Tuesday, November 18, 2008

I can do anything as long as I know when it ends

It ends on January 30. That’s only 13 weeks, 65 work days, 520 hours…seconds? No, I haven’t gone that far…yet.

The it in this case is my current work assignment. I’ve been a contractor/temp providing all sorts of administrative services for, can this be true? - 18 years. Some of the jobs have been interesting – Leslie University (as a temp I got to fire a full time employee who reported to me) and Cowen (crazy hard work as the assistant to the conference planner and trips to NYC, Scottsdale and San Francisco). Some of the jobs are little do-nothing things – Testa Hurwitz right before they disbanded their partnership; any and all Fidelity jobs – places where you sit for 7-8 hours with absolutely nothing to do that is related to the business.

I can read salon.com, chowhound.com, boston.com, and any other .coms for only so long. Same with playing solitaire, looking for dates, shopping Zappos.com. I even ran someone’s campaign for a city government office at a Fidelity job once. Anyone mentions any little bit of trivia or wonders about something in a passing conversation, I’ll research it if I find it even remotely interesting. Yes, you do have to rsvp to showers and you should send a gift if you’re not going. Pumpkin cheese cake recipes with or without baking – got ‘em. Pumpkin cheese cake recipe with ginger snap and graham cracker crust – got those too.

Current job is a good example of the do nothing type of job. It’s a small pharmaceutical company where I am covering a maternity leave. It started at the beginning of October and will end on January 30. Administratively, this place is run like…OK, I think I just have to say it; it doesn’t appear to be run by anyone. No non-technical staff person wants to admit that they are responsible for anything; they can’t answer a straight question; they ignore emails. Worse, they provide answers to questions that you didn’t ask. They pass the buck (usually to someone else who does the same). I do give them credit for raising the ability to dodge questions to an art form.

I have to reconcile the corporate Amex card in their expense system. My email to another secretary, D, who charged a breakfast:

“I think this breakfast charge was for company X’s meeting on 10/30. Can I just list the company name on the expense report or do I need names of attendees? Thanks.”

D’s reply:

“It was a breakfast for Employee Z, Business Development.

Let me know if you need anything more.”

She closes with a smiley face. A freaking smiley face. OK, that’s annoying in and of itself but could you answer the question? Just list company name or attendees’ names?

I’m doing an expense report for one of my bosses.

Email from the A, CEO’s secretary, when I inquire what the mileage reimbursement is:

“I’m not sure that we actually reimburse mileage per se.”

Oy!

I’ve got to get some printing done for a corporate communications piece. I’m told C works with the printer.

Email to C:

“Hi C. Is this something printer could do? Please send the contact info so I can inquire.”

Thanks.”

C’s reply:

“I actually don’t know. I only order the business cards.”

My reply:

“So can I have the contact so I can inquire? Thanks. “

C also later informed me that she orders the first page of company letterhead but not the second.

Seriously, I couldn’t make that one up.

But this is coverage for a maternity leave. It ends. Secretary not coming back? It surprised me that so many of them don’t come back. They all insist they are when they’re interviewing and training you. They have to so they can collect their disability checks. Not my problem, I agreed to cover the maternity leave only.

So January 30 is what keeps me from running, screaming from the building.

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