I had the worst day today. It was the kind of day that makes you wonder which god you pissed off, or what past-life transgressions you must be paying for. It sucked.
First thing, people from all of the different regional offices were in town: Japan, US, Australia, you name it. A guy that I had met in the States, corresponded with, talked to at videoconferences, etc., came up to my desk and said “Hey, how are you doing, good to see you again, can you introduce me to the team.” I looked at him with the horrible realisation that I KNEW this guy, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name. So I looked around at the (fully staffed) office and said “Hey, GREAT to see you again, give me ten minutes until everyone is in.” Not bad for pulling a “save” out of one’s ass, as it were. Then I ran around and had tons of whispered conversations with other people asking who the FUCK this guy was. Reception finally provided the answer, as he had signed in. And so I introduced him around, as though all of these people had just magically showed up.
Problems all day long with the site, we can’t publish because I’d made a lot of changes to assortments and we encountered a “known bug, we should have a fix for it soon.” Piece of crap. Struggled with all of the new coding changes (implementation of a right-hand nav with a mini version of the shopping cart that would be persistent for most pages). Nothing was working, so I reversed out the sections that I was working on, to the last bug-free version of the jsp template. That section remained broken after deleting out the templates folders to force it to recompile. What the hell? Struggled with that for ages before Wayne found out that the CMS can only retain a limited number of versions…and disregards any new ones after that. Problem solved, at the cost of a baby ulcer.
Our useless copywriter informed my boss that I was putting too much stress on him by asking him to actually revise web copy, when he was too busy doing print catalog work. Excuse me? Weren’t you bloody hired for the web team? So he whined, and the upshot is that he’s taken off web work for a while. Despite the fact that I pointed out that if he wasn’t such a crap writer, it wouldn’t need to be revised. I further pointed out that I had been writing a lot of the copy myself, since this guy couldn’t write sales copy to save his life. (It’s not “creative” enough.) Well, I’m sorry. If you want to sit around with your head in the clouds all day, then quit the day job and become a novelist. If you want to sell shit, then fucking learn how to do it. This is the guy, I pointed out, that when forced to do individual writeups for all pieces in a tableware pattern, wrote “an excellent plate,” “an excellent teacup,” an “excellent bowl.” Idiot – and I found it god knows how long after he had done it. I was informed that I was being unsympathetic and it was my fault that I hadn’t tattled on this guy long ago to my boss. “I expect you to tell me these things.” Jesus.
He finished the conversation with “By the way, I’ve asked the Mac Guy (who does the print work) to do some redesigns of the homepage for the rebranding.” Excuse ME? The Mac Guy? Why not the lunchroom ladies, while you’re at it? They have equally as much web experience as the Mac Guy. Shouldn’t I be involved on a redesign? We already have two outside audit companies telling us how they can make the site so much better, and every man and his dog has an excuse for why the site isn’t performing, so why not? (My opinion, which is that if you have a 60% out-of-stock rate people just won’t fucking order, is ignored. What do I know? I’ve only been doing this for what, eight years or so? What do I know?) He finally made me angry enough to have tears in my eyes, whereupon he told me that people wouldn’t respect me if I showed emotion like that.
I am definitely getting my ass in gear and looking for another job – as I’ve been saying for ages. I can’t sit there anymore with my stomach tied in knots, doing three people’s jobs, and taking shit for it. To hell with that.
copy writing –
I could freelance a bit for you :) In fact, I know more than ‘excellent’ as an adjective for crockery. How about ‘floral’ or ‘classical’ or ‘stylish’ or ‘modern’? *giggles* Just trying to make you smile.
*big hug* Sounds like the shittiest day ever. I love the ‘save’ you did for the American dude though. Don’t you HATE when you know someone but can’t remember their bloody names?!
He finally made me angry enough to have tears in my eyes, whereupon he told me that people wouldn’t respect me if I showed emotion like that.
Point out quietly that it’s common for most carnivores eyes to fill with tears just before they rip someone’s throat out.
Acts as a protective layer against blood splashes.
Then smile, bareing your canines, and stare at the throbbing vein on his neck.
(Caveat – this may not be true, but I’ll be that he doesn’t know that.)
More seriously – *gack* – you have the perfect example of a seagull manager; flies in at height and shits on everything. Nothing good comes out of seagulls.
Hey, if you didn’t live so far away – YES! :)
Hahaha…I like that. I always have these little mental fantasy sequences where I experience what I would have liked to do, in comparison with what I actually did (i.e., acted like a weenie).