I Refuse to Chase My Tail....

This time of the year is very slow for the industry where I work. Very few customers, very little activity, and not a hell of a lot to do.

It is a ten hour day where I work, with no place for me to even sit down on most days, that's Monday through Friday. I work two Saturday's a month for six hours.

In the past few months everything has been cleaned, rearranged, alphabetized, sorted, organized, scrubbed, dusted, ... in short, there isn't a hell of a lot that has to be done. It's done. DONE.

Each day there's a little cleaning, which, by the way is not what I was hired for, but, I work there, so I want it to be at least somewhat clean.... so I clean. I clean the windows, sweep the floor, make sure the garbage doesn't become a science project, and try to keep the dust layer down to no thicker than one inch.

Some days are longer, slower, and more brutal than others...

Yesterday I had been writing notes to myself in Korean. No special reason, other than perhaps they remain at least marginally privat that way, since there are no korean speakers at my workplace.

At one point, The Nose approached and informed me that I cannot be writing in 'Chinese', and that 'I shouldn't let anybody see that'.

(What!?)

He then told me to 'get on the end of a broom and sweep the floor' (I was hired as an administrative assistant/inside sales guy). I didn't comment (externally... in my head I had a lot to say...), and I swept the floor, made a fresh pot of coffee, cleaned the coffee station, and went back to my work station. About an hour later, I was once again writing something in Korean. I felt The Nose's presence behind me, but didn't think anything of it. When I realized that he hadn't moved at all for almost a minute, I turned around to see what he was up to. Well, apparently, he had actually snuck up on me and was standing there watching me write in korean... as though I was a second grade student who was caught playing with his toys instead of copying the problems on the board.

He reiterated that I couldn't be writing in Chinese, and I said, "It isn't chinese, its korean, and what damned difference does it make what language I'm writing in?? You obviously can't read it, so you don't know whether I'm writing something work related or not.. how is this a concern of yours??"

His reply was that it didn't make a difference what it was, and that I couldn't write in languages other than english. He said that I had to keep myself busy (I was actually writing myself a to-do list of things that I wanted to do so that I wouldn't die of boredom... in case you are wondering, yes, work-related things) and 'stay productive'.

I told him that I was being productive, and asked what the issue was. My work gets done, and done correctly.

He said that I had to 'look busy'.

I said that I was not going to do busy-work for the sake of appearances. I refuse to sweep the same piece of clean floor for hours just so that I look like I'm doing something. I get paid to use my brain to do my job, and that is precisely what I was doing.

I told him that if he wanted me to stop writing in other languages, that was fine, I would do that. I said that I hadn't realized that there were two sets of rules; one for me, and one for everyone else. (they read newspapers, talk about fishing, sports, fantasy sports, snowmobiling, etc.,... often letting clients hold on the phone until they give up and hang up the phone). I told him that I thought it sucked, but that if that is what he wanted, fine... I would do that.

I then went into the computerized customer list and created a spreadsheet of every customer who is behind in payments. I broke it down in 0-30 days, 31-60 days, 61-90 days, and over 90 days. Then I totalled it up for each category. Since he is the one who is responsible for doing collections, I presented it to him and asked him whether I should hold a copy for the owner (his boss) or whether I should mail it out. (there were hundreds of thousands of dollars of uncollected revenue.. in short, proof that somebody wasn't doing their job). He blanched, but said that it was great and thanked me for doing that.

People who live in glass houses should not throw rocks...

I am off for another day of fun and adventure at work.

Mindfulness is the key.....