“You can do a lot if you’re properly trained.”
– Queen Elizabeth II

All police officers and dispatchers are required to complete a certain amount of training hours per year to keep their certification, and it is one of my jobs to keep track of those hours and turn the total into the state every year.  So, as a good little secretary does, every few months or so I pull out all the training information I have on everyone and reconcile the spreadsheet and database we keep them in.  Then I give that info to Lt. Citrus who in turn sends it out to all the officers…

…five minutes after that email goes out, my inbox is flooded with angry missives and my phone lights up with the rabid snarls from officers accusing that I have “forgotten to log their hours,” “obviously didn’t get their many emails,” or passive aggressive suggestions that perhaps I “just misplaced them, dear.” 

I take a certain amount of dark pleasure in showing them my stack of training reports that I collect and my email archives (which I started saving for months for this very purpose) to show that I have logged all the hours they’ve given me, obviously have gotten all of their emails (their emails just don’t mention training hours as much as missing laundry), and have certainly not misplaced anything.  Dear.

It’s all for naught!  Three months from now I’ll go through the whole reconciling process again and then have to reconcile myself to the wrath of the officers!