-arching issue. At work this means that we are expected to approach our editing and copy development from within the confines of certain guidelines. I'm especially expected to hold them up when I'm creating copy. But salespeople work on commission and go a little crazy at the end of each quarter when their successes are measured and on that basis alone their management decides whether or not to keep them around. So while I understand that their very job is at stake, it also creates a situation where they start to act like they're entitled to every marketing scheme they come up with, even they go against the guidelines.

That sense of entitlement often makes them very short-tempered when they're told "no" and that lack of temper has caused many a salesperson to get abusive with the editor who had to tell them they weren't going to get what they wanted.

Based on past instances of abuse the leads have told us to escalate any issues to them. But it's funny to hear one of the leads threaten sales people by sending their issues to me. He even claimed that my current lead has pulled the same tactic.

Hee - I am to be feared !

This isn't the first time this has come up, just the first time at work. If you're a geek and you know what status traits are then you'll understand when I say for a while there, a few years ago, I had the real-life status trait of "feared." I thought the whole thing was silly until I saw firsthand that people in the Camarilla really were nervous of me. I never really understand why. 1) They're just words. 2) I refute any claims that I am abusive with my words on a regular basis. There's a time and a place for everything and to date I can only count two times that I know my words were intended to strike someone. 3) I have no problem with getting as good as I give. If I'm off-base then I'm fine with criticism. But for some reason people turn being afraid of me into an insistance that I'm unreasonable and that if they try speaking with me that I'll just freak out and I dunno...bite them or something.

I'd love to say that this clearly means I don't take shit from anybody, but sadly it's just not true. I really only vociferously defend my ground when I feel I've been attacked and/or I'm thoroughly out of patience with the person I'm dealing with. This means I pretty much only speak up when I'm sure of what I'm going to say.

It's funny but a lot of people consider me to be very caustic. I consider a lot of people to be spineless heaps since they just seem chronically unable to come out and say what they're thinking. *shrug* I think it's a different sort of deception to slavishly stick to staying silent when there is nothing "good" to say. Having had my silence regularly misinterpreted as agreement with whatever is being said, I just can't accept that anymore.

"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
This might be applicable to someone's new haircut or unsolicited commentary, but in most situations it's utter BS. There doesn't seem to be any reason to keep silent when your input is requested and you can see that nothing will get fixed if you prevaricate, leave out bits of the truth or otherwise let the other party muddle on in ignorance.

Anyway. Hanging out last night was rather nice, though it did nothing for my cold. The night itself was warmish but the amount of second hand smoke I ws breathing in made it pointless to keep from smoking myself....

As soon as I got home the moodiness set back in. I'm at work now and obviously procrastinating. So the glow from last night was short-lived. And I only meant to leave some chronicle of what amounted to a (slightly backhanded) compliment. So I should quit rambling...

or something...




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Numenorean


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