File under venting

A woman at work was severely pissed at me today...which thankfully manifested itself as the silent treatment with the occasional passive aggressive eye roll. It all has to do with what went down on Friday.

Friday, she brought her daughter along to help us out with the massive amount of bindery work we've got going on in the back of the shop. It was an all-hands-on-deck situation, so early in the day, when I noticed her daughter was on the clock and playing around in my office, I went and ratted her out.

Later in the day, I went back to help out on the work, and that girl was nowhere in sight the whole time I was back there. Towards the end of the day, I found the girl had been hanging out in the front office almost all afternoon. It was apparent that by this time, word had gotten around that I was being a big tattletale, so asking the question "How long has she been up here?" was answered by "None of your damned business."

While I was clocking out, I took a peek at the girl's time card. Yep, she was still on the clock, and she hadn't done a damned thing all afternoon.

So, today, this girl's mother was pissed at me. She didn't say a damned word about it until five minutes before quitting time, when my boss' son was in my office and I was playing around with him. The words she said were, "Well, isn't this ironic."

As if distracting the boss' kid from repeatedly hitting the button on that Goddamned Napoleon Dynamite figurine on our other artist's desk for five minutes at the end of the day, with nothing else to do, is anywhere CLOSE to her kid wasting close to FOUR hours on the clock not doing jack shit when there's plenty she should be doing.

Here are four reasons why this is not only my business, but why I'm justified in having it irk the living shit out of me:

1. If I were to bring in someone I know to help out with this kind of work, and that person spent most of his time doing absolutely nothing, everyone else might get more than a little pissed about it. Plus, I'd be on their shit list by mere association.

2. If there's work to be done, babysitting shouldn't be a part of ANYONE'S job description...particularly if the person needing to be babysitting is supposed to be working in the first place

3. I haven't been able to get a raise for a long time because, as I've been told, the company just can't afford it. Yet, certain people are allowed to draw a wage by sitting around and doing absolutely nothing. I work my ass off every day, and I'm still well below the average pay for my job title and level of experience. However, pickings are really slim in this town and if a job ever opens up, there's a usually good reason why no one's doing it.

4. Apparently, no one notices the first three reasons, and so the unwritten rule is there's no such thing as a double standard if your not being screwed by it. Another rule is that the squeaky wheel just needs to shut the hell up and mind his own business.