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Apr. 13th, 2007 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psychickWell yesterday sucked and today is shaping up only slightly better. The exterminator is not coming until Tuesday. They wanted him to come yesterday, but they didn't tell us this until yesterday so naturally no one could be there. WE wanted them to come today but they were booked. Mondays seem to be some sort of religious holiday for exterminators, and Thursday was the other option and I am certainly not sitting through another goddamn week while those things breed and spread. So I may be taking Tuesday off so that I can babysit the bug man. There is a growing faction within me that wants to haul out and tell the guy to do the whole apartment. I'm going to check with the other two roommates and see what they think. It would probably require me taking a torch to my room, but the FSM knows it needs it.
Growing pet peeve: So my desk is in this little square. Two adjoining sides are walls and two sides are an L-shaped desk-credenza thing. It's a bit like a cubicle only classier and with no privacy. One of my supervisors has this habit of coming over to the credenza that my monitor is on, standing behind it, and looking at me with sad puppy dog eyes until I stop whatever I'm doing and give her my attention. Then she asks in this plaintive voice to match the puppy dog eyes if I can do X, Y or Z, and thanks me in the same tone when I say I will and again after I have done it. Please note that this is an intelligent and extremely capable woman who has had normal conversations with me regularly since I started working here almost a year ago. I like this woman a great deal, save for this one quirk.
Now, I certainly like being asked nicely, and everyone appreciates being thanked for their work, but here's the thing: if I work for you and you ask me to do something, please assume that the answer is always yes, because it's my job to do the things you ask me to. You do not need to be apologetic, because if I wasn't already willing to do so, I would not be sitting here, getting paid to assist you. Using a plaintive puppy dog voice confuses me because Earth Humans use that voice to placate and patronize, and I do not need to be placated for willingly accepting the responsibility of my position here or patronized because I am (gasp) an adult. The endless thank yous just rub salt in the wound because it is not the incredibly huge favor that would under normal circumstances warrant such thanks. I am. Doing. My job. It's my JOB, not a favor to you or an inconvenience to me. What the hell.
I am both contrary and eager to live up to expectations. If you treat me as if you think I should be angry or annoyed at you, it makes it more likely that I will become so because 1) it's offensive that you do not seem trust me to willingly do my job like a mature adult and 2) aren't actually paying enough attention to what I do to know that I don't mind doing the work that I was goddamn hired to do. In addition, a part of my brain assumes that you're using that tone for a specific reason and wonders if perhaps you're right and I should be offended and simply haven't realized it yet.*
So. I vent here on the internets because I am aware that she probably doesn't mean it this way, and that as an incredibly self-sufficient workaholic she is likely uncomfortable asking someone else to do work that she could easily do herself if she had 8 more hours in a day and another set of hands. (Which she does, technically, and it's sitting right here named Abby.) Just needed to let this out, and I do feel better now that I have done so.
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* Related note: Do not ever call me a bitch. I guarantee that I was not consciously trying to be a bitch before you tossed the word out there, but I am more than happy to demonstrate what me being a bitch is actually like in order to clear up your confusion.
Growing pet peeve: So my desk is in this little square. Two adjoining sides are walls and two sides are an L-shaped desk-credenza thing. It's a bit like a cubicle only classier and with no privacy. One of my supervisors has this habit of coming over to the credenza that my monitor is on, standing behind it, and looking at me with sad puppy dog eyes until I stop whatever I'm doing and give her my attention. Then she asks in this plaintive voice to match the puppy dog eyes if I can do X, Y or Z, and thanks me in the same tone when I say I will and again after I have done it. Please note that this is an intelligent and extremely capable woman who has had normal conversations with me regularly since I started working here almost a year ago. I like this woman a great deal, save for this one quirk.
Now, I certainly like being asked nicely, and everyone appreciates being thanked for their work, but here's the thing: if I work for you and you ask me to do something, please assume that the answer is always yes, because it's my job to do the things you ask me to. You do not need to be apologetic, because if I wasn't already willing to do so, I would not be sitting here, getting paid to assist you. Using a plaintive puppy dog voice confuses me because Earth Humans use that voice to placate and patronize, and I do not need to be placated for willingly accepting the responsibility of my position here or patronized because I am (gasp) an adult. The endless thank yous just rub salt in the wound because it is not the incredibly huge favor that would under normal circumstances warrant such thanks. I am. Doing. My job. It's my JOB, not a favor to you or an inconvenience to me. What the hell.
I am both contrary and eager to live up to expectations. If you treat me as if you think I should be angry or annoyed at you, it makes it more likely that I will become so because 1) it's offensive that you do not seem trust me to willingly do my job like a mature adult and 2) aren't actually paying enough attention to what I do to know that I don't mind doing the work that I was goddamn hired to do. In addition, a part of my brain assumes that you're using that tone for a specific reason and wonders if perhaps you're right and I should be offended and simply haven't realized it yet.*
So. I vent here on the internets because I am aware that she probably doesn't mean it this way, and that as an incredibly self-sufficient workaholic she is likely uncomfortable asking someone else to do work that she could easily do herself if she had 8 more hours in a day and another set of hands. (Which she does, technically, and it's sitting right here named Abby.) Just needed to let this out, and I do feel better now that I have done so.
---
* Related note: Do not ever call me a bitch. I guarantee that I was not consciously trying to be a bitch before you tossed the word out there, but I am more than happy to demonstrate what me being a bitch is actually like in order to clear up your confusion.
