“Always be nice to secretaries. They are the real gatekeepers in the world.”
– Anthony J. D’Angelo
Not an hour into work and with stacks of paperwork already piled high on our desks, both the copier and shredder broke causing a swell of panic on the secretaries’ part. Wise, Susie, and I dove into action. After the right combination of kicking, bashing, praying, and human sacrifice was accomplished the copier shuddered, whirred, and started working again and we moved our attention to the shredder. Then my phone rang and there was a grouchy state attorney on the line, and Amanda was dragged off to do a record expungement leaving Susie to wrestle with the machinery.
In sauntered Lt. Figaro (late as usual) and he meandered up to Susie and started talking.
I imagine that if the officers ever did take the initiative to fix their own problems, the secretaries' reaction to the resulting chaos would look something like this.
While I looked up records for the attorney I watched her stick her arm and fingers into the mechanisms to fix a blockage while he told the story of an African student he knew (which is really inspirational, don’t get me wrong). As she dragged the whole thing away from the wall to poke around the electrical hookups he led into the differences of education in multiple countries, which turned naturally to American politics. When she dragged the bag of shredded paper out of its compartment (which was nearly as big as she is and threatened to spill out everywhere) he reached his crescendo:
“And that is just what the terrorists want! They want to make us feel inferior and inadequate! We can’t let the terrorists win!”
At which point the attorney let me go and I was able to scurry back in time to keep the mess from tipping over and shove the whole contraption back into place.
“Good job, girls,” Figaro said and went back to his office to take a nap or something.
“The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.”
– Aristotle
How can you tell that you have a good friend in your life? Well, first of all you are able to have a complete conversation with them wearing just a towel (this is a crucial test that all of my closest friends have passed, I shall spare you the details). Second you are able to pique the interest of everyone around you just from hearing your half of a phone conversation. Again, all of my friends have crossed this threshold, but today here is what my office got to listen to when Venice called to brighten my day.
“No one’s making fun of you. This is a judgement free zone.”
“I don’t really wear them.”
“Was the steamer necessary?”
“Holy mother of pain!”
“I will need my dress back at some point.”
“Oh, honey! Do you need to come over and shower?”
I take particular delight in refraining from elaboration when co-workers, classmates, or random strangers look to me for further explanation. A good friend doesn’t lessen her pal’s mystique!
“I don’t need to compromise my principles because they don’t have the slightest bearing on what happens to me anyway.”
– Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes
Chief has squashed my plan of taking a class this coming semester to prep for grad school. The reason given is that Wise (who is enrolled in the very program I’m after) has a lot more leeway to take classes since she doesn’t have a front desk position and work with the public as I do. A decision that makes sense on paper, and which I can grudgingly understand…if it were not for the fact that several police officers and other supervisors for the department take classes very frequently, often for multiple semesters in a row (and shouldn’t police officers deal with the public just as much, if not more than me?). AND if it were also not for the department history and manifesto I retyped and edited four days ago, containing an entire paragraph about how the department strongly encourages and accommodates the further education of its employees through university classes.
Although I find the logic painfully baffling, I also understand that it’s an executive decision on the Chief’s part which, in all fairness, he did mull over for several days (before crushing it into tiny, tiny pieces). And though I admit I wish I could throw my level-headed acceptance of this ruling out the window and throw a (mild) tantrum, that’s not really my style.
I prefer weaseling around the problem. I’ve enrolled in some independent study courses and am looking into evening classes as well, which fall outside supervisor oversight. It’s annoying to try to get into them at this late date, but I have at least three terms between now and when my application would be turned in so I have plenty of time to formulate a new plan of attack!
Small Dog is feeling, er...bulldogish.
I could switch departments (unlikely with the hiring freeze, but I won’t rule it out). My French course, offered through independent study, could potentially count as my final language requirement and remove all obstacles. I could say, “To Hades with it all!” and become a full-time student again (plunging us back into poverty, but only for a year or couple of semesters towards the end of J.s degree – very unlikely, but still possible depending on my level of desperation). I could stage a coup and overthrow the school, take the president hostage, and demand he let me take my one single class (extremely unlikely).
“Why the HELL didn’t I continue with French?!”
“Don’t swear.”
“Why the CUSS didn’t I continue with French?”
“Well, you can take classes.”
“Yes but if I don’t do well, and I haven’t studied it for three years, it will affect my GPA which will affect my application. CUSS CUSS CUSS!”
– C. and J.
We all have them, but for about a month or so I’ve been going through a right awful funk. And although I wish I could say I’ve been keeping it under wraps, I’m afraid it’s been spilling over a bit. I’ve gotten noticeably sharp with people, even friends, short-tempered at work, and bitter about small things that have just seemed to mount on top of each other. It culminated last night in a meeting for J.’s new fraternity for accountants when I was exhausted and stressed. I tried to be funny but only succeeded in being rude, and collapsed in a sobbing pile of guilt when we got home.
Unfortunately, I’m a bottler: I keep things locked up inside until the inevitable explosion that tends to leave a wake of destruction. And even though we’ve all been told time and time again that this is not a healthy way to live, so many of us keep doing it because it has some obvious immediate benefits.
Liar.
My problems are petty and selfish, but that doesn’t make them irrelevant or mean they don’t affect my life.
– I’m in a state of constant frustration that I spent four years getting an education, but work in a job that has nothing to do with what I studied (the European Studies field is not exactly conducive to jobs in the Western United States).
– I don’t really like living where we do.
Humph!
– Truthfully, I had this plan post-graduation, which involved me moving back to England. I am an ENTJ, I frame my life in these little plans and get frustrated when they don’t come to fruition. It wouldn’t matter if common sense, good counsel, or God changed my plans, I’d still get annoyed/angry if things didn’t work out the way that I had intended. (Which I absolutely think happened in my decision to get married and stay in the States, and which I still think is probably the best decision I’ve made for myself. It’s just not what I thought was in the cards a year and a half ago; that’s what makes my little control-freak, inner Napoleon jump up and down howling, “Zees was not le plan!”)
– I miss being in school and recently came to the conclusion, after much deliberation, that I wanted to pursue grad school. And seeing as I can take classes for free, a perk of working for a university, why not? Problem A) my major, which I loved and would not hesitate to choose again, did not really prepare me for any of the graduate degrees offered here. My emphasis was in history and they have removed the MA in History degree (an idiotic move if ever there was one!).
Problem B) the next best degree, and one I am really interested in due to the interdisciplinary nature of the program, requires more classes in French. Which, if I want to get into the program beginning this coming fall, I’d need to complete in record time. A troublesome goal if one works full-time. Oh! And I’d need to take the GRE in about a month.
Mostly, I feel stuck. I can’t progress (at least immediately) in the way I want my education to go, we aren’t leaving this area (at least immediately) for a small eternity, and I can’t pursue my own interests (at least immediately) due to duty to my family.
And I’m the most impatient person I know!
There are treatments. Obviously I need to take better care of myself. I don’t work out anymore [again] and I’ve noticed that I haven’t been eating enough, which would put anyone in a strop. I also don’t have any pursuits outside of work right now, and that’s soul-numbing. I’m committed to grad school, but will I kill myself trying to make it happen all at once (or at least before the March application deadline)? Maybe I should make it a goal for next year and work more slowly and steadily towards it instead of trying to rush it.
Weigh in, friends. Had a minor life crisis recently? Plans get disrupted? Get impatient with goals that are attainable, but seem so far off?
Wednesday – I had work, J. didn’t have school. Bitter. I spent the afternoon making party favors for the department Christmas party and curling ribbon until my fingers were numb.
Thursday – Meet up with Fairy, Brando, Drill, Trixie, and others at that bastion of Americana, Chuck-a-Rama for cheap, easy food that we don’t have to clean up after. Then back to godparents’ house for a rousing game of Rummikub and phone call from parents.
Friday – C. goes shopping (although NOT at 3am like the intrepid GS and GBIL…she waits until 10 and then hits the GAP and a couple unnamed stores for Christmas shopping). Then she and J. group with everyone again to go to a movie.
Saturday – runs errands and finishes off the evening with The Football Game in which her team beats their hated rivals. At some point during the celebrations, C. smacks her leg against the bleachers and obtains a nasty black and blue mark that she doesn’t notice until the next morning, so high is she from the euphoria.
Sunday – sleep in.
Small Dog does not enjoy going back to work after four days of indulgence.
Holidays, as nice as they are, have one horrible symptom: the reality check at the end. Four days free of work means that all the industrious little habits one has get unceremoniously kicked out the window and waking up Monday morning is a chore. I barely got in a shower before we had to dash out the door and didn’t have time to wash my hair. Not the best way to kick off the busiest time of the year, at work and otherwise!
“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.”
After three days of checking, double checking, data entry, and getting yelled at, Small Dog is not inclined to be friendly towards officers who try to blame email for their problems.
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!
“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy not respectable, and wealthy not rich…this is my symphony.”
-William Ellery Channing
A worthy, worthy goal, my loves, but how is a girl supposed to resist the allure of the fabulousness we endured during our secretaries retreat today?
How can a secretaries retreat be fabulous you ask? I shall tell you.
Well, if we MUST...
First of all we went to the local ski town/get-a-way for many of the rich and famous. We were treated to an incredible suite in an amazing five-diamond winning lodge-style hotel, because the guy who is head of security there used to work for our police department and likes us. We were given the works! Valet parking, personally escorted to our rooms, a charming young man sent up to light a fire for us, lunch at the five-star restaurant on the house, and the grand tour of the premises. He pointed out the various celebrities homes on the neighboring mountain (many of which he’s run security on), walked us through where a certain un-named actress was recently married, took us through the rooms where a past president stayed, gave us several un-repeatable bits of gossip into the lives of some celebrities and dignitaries as he led us through the rooms they occupied, and also told us stories about the incredible lengths they go to in this place to preserve privacy
Sidenote – why oh WHY am I a secretary?! Why didn’t I go into protocol, start in the government and military circles that revolve around themselves in England and work my way up through the fabulous hotels of London, doing the obligatory stint in the Queen’s service of course, and finishing up in a place where interesting people whirl in and out and ask you for nothing but to keep their secrets? Whilst leaving five hundred dollar tips! My only recourse at the point is to somehow break into the world of writing and become one of those interesting people with secrets, I suppose.
Back to our tale! After being wined and dined, we spent two glorious hours attacking the local outlet stores that include everything from GAP to Coach! I justified buying myself a few things by buying even more things for other people, knocking a solid three family members off my Christmas-shopping list in an hour. Completely disregarding the fact that we are still paying off the four new tires currently cushioning my car. Christmas is coming, and there will be no goose to get fat because C. will have pawned it in desperation.
Small Dog lives it up.
And believe it or not, we managed to have a lovely meeting in which frustrations were discussed, problems were solved, training was accomplished, and much needed venting got done. It was glorious.
“Why don’t the guys ever go on retreats like this?” asked Wise as we pulled out our folders, took notes, and stretched our feet luxuriously towards the fire.
“Because they don’t know how to do things properly,” I retorted. “Peasants.”
“The reward for a job well done, is usually a harder job.”
-Lois McMaster Bujold
For all of my supervisors’ shifting and sorting in order to keep me steadily busy (which, by the way, is absolutely impossible with police work: you’re either swamped or drooling on your keyboard while the minutes laugh at you as they snail on by) I still managed to finish my jobs months ahead of schedule and can now apparently recommence drooling undisturbed.
Obviously, I’m having another bout of feeling frustrated by my job. They come and go. Each attack gets less vitriolic and more resigned, but the feeling still boomerangs, and probably will continue doing so until J.’s done with school and we move, I finally toss off all restraints and throw myself into writing professionally (bankrupting and starving us both in the process), or until I succumb to the idea that resistance to my fate is futile (never!).
I make this go away. You're welcome.
If ever I’m not outrageously busy, somebody wanders by and makes snarky comments about how they’re paying me and Hennessy to sit on our bums and do nothing. Regardless of the fact that I do all of the department’s customer service, or whatever it’s referred to in police work, maintain all department records, do all the mindless projects they dump on my desk simply because they don’t want to do them, keep the office clean, maintain all of their schedules, have attended all the trainings and obtained all the certifications, skills, and accesses they’ve required of me, manage all our 150 student employees, work with courts, lawyers, and insurance companies constantly, and still do their bloody laundry three days a week! I’ve also identified and fixed procedural problems of my own volition and been commended for it!
Click here to recieve your reward.
Obviously this deserves punishment, scorn, and snark from my co-workers/supervisors.
If I’m capable of keeping up my normal duties and still managed to clean, resort, restock, and reorganize our huge office supplies/police gear/self-defense class items/parking equipment storage closet in three days, rewrite the entire procedure manual in four, and set up Chief’s email contact sheets in ten minutes…shouldn’t that mean that I can go to the vending machines for a snack without someone getting in a snit?
I deeply apologize for being a fast and thorough worker. I’m even considering stopping it. Because apparently all it gets me is frustrated in the long-term, and lectured and punished in the short.
For the record, gentlemen, ladies do not find most of your “awesome” exploits funny in the least. Neither do the police. If you simply mustannoyingly display your affection, stick to pulling our pigtails. Because finding an elk, recently deceased due to an unforeseen run in with a car, decapitating it, and leaving the head on a girl’s kitchen table (shades of The Godfather) does not inspire affection. In fact, it’s considered alarming and creepy.
Also, if you decide to engage in this sort of behavior, don’t post pictures of your exploits on Facebook for the police to find.
“And the Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs, and sloths, and carp, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats-”
“Skip a bit, brother…”
– Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The Cable Gods have looked upon their lowly worshippers (who can afford but the most basic of basic cable packages), shown pity upon them, and twisted the space-time continuum/the cable lines. The dull waters of ABC and C-SPAN have miraculously parted and let the humble parishioners pass through to new and exciting channels! J. is soaking up as much ESPN as possible, while I have been watching The Italian Job, cruising through the Style Network, and even shamefully dipping my toe into the Food Network. (Have you seen the cake decorating shows?!)
What is not commonly known is that the Cable Gods' evil TV revocation minions resemble cats.
However (realizing that where the Cable Gods giveth, they also taketh away), I called up Comcast to make sure that I won’t be slapped with fees or dour-faced legal types sent to smite (disconnect) us with stern Thou Shalt Not Steal Cable punishments.
“Just making sure there hasn’t been a mistake or a mix-up,” I chirruped into the phone, “because while I think it’s fantastic, I would like to make sure it’s legal.”
“Yep, I checked,” said Carrie, our lovely Comcast customer service representative. “We have no idea how or why it happened, but you’re not at fault and won’t be penalized for anything.”
“So I should…”
“Live it up while you’ve got it, because I have no idea how long it will last.”
Who am I to question the messanger of the Cable Gods?
Small Dog Syndrome 