TGIF

I hate weeks when technology causes more stress than any human being could on their own. I am so glad this week is over. 1/2 of my computer issues at work are resolved but the other half are not and it is going to be a long haul getting that fixed. I am so not techie. Nor, do I want to be. And the whole situation makes me feel anxious and sort of cranky. Lots of times when I feel stressed I get a bit hyper. I want to fix the things I can fix and fix em good and quick. So I am really really glad, that this time I didn't follow that path.

What happened is this. At the tail end of this crappy week, my boss sends my assistant to me with a form. A really stupid form that he is under the erroneous impression will make him fully cognizant of all that goes on in the office. He has spent all day creating the form. He loves the form. He mistakenly thinks my assistant can complete the form. She can't. She doesn't work with the data required on the form. I look at the form and want to cry. My boss is an older guy, easily threatened by anyone who seems to know what they are doing. He and I like one another but our working relationship is sometimes rocky. He assumes I am "out" for his job and has told this to many people. I am not. I have been offered the equivilent of his position and have turned it down. Right now the benefits to my family in time I can spend with them are far greater than the benefits of cash if I had to take on the added responsibilities. To me, the form is a sign that he doesn't want to talk with me. I would rather someone just ask me when they have a question. How freaking hard is it to ask a question? I spend the night having serious angst over the stupid form. My boss chats with others on the staff, seldom with me. A big part of this is that he is a chain smoker. Not only do I not smoke but for health reasons I prefer not to inhale all his second hand smoke. My boss genuinely disbelieves the dangers of second hand smoke. This also makes it difficult for he and I. He can't stop smoking and there is only so long I can make myself sit there in the haze. Our building is supposed to be smoke free but our company allows him to smoke in his office. I think they know he literally couldn't function if he didn't have a cigarette in his hand.

The next day when he comes in to work I go to his office with Stupid Form. I tell him that i want to be sure that I am giving him the data he needs and that I am not sure how to best do that with this form. He manages in the course of conversation to reveal that he thought this would make my life easier. He didn't remember that my assistant has other duties that don't cover this aspect of the paperwork and didn't understand that it would all fall on me. I managed to work in the fact that I would always be open to being asked a question if he felt there was something he needed to know. He said that he had seen how buried i was in paperwork and thought that this would make things easier. It won't. I will still have a form to fill out that I didn't before. Though at least I was able to help him craft it so it will hopefully know be representative of the real information he was looking for. And more importantly, I didn't damage a long standing work relationship by acting on my assumption that he was doing this because he was upset with me.

And now, time to clear my head of work junk and look ahead to the weekend. Time with the kids--well most of them. Robbie has a youth conference to go to tomorrow so I won't see much of him. But the littles and Chet and I will be here. And other than visiting www.sproutonline.com there won't be much in the way of high tech in my weekend! And that, as Martha Stewart would say, is a very good thing!