Miasmatic Review

Illogical.

There are some things that one just isn’t meant to understand. The meaning of life, what happens to socks in the dryer, why people in small vehicles like to pull out in front of my truck while I’m doing 55 MPH. I’ve just come to the conclusion that these things are just not meant for me to understand. These last couple of weeks at work, I’ve added yet another thing to that list.

Why is there no logic to the decisions made by my peers and superiors?

Example. Last week I had 6 projects that had to be done by end of business Friday. One of them I had known about since the end of May, but due to the availability of certain data, I could not get started on it until Monday. On Tuesday they sent me to another office on business, effectively taking away 20% of my work time. After busting hump all week it looked like I was going to finish all 6 projects by the end of business on Friday. Then at 11:00AM on Friday I get hit with, “Contagion, I have a project I need you to handle.” After some prodding and asking, it too had to be done by the end of the day. After going over my list of other projects and the precarious deadline for them as well. I was told that THIS project takes precedence. Then I explained that according to other management my other projects take precedence… and to be honest the one that directly affected my employees was the one that I was going to finish first.

And before I could think I asked, “If it’s so important, why are you waiting until 11:00 AM on Friday to give it to me.” The response was that they had given it to someone else two weeks ago, but they didn’t have access to the right reports in order to get it done today. Okay… well fine but the reports they don’t have access to, neither do I. So it was “Okay, what’s the soonest you can get access?” Monday at the earliest, probably Wednesday was my best guess. Now, the logic of everything else that led up to this is escaping me and the more I learned the more confused I became. But it was after telling them Wednesday would be the most likely time to get the access when I’m told. “Well do it right away, we need you to get these reports done.” That I had the revelation that I will never, ever in my lifetime be able to understand how my superiors and peers come to the decisions they make.

See the reason I wasn’t originally given the project was because I already have a heavier work load then my peers. My peer that was given the original project sat on it for a week before saying she didn’t have access. Instead of giving it to me right away or trying to get her access, they waited until Friday to throw it on my load. Then when I didn’t have access, I needed to get it right away so that I could do the project late. Why not have the original person that screwed up request the access that day? Maybe they should have given it to me right away so I could have tried to squeeze it in. Of course they could have given it back to the original person and told them to get the access so they could do it late.

The sad thing is that if they were trying to do something to make me look bad, this doesn’t work. I’ve got all the documentation that they waited until late in the day to give it to me and that I didn’t have access. All out of my control, so I’m not worried about it. My work philosophy plays in well with this situation.

A bad decision by you does not make an emergency for me.