dictation's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Apparently, if one's colleague is to be believed, it's some psychosexual thing. I am still floored by Elena's story, have read it about five times. Odd, I sent that link to five colleagues last week and none of them had one thing to say about it. Not squat. This added a helping of poop to bad thoughts I've been having about work recently (especially management). I have to be careful about what I say because...my retirement plan matters to me. I like my job, I really do. If I won the lottery I'd quit tomorrow, of course, but for the time being it's a great job to have. Creative, independent, interesting. I'm left alone, I'm trusted. I've earned that. But my clients of late, man...my clients are sucking. My clients used to be the (appreciative) public but that got cut out when resources got reduced and now my clients are staff. And the staff are so freaking dull and uninterested (in living apparently). I am desperate to produce for the public again. Working on that. I am losing respect and that's a dangerous thing. It can make you sick. And tired. (Last night I found myself wishing that every night could be 24 hours. It might be possible to recover from 12 hours of cultural insanity if I had 24 hours of down time.) Because goddamn! Workplace is insidious, it's just screaming for psychiatric help. The intern contingent is growing. Interns = the young, the naive, the inexperienced, the easily indoctrinated, and best of all for the Budget - that monumental manipulator - the poorly paid. Big Boss - boss of My Boss - is crazy about Interns, involving them in every project. He doesn't appear to care for the rest of us sloggers I notice, rarely responding to the work we do, the thoughts we have. I think he'd prefer an office staffed only with interns (who worship the ground he walks). I wonder if he senses our lack of admiration for perfect bureaucratese, spoken in the dullest voice imagineable. Even the Dull have instincts (see Dawn of the Dead if you dare. I haven't the stomach for this horrific metaphor I seem to be living with heightened awareness lately. Can't seem to believe IT'S.FAKE.BLOOD.FAKE.SCAREY.FILM.SET). Interns have the fluttery eagerness of a winged creature newly hatched. They appear to admire every utterance - the more ignorant among them, sincerely - at least for the time being, so they are nice to have around if you go for that kind of thing. And managers uniformly do. I don't. Lips on my ass gives me a hinky feeling. Big Boss is "such a nice guy" though. I agree he's nice, but I've lost a lot of respect. Nice or not, all of the management types I work with are sell outs. (I'm beginning to understand How Hitler Did It. Middle management with aspirations will deliver virtually any Speak. Just wrap it in lots of loopy jargon and presto...bullshit is perfumed. It's why I am Completely Uninterested In Any Management Job That Isn't My Own Company's.) One of the interns is bright, intelligent and likeable. Her Apprentice-like eagerness to succeed and impress is a little disturbing, but I've met so many like this and really, she has nothing to worry about. Two are loud gigglers who worship the word "like." I swear, if Satan exists, he's being channeled through interns like these...(insert superhuman effort to not use swear words here). Tomorrow I could tell either of these gnats they have a "future with us" without risking being called a heinous liar. The middle-aged bosses love these girls and boys. Apparently, if one colleague is to be believed, it's some psychosexual thing. According to brilliant, could-be-in-the-London-School-of-Economics colleague, our pork-bellied, snout-mouthed, middle-aged managers see in the Interns all of the promise of their lost (wasted?) youth and bend over backwards to promote them whether they have any talent or not. One former intern is now working for the Big Big Big Boss - Cheese Numero Uno - as an executive assistant. This intern qualified last in the intern interview process but got hired because candidates ahead of him accepted jobs elsewhere. After he was hired he was assigned to work with one of my colleagues - a gracious, decent, immensely intelligent and talented woman. The gracious, decent, immensely talented woman quickly determined the intern was utterly useless but kept her mouth shut about it and continued to be nice to him. (If I've told her one thing a thousand times it's that she's inappropriately decent and gracious.) Eventually she let management know he wasn't up to snuff, but did they fire him? No, they transfered him. He schmoozed his way along, infuriating the well-adjusted and impressing the psychosexually impaired. Eventually he got himself a handsome haircut (Trump would kill for it) and some savvy clothes and now...NOW...he's working for Cheese Number One. Cloistered like the Pope, Cheese Number One is the equivalent of the Wizard of Oz. He surrounds himself with many adoring interns anxious to get ahead (anxious, indeed, to become the Wizard) and a Communications Director who could be making paintings out of his paranoia and egotism. In art therapy sessions. It's funny actually. I worked for Cheese when he was a Fine Aged Cheddar, not the Raclette he's apparently become. Cheese that "has that terminally unvanquished aroma of Northern European armpit." I liked him, even admired him, then. He was down to earth, sensible, practical. Had a great sense of humour, didn't put up with BS. He respected intelligence, listened to reason. Now that he's in the politicized ivory tower he's inaccessible. I fear he's been corrupted by too long an association with his now retired mentor, Monsieur Taupe Polyester. Thank Christ MTP is gone. I couldn't take the philisophical footers in his form-letter emails. Quotes by an inane, but of course immensely successful, country and western singer. (Tra la la! Ring the bells! Mediocrity rulez!) Last time I saw the Intern Who Now Works For The Big Cheese, he fell asleep during a presentation he was making. Yes, no kidding, he was in the chair at the front of the room and he fell asleep while conference participants debated some point. Fell asleep in front of his own audience. Maybe he has sleep apnea. But my colleague - the one who recommended that he be fired - says he stays up really late partying. She's still polite to him. But then she has perfected the Fake Sincere Smile after years of being married to a famous man who parties regularly with diplomats, heads of state, and academics. I've merely achieved the Happy Smile of the Shark Before It Eats Its Prey, and am therefore Too Obvious For My Own Good. Last week, at the request of one of my clients, I worked very long unpaid hours to create an Excel tool to help them with contract negotiations. I needed precisely 15 minutes of their time. Fifteen minutes isn't a long time - perhaps it's an eternity when you're bored. But I've become an efficient presenter. I couldn't believe it. Five members of the audience fell asleep during my presentation. One was asleep before I started. This one guy - union president (oh yeah, laugh)...his head was flung back and it bobbed while his mouth gaped. In front of his supervisor no less. His supervisor will do nothing about it because "it's after lunch and there's a hum in that room that puts people to sleep..." Even when I'm bored out of my freaking mind at Colossally Dull Meetings I have never fallen asleep. And I am polite enough to stifle my yawns. 15 minutes? How hard can it be? Especially when it's a product you've asked for. The presentation was also a consultation. I need feedback so I can improve on the thing before it goes out. Only one person asked questions. The rest sat there looking like Dawn of the Dead audition candidates. But without the energy. So I've decided fuck 'em, I'm going to build the thing for another more appreciative group of clients. I've already had requests from people outside my office who want it. The union guy hates me because I mock his "brothers and sisters!" speeches from the 1930s. He also mouths like a fish, head up, saying ma ma ma, with lips that resemble Jocelyne Wildenstein's. (Big fishy loose things that creep me out!) Speaking of Jocelyne, what in God's many incarnations drove her to this? She must have sort of wanted it. The cat's eyes for instance. Asked for them. It must be a psychofacial thing. (Puts the capital P in imPlants, anyway. Of the chin and cheek variety. That woman would scare a Bengal Tiger!) God, if you're listening, I'm finally grateful for the face I received in this lifetime and I'm happy to leave well enough alone as it naturally deteriorates! 10:45 a.m. - 24 April 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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