Bosses Are Funny People

I’ve been reflecting on bosses and their idiosyncrasies for the past two days, because all three of my bosses are out of the office for various reasons, some business, some pleasure.

My company runs a tight ship. That means that there are no people just filling desks here, and there is really a little more work than there is manpower to handle it. Job security, I suppose. All hell breaks loose when someone quits, is terminated, or has an extended leave. And “administrivia” piles up. Things like non-essential filing. File purging. Scanning documents. Sending files to storage. These projects pile up because we are more concerned with more immediate, more urgent projects.

So I always look forward to days when I know I’ll be alone in the executive suite, because I think I will be able to make progress on these piled up “back-burner” projects.

And I’m always disappointed.

I guess my bosses think I’m going to sit here and lacquer my nails, eat candy, and read trashy novels when they are away. Because they always give me six or seven projects to complete “while I’m gone.” And usually, the work required for these projects takes up the days they’re gone plus two or three days after they return.

Mind you, I am already behind because I spent about six weeks covering my desk plus another assistant’s, and then a week training someone who only stayed ten days, then another three weeks covering the other desk again, then another two weeks training the new girl. Then I was out from May 2 through 9 for foot surgery, had one week back in the office and then was out May 19 and 20 with a killer migraine. And I wasn’t totally back to normal on May 21 and 22. So I’ve got some catching up to do.

And a key co-worker lost a close relative over the weekend, so I spent a lot of time yesterday ordering floral tributes and a catering service to take her and her family some food — in a city five hours away. I hope to goodness it comes out all right, since I don’t know anything about that city or the florists and caterers we chose. LOL! (Crosses fingers and makes very large wish.)

So you might have thought that, knowing all this, the bosses would have left me alone for the two days they are out — so I could get caught up. Snort! If you think that, you don’t know bosses! They left me a lot to do. Two brand-new marketing brochures to create. Six old marketing packages to update and correct. A property inspection to coordinate. An appraisal to prepare due diligence documents for. Eight files to create. And a bunch of little things to cover: calls to return, memos to distribute, and the like. There’s actually about a week’s worth of work to do. And they will be back tomorrow.

Which I just think is funny. It reminds me of high school, when you would take six hours of classes every day, and each teacher would give you one or two hours of homework every night. Like you didn’t have a part-time job, household chores, and personal interests to pursue after school hours.

Still, I’d rather have too much to do than not enough. I can’t stand running out of projects and having nothing constructive to do. You can only polish the conference room table and Windex your desk-top so many times in a week. At least I’m not twiddling my thumbs!

Tags: Work Life