Bitchy

I think I am reaching a burnout stage. So if you interact with me and find me to be "short' let me apologize in advance. A lot of the reasons that I left the corporate world still rear their ugly head as an independent contractor. Like it or not you have to eventually deal with the "suits". Shall I enumerate why I despise "suits" so much? It's about building alliances (armies), doing things you'd rather not do to be a part of the clique, obfuscation (a big word for lying) , paperwork-like forms, back stabbing, etc. How you do your real job in that cauldron of lost souls is the secret of success in the corporate world. Now you really know what it means when they say he or she is a great person but unsuitable for the job. You basically sell your soul and become the asshole you promised you'd never be. But I digress.

 

Recently we requested a shift off; meaning about twelve hours. Until very recently it was a matter of communicating your desires to the corporate office. I submitted a request per the usual manner (via text) and, as usual, got no response. Which brings us to the whole nether world of personal devices and the total lack of decorum when using them. Anyway, the request was submitted on Monday and by Wednesday we were a bit antsy. We communicated our angst to the brother of the "head suit" (no nepotism here LOL) and he suggested we text again. Again we were reminded of our place, and the "head suit's" lack of decorum, with no response. Finally on Monday it came down from upon high that we now have a form we must fill out to request time off. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! As previously mentioned, I hate forms! Said form also referred to us as employees and queried as to how much time off we were entitled to. I had no idea we accrued time off. Is this like prison where you accrue time off your sentence by being a good convict? It was a corporate masterpiece-deflect the criticism for not communicating by creating a form. It was a beautiful form which appeared not to have anything to do with us, replete with calendars and lines to fill out and the gawd forbidden signature line. How we were to physically get the time off request form to the corporate office and how they would get back with us were questions for a later time.

Several days after my text session with the "head suit" a text came across my phone. She wanted to know who specifically failed to respond promptly to texts and to what matter they pertained. Really? You see in big corporate it matters not how obvious something may seem. It is most important that we gather facts, have meetings and such. Once that's done someone will have to put together a report and that will have to be submitted to someone else for approval. Everything must be recorded, preferably in triplicate. The hope being that somewhere in all that shuffling and time spent everyone will have forgotten about the original problem.

Look, all I want is for someone to listen to my request and respond in a timely fashion. To me waiting days on end for a response to a simple request is unacceptable. Even more annoying is having a "suit" not comprehending my frustration when it happens. If you're not careful a "suit" will turn the whole thing around and leave you feeling guilty for having disturbed them during their busy day. By the way, why are they always busy and just exactly what are they doing that consumes all their time? Sounds like something for another blog.