I haven't died, I promise...

So I am first of all going to totally embarrass Shannon over at Misguided Mommy. For those of you who don't know, or haven't figured it out yet, Shannon and I are long time friends. We have known each other since we were in elementary school, and except for a brief period where I (unsuccessfully) tried to divorce her, we have been great friends!

I have been pretty much MIA for about a week now, I don't think I have talked to anyone except a brief conversation with my mom a few days ago. It has been a bad work week, and on top of a totally fucked up sleep schedule that I have somehow adopted (like going to bed at 2 am and waking up around 7), I haven't been in the mood, or had the energy, to do anything except hibernate. I got this email from Shannon on Wed. when I failed to return a phone call (from Monday):

Subject: ARE YOU ALIVE

DUDE!!!!!!!!!

When I responded I had to go out of town at the last minute (after working all day Monday, I had to drive 5 hours), which is why i was MIA, she wrote back:

Subject: i'm lame

so. when you hadn't replied even though i knew you were okay i started to think, what if something happened to her. and it is safe to say, i would have a total mental breakdown. not to mention, i dont think your parents realize you and i are close again, so i think they wouldn't keep me in the loop. but safe to say. fulll on mental break down, so don't die mmkay.also. That is super shitty about Elko. I think you should get out of town pay. LIke when rob was in construction he was salary, but he was still put in as 40 hours per week, that way if he went out of town he would get 30 hours at reno rate and 10 hours of out of town rate!

Then, because apparently I was having a super memory day, I remembered back to when we were younger. In middle school I went on a school organized trip to Spain, France and England with a group of classmates. It was shortly after there was a horrible plane crash that killed a bunch of people. Including a (or multiple groups of) school organized class trips like the one I was one. I was pretty much not in contact with anyone except my parents when I was on my trip but when I got back I had a message from Shannon on my machine (because I was a super-cool teenager with her own phone line...what were my parents thinking!). The message was like 5 minutes long (ok, maybe I am exaggerating) and featured Shannon crying and, through the tears, telling me how much I meant as a friend and that she didn't know what she would do without me and how she just started thinking about that other plane crash and...ahhhhh, for someone who doesn't like giving hugs, she is a great friend (mushy mushy).

Ok, embarrassed much, are you now Shannon?

Anyways, like I said I have been having a bad work week. As of today (Thursday) I have already worked 45 hours, and I still have to work all day tomorrow...I have also traveled to Elko and back (in a 16' moving truck, none the less). I am exhausted. And frustrated.

A while back I had my annual review (which was more like my 1 year a 5 month review because it got delayed so much). One of the things I brought up is that I don't really have an interest in managing other people any more. I am completed overloaded at work and just feel like everything is suffering because i don't have the time to think, let alone try to manage other people. Plus, even though I have definitely gotten better at managing people, it's not for me. I thought for a while it was, but it's not. I'm ok with that. I'm just not sure how to proceed from here. Shortly after my review we had organized a third party staff evaluation to come in and take a look at our company and give us some outside points of view about what we are doing and what we should be doing. We've kind of put any major changes on hold until after the staff evaluation because of what it might say. The only thing is that both of the employees that i manage right now were supposed to have their 6 month review. So I did them, except I didn't have enough time to prep for them beforehand, and just did it the morning of their reviews. Which I realize is totally unfair to them. Except the fact that I gave them both raises so I doubt they really care much. Up until now, I've pretty much been giving the responsibility and authority to do this with little to no input (unless I asked for it, which I normally did). This time I didn't because, like I said before, I had so little time to even think about it that I did it right before I me with each one of them. Then I sent a summary email to my boss and my supervisor and no-one said a thing back. And then I talked to my boss a few days ago and she was like "when I come in on Thursday let's meet about their reviews." and I was a little confused so i asked why and she said "well it's just that we were kind of on a freeze for everything like this, reviews, raises, future plans, for everyone until after the staff evaluation. I mean what's done is done but I think we all need to met to discuss it more." This was never really made clear to me, but the more annoying part is that today I was all ready to meet with them and they both totally forgot about it, so we ran out of time and never met. Now we are supposed to do it tomorrow but, well, whatever. We'll see if it happens. I've thought about it and, with the exception of my decision to give them raises, everything I talked about in their reviews I had already discussed with my boss and my supervisor months before, so I was really just reinforcing ideas that were already in play. And yeah, I fully admit I probably screwed up by not clearing their raises, but it's never been an issue in the past.

Except the difference now is that for some reason, it seems like I slowly just keep getting downgraded and downgraded. Not in pay, but, well...let me explain. Are you absolutely bored with my work rants yet? You can stop reading it you want, but I need to get this out so I shall continue.

When I first started, my position was technically supposed to be equal with the technical director. I fully realized this wasn't the case because he had close to 10 years of experience and I was fresh out of college, but I pulled my weight, and did a damn good job at it. Things were all good, until we hired Mr. THIC (remember him?) as an operations manager so my boss could step back from the daily operations of the business. We all know how I felt about him, for many many reasons. Admittedly one of them was that all the sudden, him and the technical director were equals and I was slowly sinking down the food chain. Fine, whatever, I minded my own shit and took care of my responsibilities. Then the OM quit and there was this bizarre shift of power that occurred. The 3 'managers' (me, the technical director and the sales and marketing guy) all met and decided we would meet and work through some things as a team until we decided to hire a new OM. Things were going great until the past few weeks (months...maybe it's been that long). Now all the sudden it seems like I have completely been removed from any decision making. I haven't even recently been told about major changes in one of our long time staff members (from full time to part time, giving up her supervisor duties) which dramatically affects everyone. This decision was made like 2 weeks ago and i just found out today. On top of that, we had this staff evaluation and it seems like sales and marketing guy (because he happened to be the one to volunteer to organize it) was also given the first copy of the report. Which seems very strange that it didn't go directly to my boss, since it (supposedly, I still have no idea what their findings were) has some sensitive staffing issues/information. But I know my boss has discussed it with both the technical director and the sales and marketing guy. We are meeting tomorrow as a group to discuss it, but it still definitely makes me feel like the odd one out.

On top of all of this, it has been a very strange dynamic between my boss and me since she went on maternity leave (or actually before, after she hired the OM). We are very similar to each other and were always very friendly and chatty (not in a 'friends' sort of way, but in a very friendly boss-employee sort of way). She would come to me with my input about ideas, she would run things by me. She would stop by my office and say hi, ask me about my weekend plans, etc. We now just have this awkward exchange when she's around the office and she does all this with the Sales and Marketing guy now. It got really awkward today when they were in his office talking and she asked me to come over there and then presented an idea about making a pretty dramatic change about something that am currently in charge of. They phrased it as a question, like "What do you think about this and that?" and when I started to say I didn't really think it was that good of an idea, it became very clear that they weren't asking my opinion on it, they were telling me they had already decided it was changing and that they were mearly informing me of it. I've made it clear I want to change the focus of my position because I am not all that happy about certain aspects of it, but it seems as though these changes are being made without anybody actually telling me they are changing.

I am just feeling so frustrated. Like to the point where the thought of quitting my job has crossed my mind. And while I have no intentions of doing that (and well...financially can't), it frustrates me that I feel like while I am sitting in my office dealing with the things I am supposed to be dealing with, everyone else is making plans that affect me without even giving me the courtesy of telling me. I don't know, I am probably just overworked and need a good night's sleep, but at least I got to vent for a minute. Are you still reading? Don't you have better things to do than listen to me complain about my bad work week?