Tag: Police

Drama, Humor, Office, Scandal, Secretary, University, Work

Something Has Happened…Notes on a Scandal

Responsibility without power, the fate of the secretary through the ages.
– Ariel Dorfman 

Tomorrow I’ll finally (hopefully) have that long-awaited talk with Chief about this big to-do that went nowhere.  The whole experience has been more than a little ridiculous, a lot of drama and politicking for next to nothing to show for it, and I feel that I may be on the chopping block for it.  Now, Common Sense is arguing pretty solidly that Chief isn’t going to fire me for trying to accept an offer that would have bettered my long-term work circumstances…but Paranoia is hinting darkly that he may for no other reason than he feels I tried to betray him and the department.  Which isn’t true in the slightest, but I know by now that if someone wants to think the worst nothing will dissuade them.  

That'll teach you to not to use your spell check!
Little known 11th plague, whch wiped out all the scribes and secretaries.

The truth is, Dr. F’s offer meant the one thing that the Police Department cannot give me: a promotion.  By moving to the IS office I would have become the office manager and supervisor (what Susie is to me now).  Promotions in the PD are hard to come by.  Something truly biblical would have to happen, at least three other people would have to die suddenly in order for me to receive a new position, and as those people are my close friends the whole situation would probably prove traumatic.  Even Wise, when she left my position for her current one, didn’t move UP the proverbial ladder at all, her new responsibilities didn’t come with a higher grade or more money or more recognition, if anything it was a big step sideways.  Now although Dr. F implied more money for me (certainly with the upcoming University annual raise), the reason I wanted to accept this position is not so mercenary as that. 

J. and I have no idea where we will be next year for his graduate program.  California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Texas, Massachusetts, Utah, or Gibraltar, for all I know.  And we won’t know for several months yet.  But there is a good chance that we will be moving and now is the time to start brushing up my resume.  I’ve been encouraged to take IT training classes to fill my free hours during the Spring/Summer, but I’m also taking them to add to my list of hireable skills.  I’ve been reviewing past projects I’ve worked on to see what else I could do to make me appealing to potential future employers.  And when Dr. F offered me the chance to move up to a manager’s position, I wanted to accept it because the additional experience and responsibilities would have made me more desireable in the workplace (because, if you haven’t noticed, it’s a cold, cold, dark hiring situation out there and a girl needs all the help she can get). 

I hope I’m not going to be punished for trying to improve my situation, but I’m forced to entertain the possibility that I might.  My dark humor cannot help but picture me at job interviews, “So, why did you leave your job at the PD?”  “Well, I wasn’t trying to…”  but I don’t totally expect it.  Que sera sera.  However, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this whole event from a new perspective and I’ve come to some conclusions. 

First, there is no way that being a secretary is going to make me perfectly happy, fulfilled, or satisfy the immortal longings of my soul.  It is, in many ways, an utterly thankless job and acts of recognition are few and far between.  This irks me because I am a pretty ambitious woman, I like to move forward (and hopefully up) and dislike doing good work and receiving no credit for trying to be a good employee.  However, that is the nature of the beast.  I’m extremely well-educated but not at all qualified to do anything.  Margot and Venice are trained teachers, Janssen is a trained librarian, Brando is a trained stockbroker, Dad is a trained lawyer, Mum is a trained scholar…most of the people I know are a trained something.  What I’ve got (besides an encyclopedic knowledge of useless facts) is a good brain, common sense, and organizational skills, and these are apparently in pretty high demand because not everyone in my office has those. 

Second, I get frustrated, annoyed, and downright furious sometimes at how ridiculous my office can be and what I really need to learn is to let that go.  I can’t fix it, I can’t make the powers that be see sense, and things are not going to change.  I often feel that I’m smarter than my job, and I don’t think I’m entirely wrong.  In fact I think I’m positively right, but dwelling on that fact doesn’t change my circumstances and usually only serves to make me angry at my situation.  And hey!  I’ve got a job!  That’s a lot to be thankful for. 

Third, my job does not challenge me.  And I need to be challenged, as anyone who knows me at all will attest.  But it doesn’t and won’t and I need to stop fighting that fact.  What I need to do is adopt an Edwardian attitude towards it and make my life, as a secretary, my art.  Being an office monkey isn’t difficult, but being a class act and making it appear easy…now that’s a challenge! 

While I'm confessing, though, I think what I really want is the sense of value she gets. It's subtle but it's real. I'd love to be called into a meeting and have someone's reaction be, "C.. What a good idea."

In fact, while working out with Margot, it came to me in a flash of brilliance.  What I need to be, is Joan Halloway.  Er, minus the having salacious affairs with the men of my office (shudder).  Joan doesn’t necessarily want to be a secretary, but she enjoys being good at what she does and likes working.  She’s impeccably put together.  You don’t mess with her because she will take you apart (classily, but viciously).  And if you’re making an office coup, or some guy’s foot gets chopped off by a lawn mower, or someone is out because they’re having a baby and didn’t know they’re pregnant to begin with – Joan will locate your files, make a tourniquet out of a scarf, and step in to take over your correspondence.

I don’t have to adore being a secretary…but that doesn’t mean I can’t be a damn good one anyway.

Humor, Office, University, Work

Something Has Happend (Part 3…of an ongoing series)

“A great source of calamity lies in…anticipation.”
– Oliver Goldsmith

Don’t hold your breath, ducklings.

The big news is that there is no news.  Instead of meeting with the Dean, I was going to meet with Chief instead, so Susie informed me.  At two.  Well, that was fine enough, although I was a bit nervous.  But then Chief, who’d been out all last week, had too much to catch up on so he told Susie to tell me that the meeting was going to be pushed back a bit.  And when he finally called me in at about three, he told me that he was actually too busy to meet and – since he was going to be out of the office the rest of this week as well – he was postponing meeting with me until next Monday.

Anger is firmly in the collective driving seat right now.  I’m sick of being shunted around while people have discussions about me but don’t actually discuss anything with me.  I hate this looming, threatening feeling which is, I feel, pretty well undeserved.  I was offered a a good opportunity, I chose to pursue it.  Mostly, I’m sick of feeling like a target.  If the department is going to exact revenge (which I worried about from the beginning), I’d rather them just sack me now instead of letting my stomach slowly corrode itself with stress ulcers for a week.

None of this whole experience has made a lot of sense.  This latest event shows no signs of changing that fact.

Humor, Office, University, Work

Thumb Twiddling (Another Interlude)

“And I hate waiting!’
– Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil campaign

In 12 hours all will be revealed I suppose.  I’m prepared: I’ve pre-panicked (a useful skill I learned for piano recitals – get the messy emotions done with and out of the way early and the performance goes much better.  The needs of Panic and Practicality are both met .  I wish I could just not be nervous about public performance, messy office politics, or the other unpleasantries of life, but since I can’t get rid of the fear, displacing it a little is about the most massively useful self-taught trick I’ve got). 

Which isn’t to say that Panic and Paranoia aren’t trying to sneak back in and raise rebellion among the masses.  Common Sense has been playing the role of bouncer rather effectively, however, and whenever they show their pinched faces, she grabs them and grimly escorts them off the premises.  Guilt has shut up finally, being replaced by Insatiable Curiosity.  I’m still a bit nervous to find out what’s going on, but I’m not dreading the consequences so much any more.  Obviously a nest of snakes has been stirred up…but I just seem to be the stick used to provoke them, I’m curious as to see who’s holding the other end.

Last chance to add to the list of theories as to what exactly is going on.  All in all, I’m back to my former motto:

Humor, Office, University, Work

Something Has Happened…(Part 2)

“Pain-”
“And Panic-”
“Reporting for duty!”
– Hercules, Disney

I told Susie of the offer, that it was a good one and that I wanted to take it, that it would come with a raise (which Dr. F said it would) and advancement to a manager position.  She was on my side, said it sounded great, and approached Chief with it, who it seemed was also on board.  Things were moving forward.

Then, suddenly, something stalled in the works.  Trouble is, no one can seem to pinpoint where.  Dr. F said that he had gotten approval to pursue a transfer of departments, but the approval never came.  He then called me up in a frenzy asking what I had told Susie originally, as I’d clearly made some mistake because HR seemed to think that I’d be completely quitting the university, and if so, they could not rehired me.  I talked to Susie, she verified that I’d said that I merely wanted a transfer of departments and they’d understood so.

But more telling, he also backed away from the question of salary telling me emphatically that he had never discussed that with me.  He had, by the way.  He then told me that this confusion was my problem and that I had to find a way of handling it because he wasn’t going to get involved.

Anger showed up right quick.  “What the hell is he saying?  We did everything he told us to, after he’d confirmed that the transfer had been OKed!”

My Panic really looks like this. No, really. It's weird.

“That’s it!  We’re in the soup!  We’re going to lose our job, either of them!” Panic wailed.

“There might just be a misunderstanding,” Hope said with false cheeriness.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Practicality snapped.  “It’s clear Dr. F has ticked off his higher ups somehow.  They wouldn’t work with him to get an exception to the hiring freeze to fill his empty position, and now that he’s found a way around it they’re miffed.”

“That doesn’t explain why he’s reneging on his offers to us,” Ambition said slowly.  “We took his offer and acted on it in good faith, after he assured us that if we could get the department to approve it, the transfer would go through.”

“This whole organization is riddled with issues like this,” Paranoia hissed, hugging the walls, eyes darting for potential escape.  “Panic’s right, we’re collectively sunk.  He turned on us rather than go to bat for us.  He turned on us!”

“I told you guys!  I told you!  No one ever listens to me, and look where it’s got you,” Guilt crowed, practically dancing a vindictive jig.

“Shut up,” Practicality growled, pacing the floor.  “You’re no help.  There’s been a mis-communication somewhere.  What has been said that has been misconstrued?  And by whom?”

“It’s not communication, it’s politics,” Panic said, shivering.  “Dr. F isn’t exactly the darling of his division, this probably isn’t about us at all.”

“Sounds to me,” put in Reason, “that he probably only got verbal approval to do what he did.  So he offered us the job, told whoever had approved that move, who told whoever was above that, and they said no.  Which screws up the whole process.”

Small Dog is confused. And scared.

“Verbal doesn’t mean anything!  If it’s not in writing it’s not worth a rattle,” Paranoia said frantically.

“Well, that’s certainly obvious now.  So, what happens to us?” Ambition asked.

The next day, Susie pulled me aside and gave me a heart-stopping piece of news.  The final answer was “No.”  It had come down from the Dean himself, and the Dean wanted to meet with me on Monday.

“AUGHHHH!” Panic and Paranoia clutched each other only long enough to scream and both ran from the room.

(Monday: Part 3, The Interview)

Humor, Office, Work

Gender. Bending.

“Where’s C.?”
“In the restroom.”
“…which one?”
– Hennessy and officer

Confused?

As I have ranted before, one of my most hated jobs is picking up and dropping of the laundry for the officers.  The issues of managing laundry for forty grown men will not be further discussed here, but what will now be revealed is that, between hauling up to 20 bags in and out of the office three days a week, hanging up individual orders on lockers, wrangling excess hangers, and hunting for whatever goes missing, I probably spend more time in the men’s room than the ladies’.

And the funny thing is, all of the student officers have become completely immune to the sight of me in pencil skirt and heels, trotting in and out of their locker room.  I knock first, naturally!

The first time I was doing the laundry by myself, a bunch of new student officers lumbered in, saw me hanging up uniforms, and jumped about a mile (squealing a little).  Like I was a mouse.  Bless them.  These days we have nice conversations as they lace up their boots.

But every once in a while, I’ll skip on out of the men’s room and a reserve officer (who doesn’t normally work here) on his way in, will do a double take and give me a funny look.  I usually just say hi and decline to explain.  I think it’s good for them to be shaken up a bit every once and a while.

Humor, Office, Work

Apres, le Deluge

 “There will be a rain dance friday night, weather permitting.”
– George Carlin 

I have an extraordinary pair of shoes.  Not in the Christian Louboutain sense, or even the “By Jupiter, what on earth is she wearing on her feet?!” sense.  I mean truly out of this world, inexplicable, baffling-to-science bizarre. 

See? Charming. Or so I thought...

They were discovered at Target, sitting prettily on a shelf and on sale.  “Purple flats with a J. Crew like ruffle?” thought Small Dog to herself, “Sold!”  I happily tossed them into my basket and continued shopping, little knowing the fate that lay ahead of me. 

The first time I wore them, it started raining on the way to work and I had to make a mad dash for the office, carefully holding my trousers at my calves to minimize water damage.  They are suede-like and therefore absorbed at least a couple of deep puddles as I crossed the parking lot, and didn’t let a single drop of moisture escape.  I had the squishy, uncomfortable sensation of walking around in sopping moss all day long. 

Undeterred I wore them again a few days later and it started raining while I was at work and didn’t let up until late in the night.  Which meant that, due to running errands for the department and fetching the officers’ laundry, my feet were soaked for several hours before I got to go home. 

Mere coincidence, surely!  All the same, they were regulated to the back of my closet for a couple of weeks to be on the safe side.  But the next time I wore them I still came home looking like a drowned duck (and that time it managed to both rain and snow), so they were unceremoniously flung back into the closet to learn how to behave better towards their patient, shoe-loving mistress.

No prizes for guessing.
We all know what's coming next, right?

However, this morning in the scramble to get ready, the inevitable happened.  It was the day that I’d be assigning dozens of students their security gear for the 4th of July festivities and I knew better than to wear heels.  I could only find one half of the pair of flats I intended to wear and so, at a loss, I pulled them out again, gave them a quick talking to, and popped them on. The day passed without incident and scorching desert summer temperatures until late afternoon when the clouds rolled in (seemingly from nowhere!) and unleashed a torrent.  Lacking windows I hurried to Susie and Wise’s office to see for myself, just in time to see a river of rain come rushing down a walkway from the quad and a broken branch whiz by.  A boy was walking against the wind, which was so fierce that his umbrella  had wrapped around his head and shoulders, and nearly blew him off the sidewalk. 

Really. Don't.

It was also time to go to the laundry to pick up the officers’ laundry.  The three of us watched in dismay as it got worse and worse while it got closer and closer to closing time.  Susie was a dear and said she’d help me as soon as we saw a break in the clouds and finally one came and we sprinted down the hall (much to the shock of a couple of officers who managed to dodge out of our way).  We threw bags of laundry over our shoulders, pushed past two sets of doors at a dead run, and were halfway across the parking lot when the skies reopened.  I managed to hit the unlock button on the key chain and yank open the van’s door and we both catapulted into its relative safety.  And then, because she was wearing a white skirt that had been soaked and didn’t want to make the situation worse by walking through an office entirely of men, we both climbed over the seats (without a lot of dignity) and headed off to the cleaner together.  By the time we got back the storm was over, though the city was littered with leaves and shattered branches. And I still had to go to dinner and do a presentation in dripping shoes, and shudder when Susie mentioned some sort of infection or other that she knew of that came from wet feet and was nastier than Athletes Foot. 

Anyone suffering from a particularly bad drought?  Because I have the perfect footwear for your next Rain Dance.

Humor, Office, Snark, University

Thwack!

“I’d have you  lot up in front of the University authorities first thing in the morning, if it wasn’t for the fact that you are the University authorities…”
– Terry Prachett

We are moving into one of the worst months of year at work: June is the month building up to the annual July 4th celebration.  This usually involves celebrity VIPs, nearly 100,000 additional people on campus, parades, hiring up to 100 more students for less than a week, and other assorted headaches.  Last year I got lucky and got married instead so I was out of town for the final crisis.

This year I may not get as lucky unless J. and I can come up with a cheap vacation idea.  And then there’s the guilt.  I’d be leaving some of the other girls in an awful lurch skiving off like that.  Plus Hennessy is getting married mere days before and it would rather shabby for both of us to disappear.

However, this nobility of purpose doesn’t make the impending event any less irksome.  It’s my job to get those darling student employees outfitted and, more importantly, in fear of the personal Hell that will await them if they don’t return every last piece of gear to me.  At the end of football season this past year, I was somehow seconded to be responsible for collecting and minding this stuff permanently even though I hadn’t been in charge of distributing it, recording who got what, or when it should be returned at the beginning of the year.  You may imagine the resulting confusion.  And my attitude about it.

Die.

This year will run much smoother since Hennessy and I have teamed up to tackle it, but problems are already creeping up.  Such as the fact that the Special Events department hasn’t given us a time to distribute stuff, and has decided that these students need only three hours of training (to take place three days before this nearly 100,000 people plus pyrotechnics rolls into town).

It’s fortified my bewilderment.  Ever since my personal equivalent of the burning of the Library of Alexandria, I’ve been thinking (again) about some of the glitches of working where I do.

The real problem with this university is, as I see it, is that it’s a combination of a business, a school district with too many children and not enough teachers, and (due to the religious background and funding) a monastery.  Which doesn’t combine too well, professionally speaking.  As a bureaucracy, resources are not always well-managed.  Administration errors are overlooked in the spirit of Brotherly Kindness, but minor problems lower down on the chain of command are punished with all the fervor of an inquisition.  And, completely at odds with religious teaching, good work is not rewarded while bad work is not scrutinized or punished.  It’s baffling.

History, Humor, Life, Office, University, Work

Top. Men.

“We have top men working on it right now.”
“Who?”
“Top men.”
– Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

Pictured: a villain immediately preceeding his revalation of exactly how badly he has been behaving for the last hour and a half.

In almost every movie there is that incredibly silly moment when the villain is confronted with the fruits of his or her destruction and, looking over the rivers of lava/ looming black hole/ annihilation of an entire civilization/ etc., murmurs in despair, “My god, what have I done?!”

I had one of those moments today.  After getting all the archives into chronological order (which you’d think they’d already be in, right?  Hah!), tagging them by date, pulling original photos and making notes on when/where they originally occurred in print, and hauling it one massive armload at a time to the library, I asked for the archivist.  Student employees helped me carry the stacks of papers and binders and asked what I was doing.  I couldn’t very well shout, “Saving history!” in the library, so I quietly whispered the tale of the iniquitous order to dispose of fifty years of information.
“He told you to shred it!” one girl squeaked in horror.
“I know,” I squeaked back.

We were all awash with the enthusiasm of the young until the archivist appeared.  He looked like Eeyore the donkey in human form: droopy, awkward, exhausted, and less than thrilled to see me with my arms full of documents.
“Hi, I’m C. from the police department.  We talked on the phone and–”
“Oh, right,” he sighed, “Follow me.”

The whole cavalcade meandered down some halls and through secured doors…to a lonely room, lined with shelves and piled with papers.
“Here’s a project for you,” he mumbled to what appeared to be a heinously overworked student employee, and ordered us to drop the whole pile on her (already covered) desk.

My project is somewhere alongside the Ark, I'm sure.

Which is when I had my cinema-villain-is-confronted-by-what-she’s-done moment.  I’d committed the most rookie of cardinal sins: I’d just turned over fifty years of history to a bureaucracy!

I’ve gained all sorts of skills and experiences at this job, but law enforcement is not my calling, to say the least.  But history!  Oh, yes.  And this project is the first thing in over a year and a half that’s come close to the things I’ve studied and feel passionate about.   Certainly it’s the only thing that’s got me excited enough to annoy my co-workers with my near constant cries of, “Read this!”  And now, I’ve an awful premonition that my precious bundles are only going to slowly decompose in the bowels of the library.  There is no justice in the world.

History, Humor, Office, University, Work

It Was a Simpler Time

“All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon.”
-Voltaire

Yesterday Lt. Citrus called me into his office and waved his hand at a pile of binders.  It was the media files archives of our department, newspaper clippings mostly, and it went back to 1960.
“We don’t need these anymore,” he said.  “Can you get rid of them and save the binders?”

?!?!?!?!

I stretched out my hands dumbly and let him plop a stack in my hands and then tottered back to my desk where I opened them up.

The Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, the first female officer to graduate from the state’s police academy…the earliest documented complaints about parking (an as yet unresolved problem!) when we had a fraction of the student number we do now…a completely unique perspective on the history of the campus was sitting on my desk and I was supposed to just shred it?!  Clearly they forgot I majored in history!

I begged off my other chores and began putting things in order.  I’ve spent the last day and a half scanning articles and photos that document the history of the department (beginning back when we had an ex-LA cop fish a bunch of wallets out of the campus pond and search for the owners, all the way to the 40+ full time, state-certified officers we have now along with nearly 200 student employees).  And come across some real gems!

Throw this stuff away.  Pfft!  I’m already in contact with the university archivist.

Showing off items abandoned in the Lost and Found. The one on the right kind of looks like Peggy Olson from Mad Men.
Contrary to popular belief, we neither live in Mayberry, nor whistle frequently.