fecal matter occurreth

I had a definite stressful incident at work yesterday. We've had a series of short-notice, "oh my gosh it's dire" requests from someone in the company who is setting up a new program. We've bent over backward to meet them, but she keeps failing to ask for what she really wants or tell us enough about what she's doing that we can ask the right questions and figure it out. The latest two assumptions are that, when she requested a computer for this project, it would be able to play DVDs and come with speakers sufficient to project sound to a room thus-and-such size. No one doing a similar program uses any of these technologies, so go figure, we didn't ask. And yet, we are told she accuses us of giving her a "piece of junk." Aside from the fact that I do have junk in the field, and therefore, know it when I see it, she seems to have an exaggerated idea of what is standard when you work in social services.

In an attempt to put in a last-minute fix, we were unable to make an external DVD player work on the computer (amount of RAM is the suspect) and did not test the sound. My boss and I spent an hour and a half yesterday writing up this series of interactions for *his* boss, so that there will be appropriate ammunition if/when the complaints come rolling in. During the course of this, we discovered that we had not tested the sound. This constitutes, from his point of view, not having clean hands, so we set about fixing it.

Here's where it gets fun. I had to call up my Phoenix tech--the one who hadn't tested the sound when he was working on the DVD drive, earlier--at the end of his day and send him back to that site to test sound and set up speakers. He was not happy, and asked if it had to happen. I said yes. I got a call from him twenty minutes later ranting that this didn't have to happen till Monday, sound worked fine by the internal speaker wasn't powerful enough, and now that we had "your butts covered," was there anything else he should do? Because he'd had plans to visit his father-in-law in the hospital/rest home right after work.

I asked why he didn't tell me. I'm not unaware of the situation--I've re-arranged other things this week to try and make his schedule less onerous because he's dealing with this wrenching situation. He replied that I'd said it had to happen. And I had this moment where, I swear, I think I was channeling my boss. I told him he'd made the choice to take this action I said had to happen without telling me he had a conflict.

I wasn't standing behind him with a shotgun forcing him to go check the sound. I don't read minds. He put me in a position where if his father-in-law passed during those minutes he was late because he was checking the sound, the responsibility for his not being there would have been laid at my doorstep. I resent that. I also resent the statement about "your butts covered." Since when does completing the assignment we've been given constitute butt-covering, and why is it "your" butts instead of "our" butts?

I spent most of last night crying, wanting to vomit, and sleeping. Because I am thin-skinned enough that people ranting at me cuts. It really hurts. Never mind that I couldn't have made any different choices than I did based on the information I had. Never mind that I wrote a follow-up e-mail, so he'd have it when he was cooler-headed, just reminding him that there's this thing called Real Life that takes precedence outside of work, and I want him to tell me when I'm causing a conflict with Real Life, because Real Life wins. Jobs are replaceable, and I don't want him to go someplace else because he's upset over a situation I didn't know was there, and so couldn't avoid.

By today, I've managed to work myself into a quiet but fair anger, which I think is probably a healthier response. Let's face it, crying over it is my choice. It's a reaction I have not put the effort into changing, because I feel that it would take making other changes in the way I act and react which aren't worth it. But I really resent having been placed in this position in the first place, and it's starting to show.

It's just the shitty end to a shitty week. I've been sick, the doctor covering for my doctor didn't strike me as understanding the situation, I've had grumpy people breathing down my neck, I've worked a lot of hours over because certain things just had to get done, I don't get to see my fiancee because we're both under the weather, and now this. Could next week be better? Sure. Gods, I hope so. But that doesn't change the way I feel right now