At 9.00am today, I knew that my day wasn't going to get any better.
Don't get me wrong - I wasn't having a bad day because I had annoying clients calling me up every 10 minutes, but because the office "support staff" were annoying me. Even with my eyes glued to my computer screen at least 98% of the day, I could still tell that the support staff did jack-all around the office. Sweet FA, to be exact.
I was preparing a draft business contract for a major client, when two support staff casually walked into my office for a "chat". Not with me, of course. They wanted to chat to each other.
I should explain. My office is the farthest from the office manager's desk. It is also conveniently hidden away from all the partner's offices, and close to the toilets. With the secrecy afforded by the location of my office, the support staff often "wandered" into my room in pairs to offload their latest goss. This usually meant that I was "in" on the latest office affairs. Literally. But most of the time it was just very annoying.
Being a person who wants to get along with everybody, I usually let it go. Despite the fact that I was drowning in work, and the support staff weren't there for "support" (Hey can I get you to photocopy these please? *Disapproving glare*. Is it urgent? No? Then it'll have to wait.) I never once spoke of my frustration to management.
Until today.
I had a very urgent document that required delivery by 5.00pm. Failure to deliver the document by 5.00pm meant:
- the file would incur $250.00 worth of additional costs, which couldn't (rightly) be billed to the client;
- all relevant documents would have to be re-filed in the appropriate registry/ government office; and
- that I would be in a crappy mood for the whole week.
At 3.00pm, I then asked another support person (who didn't look overtly busy, by the way - unless you count "walking around mindlessly" as an activity) to deliver said document. I made it very clear that the document had to be delivered by close of business today. "Is it urgent?" was the response. Errrrrrrrrr. It's only urgent in the sense that if it doesn't get delivered, I'll kick your a*se from here to China - was my first thought. Lucky I didn't say it out loud. I'm too nice sometimes. I just nodded my head and walked away.
Assured that the document would be delivered in time, I lost myself in my workload.
4.55pm. The girl who was supposed to have delivered my document traipsed into my room and told me that the document didn't get delivered after all. She had something more urgent to do. "Plus," she added, "at 4.55pm, it'll be too late to try and deliver the document, because by the time I drive over there, the office would be closed." Oh too right. I guess it was a bit too late, huh? THEN WHY THE HELL WASN'T IT DONE EARLIER????!!
I was surprised at how calm I was. Don't get me wrong - I saw red. My eyes took on a murderous glint, and my facial muscles tensed and twitched. But I didn't shout, and, more importantly, I didn't kick that girl's arse all the way to China. I just sat on my chair, my mind working frantically to figure out how to solve the problem.
Oh Sh*t! I repeated over and over again.
While my brain was figuring out how what to do, the girl slowly inched away from my desk. Ever so slowly. I let her go. Like I said, I'm a very nice person.
My facial expression must've given away my innermost thoughts, when Stan (one of the commercial partners of the firm) walked into my room and asked if I was ok.
Taken by surprise, I replied: "Sure.. I'm fine. Why?"
Stan looked at me with eyes that said: Of course you're fine. You just look like you want to slit someone's throat. But yeah, ok. I believe that you're fine.
Stan cleared his throat and said, "Are you sure? You umm.. look.. upset."
Nice way to put it, I guess.
I told Stan how I was most likely going to unnecessarily incur costs on a file that couldn't be directly billed to the client. Despite me being absolutely pissed off, I just couldn't bring myself to "rat out" on the support staff.
Torn between loyalty to the girls, and my arse getting kicked by my bosses. Aggh!
Eventually, Stan coaxed it out of me. Unwillingly (and I stress this!), I told him what happened. Once I was finished with my story, he walked over to his computer (with me following - curiosity?) and he typed out a short e-mail to the office manager:
Tia needs to see you about some issues with the support staff & an urgent delivery that was never made.
I know the contents of the e-mail because he read it out to me one millisecond before he hit the "send" button.
Ahhh me and my big mouth. Shouldn't have said anything.
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