7:12 p.m. - 2003-02-22
Ice and Rainbows
It was -23C/-10 F when I caught the bus Friday morning. The heater wasn't working on the train so even though my right foot, pressed up against it was warm, my left foot was starting to freeze. At noon it was colder, but by home time it had warmed up. We even saw a rainbow west of the train on the way into my station.
At about 3:30 pm on Thursday afternoon, B came by and wanted to talk to me about the first project I'd done. D and I had just finished preparing the ten boxes of records for shipment to offsite storage on Friday. I've already been working on the second assignment for a week.
She had two bull-clipped sets of reports - one with about 60 to 70 records and one with over 100 records. She said it represented the work I had done on the boxes. Her concern was that I hadn't followed the proper format in creating the first line of the record and showed me the records in the smaller bundle to "prove" that I had known how since they were mostly correct, stating that I must have slipped up later. She said that I was instructed by her to use one software - A - to determine the exact configuration of the document titles. She wanted me to amend and relabel all of the documents. That is a two step process. It requires one to go into the - B - database to edit the original record. Then one has to print off the title information which is three to four lines of text. One then opens the - C - program and re-keys everything into that software to produce the label.
I noted that I had no problem editing my work, but that she hadn't mentioned that format when she trained me on the first day I was there. For one thing the A software is not loaded on my PC station. I have never been given an orientation to it, as I was with the other programs I am required to use. I told her that what I recalled her saying was that if I couldn't find a title in - B - or on the shelves, that I then should use the A software. That was never necessary. However, I began editing in the way directed and had completed the work in the B software by the time I left for home Thursday night. The boxes had been scheduled to go out at noon on Friday, but given the amount of time it took me to print labels the last time I didn't see any difficulty in being able to easily complete the changes on Friday morning.
Friday morning I keyed the labels into C and began printing labels by about 8:30 - 9:00 am. As the material began to print, I could hear B just outside the library, talking to someone from the thirtieth floor. Thursday night as I was leaving, boxes of their records were being brought into the library for coding and addition to our collection. When I arrived Friday morning, I had to move a bunch of boxes just to get into the library. There is about two or three months worth of work there. B was asking the person she was speaking with if all of the material really had to be kept. She explained that it would be very expensive to do and that our department didn't have the funds to hire extra staff to do it. The person must have gone back and talked with their supervisor, because the answer came back that that department would pay for it. A brief glance at the material indicated to me that most of it was proprietary material that was worth a great deal of money whether it was kept or sold. The printer, at that point crashed, so I went to retrieve the labels that had printed and to re-set it so I could continue the process. I went back to my desk and found I needed more labels so I asked B where I might find some, after looking in the regular stock. She said that she would have to get some from another records side because we were out.
I started sorting through the labels to try and divided them up by box so I could spend my time efficiently. The records B had printed out the day before were in random order. As I was leafing through the smaller bundle - the ones that B said proved I had known the correct procedure - I noticed that all the records in question, with less than ten exceptions, were all records created between January 2002 to January 2003, before I started. The only edits on those sheets I had done were the few records that were mine and some typos she had circled in the records that someone else had created.
I then looked at the inventory sheet for the second box in the series because it was the one B had sat and worked through with me when she trained me. Only one record was configured in the way she had said she had taught me. By noon on February 5, I had completed the records for the first five boxes of data. B had been away on the first Tuesday, so I asked her first thing on Wednesday to check my work so I could catch and amend any errors I had made. She had come by at about 2 pm and gone through quite a few based on the label numbers I had recorded as I created each record.
The entry about that with reference to after lunch on Feb 05 is: "Got back to the office - more shouting. This time a group of about 6 males who don't belong on the floor. One seemed to be on the hot seat and an all out scrum lasted the rest of the afternoon. They were right next door to the PC's office and it was apparent she was quite upset about either that or something else. Put my headphones on and continued working. B came by an hour later to check my analysis of the documents in my project, at my request. I'd just as soon know if I'm missing the boat on something early on in the process - less deep water to swim out of that way. Everything was fine. Showed her the e-mail about the merger. She asked if I had ever wanted to settle in one job rather than contracting. That's a hard one to answer. We talked about both our experiences in this industry for a while - she's been in it for nearly 20 years."
I went back into C and sent a second print job to the queue, because I had enough labels to at least get some more of the records done. I noticed the PC at the printer and it appeared she was printing labels too. The printer crashed again. She went out and returned to the library with B. She asked her - quite loudly - about the boxes crowding the entry way. B explained and said that T2 - our senior supervisor, who arrived back from her vacation this morning - could now hire some temps to deal with them, since the funds would be made available. The PC commented that it was about time T2 broke down and hired someone full time who knew what they were doing instead of "all these temps who don't know anything about what they're doing". They carried on in that vein for a few more minutes. Now normally I work with my headphones on because the library is so noisy, but it was obvious I wasn't using them because I was on my knees on the floor trying to sort labels to boxes. The conversation seemed pretty staged.
B left and the PC came over to me and demanded that I abort the second print job, because it was blocking her print job with the comment "don't you know how to use a printer?" Rather than argue with her, since I was already rather upset with the conversation I'd just been the captive audience of, I did cancel, not realizing at that moment, that it meant I would lose all the labels I'd keyed into C. B came in shortly after to let me know there were no more labels to be had anywhere. I decided I would label what I could so I could send part of the shipment off and rekey the rest later(third time now). In the meantime, I noticed the PC printing off labels throughout the morning and the afternoon.
By noon I was thoroughly frustrated and went for a long walk - about an hour and a half - so that I would be calm enough not to get rattled again or to say anything inappropriate to anyone. After raising six boys and volunteering for years in their classrooms, I rarely have trouble with controlling my temper, but it was too close to the surface to let go. When I was at home I would walk when it was possible for me to get away, but most of the time I just climbed into the shower until I was calm again. Doing that at work does not appeal.
I must have looked a sight though. Striding along, big square-toed, square-heeled, laced up black snow boots, my hair swinging, still in the ponytail I wear during the work day, face like a storm. I didn't even think about how I might appear until I walked past the conference rooms where I had attended the ethics workshop the morning before. On Friday, there was another function occurring - looked like out of towners. I heard something about "a bee in her bonnet" and felt badly. Visitors here should enjoy their stay and not be afflicted by sour faces. As I was walking I had been thinking about the ethics workshop. In my class yesterday morning one of the case studies was almost a word for word description of the PC's and, to some extent, B's behaviour. Maybe they haven't attended yet. I dropped the workshop material off at the data management company's offices during my walk since A had requested to see it.
The PC came by at about 3:30 pm with a big handful of labels saying that to use the printer properly, I would probably only be able to run about five sheets of labels at one time. I just noted that I had printed off the first batch of labels in two printings en masse with no trouble and left it at that. I had been going through the boxes labelling and had found a number of records had been removed and placed back in the wrong box. No one is supposed to be in that material. I decided at that point that saying as little as possible to anyone was my best option. I just noted the discrepancies.
I must admit a great deal of frustration. Maybe B did issue the instructions she said about the first text line originally and I missed it, but there was her original quality check on the 5th and nearly three more weeks to catch any errors. Granted her family situation is an issue, but I shouldn't be made to take the fall for that either. I have no problem with fixing my mistakes. I'm quite aware that I can mess up just like everyone else. It was the behaviour and treatment around the issue that had really upset me.
It is also confusing, contrasted with B and D's reactions when the shelving I was working on, on Wednesday afternoon, became unstable and threatened to fall. They spent a lot of time making certain they could find someone to fix it and then reassuring me it would be okay, although I don't think I was all that upset about it. I examined the shelves before I went to B and it appeared that a bolt that held two of the sections together had snapped. I just checked all the other shelving in the room, let B know, and then went back to work. No big deal.
My favorite astrologer, www.astrofish.net, said in his prognostications this week, that early next week my sign would experience what felt like a hollow victory. I don't think I even want to speculate what that might mean in the context of the past couple of days. He's been awfully accurate lately - drat the man.
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