whimpering sound

That is currently my response to pretty much anything and everything.

So as you know I work at a company I lovingly call Initech. It's very corporate. It's a very good job. It's very stressful. The lighting is very fluroescent. (How the hell is that spelled?) Yes, I have a cubicle. Very.

And I never blog about it because [because I never blog anymore...beat you to it...but also because] I don't want to get dooced. Yet today, I must. I must risk doocage. I'll risk the doocage with a quote board, in fact. Enjoy.

Project manager in a city far far away: Huge favor please...
Me: Whimper.
Project manager in a city far far away: I need you to expedite your end of this project, since my team got everything to you late.

Me: Ok. I'm a team player. Let me bend over backward for you. 

Project manager in a city far far away: Well, we pretty much each took a giant dump in a bucket, added some people's social security numbers and employment info, and then put it in the blender we use as a database platform. How quick can you get to it? And in what way do you plan to bend over for us?

Me: Backward, perv. In fact, our office is in West Valley by all the gangs, so how bout I stay til 1230 a.m. working on the mess you created, and flipping the bird to all my other, more organized projects? Then walking out of the building through the dark parking lot alone, super tired and disoriented?

[I then bend over backward, while also bending my entire team over backward to make shit happen, even though none of us did anything wrong except be all prepared and put together, and stuff.]

PM in that distant city, calling the next day: Faster!

Me: That's as fast as it goes. 

PM: My boss is escalating to your boss.

Me: Promise? Because if she finds out how many rules I'm breaking for you, then I'll get to stop, as she and the Enron police and HR will probably make me go home to avoid a lawsuit. I beg you, please, to call my boss.

PM: Uh oh my boss is calling you.

Me: Hi.

PM's Boss, aka colossal dumbass: Is there any way for you to go faster? It would really help us out. Our clusterf*ck is your emergency.

Me: The deliverable, in the mess you've created, is a five day process.

Dumbass: So could you complete it tonight? Could you try and complete it last night?

Me: I did 3 days of work in 12 hours yesterday. For you. 

Dumbass: Fasterrrr!

Me: There's no such thing.

Dumbass: How do I escalate this even more? 

Me: The same way you'd tell a woman to get pregnant, gestate, and give birth in 2 months.

Dumbass: Who do I call to get you cleared to work 46 hours before tomorrow morning? Preferably without compensation?

Me: There's no such thing as that either. You've already called Barack Obama to get permission for me to sell my own kidneys for this project as well as a kidney from each of my unborn children too.

Dumbass: I'm not sure if your team understands the importance of this situation.

Me: Except that we do.

Dumbass: I mean, If I were in SLC right now, I would be in your print center collating this. [Ok he really said that one, verbatim]

Me: Uh, believe me, if you were in town I wouldn't let you be anywhere BUT the print center collating this. (the fact that he thought that was such an extreme visual, shows me that corporate america makes otherwise decent men into complete pussies.)

Dumbass [this part also verbatim]: Ok well I mean if it were me, I'd have my whole FAMILY in there completing these things with me.

UUURRRRRRRCCCCCHHHHH. Oh NO he did NOT...

As I stood there, stunned in my apartment, alone and I fought back pissed off, exhausted tears, I chose to mutter "Great! That's really great. I have to go now." Instead of the words on the tip of my tongue. I've decided that it's more important to walk away from these situations with a little bit of grace, and let them pull their foot out of their mouths. But if there were a "Things I Should Have Said" portion of the blog, it would sound like this:

Good for you. But I don't have a family. I must not truly be dedicated to MY job because I can't throw around references to my spouse and kids, for dramatic effect on people I'm trying to manipulate. F*ck you. Hey do me a favor and get on a plane with all of them and get your asses out here and you take care of this mess. It's your mess. It is not my mess. Careful on the plane though, because sometimes those suckers fall out of the sky and then you have nobody. That's how I got my big fat nobody. I'm off to burn this deliverable to the ground and then sign your name below the rubble. Then I'm going to go get drunk with my friendboys who actually know how to drive stick shifts and have to shave their faces more than one a month. Grow a pair. Dumbass.

But I was classy instead. Someday I will run his whole department and pillage all his timelines. Corporate Kir is kindof a bitch.