Workplace Woes

Off-pregnancy topic for today – need to vent about work. So far as I go, I’m feeling HUGE, can’t breathe due to the humidity in the Northeast, and Stick-It is kicking me awake every morning at 4:30 a.m. Not what a perpetual night owl deals with well.

Okay, my job sucks right now. Well, not the job, but my boss. She has for quite a while. I have worked in the same office for the past 12 years at a local community college as an Administrative Assistant to a Dean. This woman has become the walking example of a bad boss, and why people call state employees "hacks" to begin with. I know, you're asking yourself, "so why not leave?"

One, after 12 years, I have some really great benefits. Like 4 weeks vacation time. I’m making decent money. I have a 15-minute commute. And it’s not the toughest job in the world. But over the years, I’ll admit, it must have been something like suffering from Stockholm Syndrome for me. We had another Dean and his Admin in the office with us, and they were a piece of work, so for years, it was her and me in the same foxhole. And she was somewhat reasonable. Then came, about four years ago, her losing her dad. Then, little things, like three years ago, when my husband had his heart attack and I was 13 weeks along with Jimmy. Her response to the news? “Oh, I’m sorry. So, do you think you’ll be in on Monday, because the work’s piling up?” Then, four months later, her response to my losing Jimmy: “Oh, take as much time as you need, but do you think you’ll be back in three weeks, because the work’s piling up?” A year later, as her mother was dying and I had my miscarriage: “Well, now you won’t be so hormonal!” This from a woman who had a miscarriage a few months after her dad died, which she kept secret from everyone at work but me.

I shouldn’t have expected anything more from her. She has NO life outside of work. None. No support system, no friends, no one. She has aunts and uncles and cousins who live one town over from where she is, and no one helps her. And she doesn’t ask. She’s not “into” anything. At one point she told me her motto was “Just don’t get involved”. Not in her kids’ school, nothing. In fact, her kids are involved in NOTHING. No sports, no clubs, etc. The only time they did anything was when her husband had a different job and coached the boys. But in the last few years, that stopped. Three years ago, her mother was diagnosed with end-stage ALS, her husband had taken a position in his company where he was in Southeast Asia three out of four weeks a month, and she fell at home and broke her right foot (so she couldn’t drive). No family came to help her, no friends pitched in. Are you getting the picture? The woman is a loner with a capital “L”. And her husband, who seems like a nice guy, isn’t much better. The day after her mother’s funeral, he left to go back to Asia. After all, he’d been home for a full three days, coming in the day before the wake.

I, on the other hand, live in the same town I grew up in. I’m involved in both kids’ schools and their sports as well as in the town, as is DH, and we are surrounded by family and friends who will step up if asked, just as we do for them.

So, you might ask, what’s changed my mind about staying here? Well, three years ago, just as her mother was dying, we had a turnover in the office. The other Dean and his Admin retired, and new ones took their place, changing the whole tone of the office. I crawled out of the foxhole and started to realize what a Bitch she could be. A year later, just after her mother’s death, when she started to be truly unbearable (everything that went wrong was my fault, and she stopped giving me the tools to do my job effectively, like telling me her schedule), she announced that she was taking a year’s leave of absence to go overseas with her husband and kids. Woo-Hoo! She ended up extending it to 18 months, and I had an Interim Dean who was a dream to work for. He had his moments, but viewed me as his right hand and an integral part of the team. Well, she decided to return in June, and right as she did, I found out I was pregnant. Despite the hopes that she would come back somewhat less tense, the opposite has happened. She’s more paranoid and secretive than ever, and doesn’t like the fact that I no longer let her bullying ways slide, having had words with her quite a few times over her tone and attitude. But again, it’s never her.

She has made the past four months seem like an eternity, and is now on my case to tell her exactly when I’m planning on going out on maternity leave, how long I plan to take, and the date I expect to return. I have tried to explain that I have no clue at this point (after I confirmed that I only need to give her 2 weeks’ notice according to my union contract), that, as I learned with Jimmy, things can change at a moment’s notice, and that I’m not sure how long I’ll be out (things like daycare and how long I can afford to go without pay have to be figured out with DH). I’ve been told that the plan is to induce me two weeks’ early, but that could change. And I’ve been warned that I could also end up on bed rest (or, thanks to the stress she keeps inducing, I may decide to speak with my OB and be written out, if possible, even earlier!).

I also can’t get a straight answer from HR regarding their various leave policies, and now have to ask our union rep and office to clarify a number of these issues. I’m waiting for HR to also get back to me regarding what the increases would be in my insurance deductions if I did come back part-time, not that I’m sure that’s an option; my contract says it is, but I’m clarifying that with the union as well. I’m also waiting to get the list of fees from my daycare to see if there is a three- or four-day option, or half-days, as DH, in the middle of all this, is transferring to a closer office, resulting in, for now, him working Monday-Friday second shift starting next month (he currently commutes an hour each way, and works Tuesday through Saturday days). He has been told this won’t be for long, but it might actually work if I could find a 25-hour a week position somewhere.

But, like with most maternity leaves, I need to stay in my current position until I have this baby. Then, once I’ve delivered AND we have a sense of a plan as to when I need to go back, I’ll begin applying for different positions. Hopefully, I won’t have a problem finding something. As far as her questioning goes, I’m not saying anything besides “Gee, we’re trying to get some answers, and, as you are well aware, everything is up in the air when it comes to a pregnancy. There are no certainties.” And that, dear readers, is the light at the end of my current employment tunnel: not having to put up with Dean FruitLoops and her neurotic behavior, will be worth a reduction in pay and benefits!