Work Stress

OK, even I'm a little disappointed that my first post since the beginning of the month is just another dream thing. I really need to get back into the habit of writing up the positive (and, I suppose, negative) real life things that happen but, frankly, I'm doing more stuff elsewhere, and generally don't feel like adding to this blog at the moment.

Which is a shame, because - just for example - my girlfriend and I went to see Treasure Island at the National Theatre last weekend, and it was completely fantastic - the elaborate set was very clever and adaptable, the cast (including Arthur Darvill and Patsy Ferran, the latter having previously appeared in last year's stage production of Blythe Spirit starring Angela Lansbury). My main thought throughout was "I hadn't realised this was supposed to be funny!", as I've only ever seen movies of the story, and the only deliberately funny one seemed to be the Muppets version... though it's always possible I misremember.

But anyway.

Work has been quite fraught recently, with a certain exhibition taking up much of everyone's time over the last couple of months. I worked on the show guide, as I did last year while Temping, and things like the signage were split between all of us, despite all working to essentially the same template.

Throughout this time our manager has been exhibiting certain... aberrant - not to say abhorrent - behaviour, focussed largely on my counterpart. In an assessment meeting they had a while back, she told him he needed to stop asking so many questions and do more on own initiative... but, whenever he's followed that instruction, she's become angry and told him he should have discussed things with her first. Contradict much?

Most recently, she got he and I to 'help' her on one of her regular magazines, which had been running late due (we were told) to the editors supplying their copy late. Thing is, she's recently been complaining about being busy with freelance work, so we suspect she's not as focussed on office work as she should be when she's working from home. She asked us to handle amendments supplied by the editors, and I ended up doing most of it because my counterpart was too busy doing his own work on that magazine. I gather the editors had an argument with her after I'd departed for the day, and that she'd threatened to cry (which was described by one of the designers as "awkward"... most likely, I'd guess, because it was being put on). The next day, when my counterpart arrived in the office, he found an email from her accusing him of deleting files and thereby causing delays. Considering I'd done the majority of the work she referred to, and I'd certainly not deleted anything, this seemed unfair. He hadn't gone anywhere near that stuff, and it wasn't as if she'd veiled the accusation with a question ("did you delete any files from x folder?"), she went straight for saying "you have been deleting files". Naturally, he protested.

She then claimed that she could see - via some software sorcery - that he had deleted files (which tends to suggest to me that the files weren't deleted) and insisted that they continue the discussion 'offline' since she wasn't in the office that day.

And, of course, when he spoke to her on the phone, she sounded drunk.

I've started to think that I should do something (and I know precisely what) about this situation, because it upsets me that my counterpart is essentially being bullied... and in exactly the same way that our predecessors were bullied by this same manager. The question is how this has been allowed to continue, so I really need to ascertain what passes for HR at this company and make some enquiries.

Cut to last night, when I suddenly had a dream about all the work I did for the exhibition, which is now well behind us.

It began - if I remember correctly - with a post-mortem meeting about the show guide, which revealed it was littered with spelling errors. And not just simple ones - we're talking mistakes that were utterly obvious, and honestly looked like whoever typed it had suffered a seizure mid-flow. Naturally, my boss was apoplectic. I couldn't understand how that had happened, so I went back to the source file to check. At one point, my boss seemed to start hyperventilating, so I tried to calm her and she got even more angry. After quite a bit more that I no longer remember, I woke up, briefly... and then drifted straight back into the same dream.

As a form of reparations, my boss got me to work on a new project which appeared to be a wine label. In real life, this is darkly amusing, considering her drinking. She was quite bitchy about the work in progress, focussing on my use of standard line weights for something or other. Thankfully, I didn't go through much more of that before waking up properly.

In other news, things flat-related aren't progressing a great deal... a set of light fittings and switches were recently stolen from the communal areas, all because the front door wasn't closing properly. The landlord has dealt with the latter issue, but the former - hopefully - will get dealt with today. We shall see...