I am very candid in the fact that I was demoted in March.  Millhouse likes to say that I was reassigned but I am much more realistic.  I was given a promotion, not given the tools I needed to succeed and when I started asking for help it was deemed that I was incapable of doing the job and it was taken away in an abrupt and unprofessional manner.  In my mind that is a demotion.

It doesn’t bother me like it used to.  When I was first demoted I would cry, I felt like a failure and I was really, really down on myself.  I’m not anymore.  That is mostly because my boss has the tools that I asked for and he is floundering.  It is not ‘us’ or our capabilities.  It is ‘them’ and their demands.  What they want is for us to fail because they want out of their contract, this is now obvious.  Unfortunately ‘we’ are the scapegoat and that’s no fun.

So even though I am no longer a manager I am still expected to go to meetings and train and I don’t want to.  The job I do now doesn’t list that as a requirement but unfortunately I am still expected to do these things.  When I don’t there is a sh*tstorm of criticism and I am back to where I was in March.  I have given up fighting it.  I go to the meetings, and feign interest.  I do the training and come back to the office.  I don’t have much of a choice but I take great comfort in knowing that in two months I am going to be off for a year.

This was the Facebook status of one of my coworkers.  Based on my assumptions and fanciful imaginings she had walked away from the corporate world to pursue something that fulfilled her soul in a way that corporations never could.

I haven’t actually asked her what she is going to be doing or what path she has chosen to follow.  I prefer envisioning the adventures that she is going to have now that she was brave enough to shed the shackles of a multinational conglomeration and move on.  Maybe she will be a goat farmer, an organic baker or yarn weaver.  Whatever she is doing she is doing it because she enjoys it.

People are in corporate life because we need money to survive.  Being a cog in the wheel of something huge and faceless allows for economic success, you get promoted, move up and get a nicer suit.  Moving away from the cut throat, dog eat dog atmosphere means you can pursue emotional fulfillment.  Do something that your heart truly wants to do.  You move away from the daily grind and experience enjoyment in your occupation.

I am envious of that, I long to shed the shackles of my cubicle to be more than a cog.  But I am not brave enough

Yet.

I have an interview tomorrow.

It is not an interview for me.  It is an interview for the person that is going to cover me when I am on maternity leave.

This is the second time that I have done this interview.  I conducted on similar when I left for maternity leave when I had Maks.  And I have the same fear now that I did back then.   I am constantly worried that my replacement will completely replace me.  I know that even if that is the case, I do have a guaranteed job when I come back, even if it isn’t the job that I was doing when I left.

I am just scared that I will come back to the bottom of the ladder and have to write acnepril reviews again until I work my way up.

Well it’s official, I have been demoted.

The announcement came through today.  I have to give back my car and blackberry at the end of the month. 

Given all the mean and unconstructive things that my boss had to say about me in the past couple of months, she did seem very worried about me today.  I am pretty sure that it is all an act and she is trying to make herself feel better or appear to be a nicer to the other employees.  I don’t feel any better about this but I have to admit that this hasn’t been the best time for me.

Now I can focus on this pregnancy, maybe even look into getting a new video card to document how things progress this time around.

This is according to my boss.

I had my performance review yesterday and that was one of the many things that she said to me.

She thinks that I lack common sense, I lack the intelligence to do my job the way that I should, I have disappointed her, I have disappointed my client, I have disappointed my internal colleagues and she isn’t sure if she can save my job.

She thinks the fact that I have been doing two full time jobs for six months without any help or training shouldn’t have hindered my ability to be successful.

I presented a powerpoint on why I haven’t done as well as I could have and none of it mattered.  I feel like I was set up to fail.  My ego took a major beating yesterday.  I was up for most of last night just being down on myself, I was so tired this morning that I took a mental health day.  But even today work is bombarding me.  I want to do nothing today but lounge in bed, read trashy magazines with tons of ads for the best fat burner and not think.  But work isn’t letting me.  My Blackberry has been ringing off the hook.

I need them to leave me alone.

I am leaving my job. 

I was demoted today.  My position was taken away.  It was given back to my old boss and I go back to being his assistant. 

Even with all the changes going on he will do very well.  He will become a star and I will look like a failure.  He has the training and he has me.  He has all the things that I asked for that I never got.  I was poised for failure.  He is poised for greatness.  And as unfair as that is, it is the way that things are. 

In the eyes of my peers I wasn’t good enough, but they don’t know about all the things that I didn’t have.  In my eyes I wasn’t good enough because I couldn’t do it all. 

I can’t move backwards though.  It is not in me.  I can’t go back to being what I was.  My pride won’t let me.  I know that I shouldn’t let my pride make my decisions but in this case I do not have the inner strength to pretend like nothing happened.  So I am leaving. 

Now is not the best time to go but I feel like if I stay I would only get worse.

This happened today at 3pm. 

*ring, ring*

Me:  Hello, Super Fun Greatest Place to work, ever!  Meli speaking.

Client:  Meli, I just sent you an email.  I need that report run again and I need you to do an analysis down to the lowest level for every single line.

Me:  OK, when do you need it by?

Client:  close of business today.

Me:  OK, that is kind of tight.  How much data do you have?

Client:  Not much, only 60, 000 lines.

Me:  ….

I am going to start working on my resume.  Things at work are looking very bleak.  My entire company is losing money  and my boss has to meet with the global CEO next month to explain to him why we should stay open.  Right now she doesn’t have a really good case for keeping us going.  We are the only branch that is losing double digit thousands every month and there seems to be no way to stop the bleeding.

Now before my promotion I wasn’t aware of these things.  I spent my days looking into a barcode scanner and coming home with no worries.  Now that I know the actual state of the company I am scared.  I have been here for 6 years and I have forgotten how to go for interviews.  I don’t know how to make new friends and am not looking forward to getting a new position.  But if it is going to happen, I am going to have to be prepared.

My temp called in sick today.  The day before his last day, he called in sick.  That ticked me off.  He is being paid by the hour, and to me this was extremely vendictive.  So I sent him an email letting him know that I was changing his last day from tomorrow to yesterday.  This was the email that I got back.

Thank u I ‘m feeling better. I was hoping to come in tomorrow, but anyways.
I have a key card what would u like me to do with it?? I’ll drop it off when I’m down that way.

Thank u for everything. I learned a lot. I wish more boss’s were like u. I was wondering could I use u as a reference for any future reference requests??

I enjoyed my time @ XXX & I would luv one day to become a member of the team.

Thank u again

This really ticked me off.  I am not his friend and he sent me an email similar to something he would text to his buddy as they were playing ps3.  I am not his friend and I do not see myself giving someone a reference when they cannot write their boss a proper message.

Yesterday I gave my temp his notice.  Next week is going to be his last week.  I gave him a week so he could start looking and get himself another job. 

But I think I made a mistake.

Since giving him his notice, he has been slacking more than ever.  He was on the ESPN looking up Super Bowl stats for most of the morning and then he was on Monster for most of the afternoon.  At one point I swear he was looking up a Toto toilet.

I didn’t want to be mean and let him go with no notice, especially since he has four kids under the age of 6 but he is just slacking off and that isn’t helping me.