Why I Need This Bobdamn Vacation - so I can Enjoy my Coffee

I usually don't have many complaints about work - I love my job. I love the company. I love their products. I also love coffee. But if someone tried to steal it or slap the cup out of my hand every time I took a sip, or refill the cup until it overflowed and then I had to clean it up, I probably wouldn't want to drink it as often as I do.

The amount of work I have is insane. I handle spec and fit for ALL the menswear in our company - which is our main product. Just me. There are six product managers who handle the fabric, trim and styling approvals for the same products. SIX of them, ONE of me. That's fair. We have another full-time spec person here who handles our women's line - he has about 1/3 of the product I do. So I have a LOT of work. But I handle it.

So the owner of the company thought it would be a good idea for me to take our fit model and do 2 fittings a month at our retail stores. The weeks that I do this, it adds 2 days of work for me that week - one out of the office and one back in the office writing emails of what I found in the store. Here is where the coffee overflows all over my desk and all I can think when people bring me more is "Can't you wait until I've cleaned this up?"

Yet I'm still handling it. The metric fuckton of work doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as this next crap.

They've been shuffling the products between the different product managers (I guess that's the advantage to being just one person on the job) so every time I think I know who handles what, it changes. They brought in two new people to handle the denim line - that's cool - they have a lot of experience with denim in another well-known company.

These two noticed how much work I had, and one morning, Denim Guy comes to my desk and tells me they talked to my boss and they're getting me some help. They hired a temp to take all the denim product from me. This didn't sound to me like they wanted to "help" me. It sounded more like they hated the way I handled the denim and found someone they thought was better. I developed all our denim specs with the head designers and the owner's wife when I first started here - I've managed this product from the beginning - why was I being left out now? This is MY coffee! I ground it and brewed it just for ME! If you want some, you need to ask ME!!

If they really wanted to help me, they would have come to me, not gone to my boss behind my back. This was a big red flag not to trust these people. (Wraps hand around coffee cup as they walk by.)

Denim Guy was all flustered and disappointed when I wasn't all happy about his news. I didn't care - I was pretty pissed at the way it was done. So I sat in my fit sample cave with my headphones on (and my coffee) and didn't talk to anyone for two days. After the second day, Denim Guy and Denim Chick called me into a meeting and apologized for not including me. And that was the last time I was included. Temp has started working on the denim and I still haven't worked on anything with her except to tell her where to find stuff - not everything, of course. >:D (Hahaha - I'll never tell you where I keep the GOOD coffee!)

After Temp had been here a week, my boss mentioned that Temp was re-doing all the denim specs because I did them wrong. 0_o WTF?? They were so sorry for going behind my back and not including me, that they went behind my back again and told my boss I did it wrong instead of asking me why I did it that way. So now I not only have coffee all over my desk, I also have to keep watching my back for that guy who's trying to steal my coffee. I just want to do my fucking job! I don't want to have to watch my back every second too!

But wait - there's more!

Most of my coworkers are pretty cool. There's one who is so annoying she's earned the name Co-Irker. Every office (or group project if you're still in school) has one - she talks loud and fast (she sounds like the Asian Santa in the Christmas episode of Family Guy - go watch it - you'll see) and she runs around the office shuffling papers to look as busy as possible while actually not doing much. She was complaining about how much work she had the other day. When she showed me the pile it was a quarter of the size of the pile on my desk. Stabbity.

She's incredibly rude - she waits until the end of the day to bring me samples, she'll email me at 5:45 asking if I can send comments out today. She shows up at the fit meetings with a stack of samples without telling me first and then pushes to get them all fit so we don't have time for other people's stuff. She interrupts me at lunch and when I'm on the phone. When a factory emails me with a question, she forwards me the email again with "Can you answer this?", even though I've asked her not to do this because my email fills up too quickly.

If all this didn't make me stabby enough, a few weeks ago when she was on vacation, one of her factories wanted to change a zipper on a jacket and they needed approval that day. I consulted the only people who were here who could answer that - two designers - and they both agreed to change the zipper. So I emailed the factory. Well, she came back Monday morning and had a Royal Fit. She emailed the factory and cc'd our boss saying why did they ask a Tech Designer to approve a zipper and were they crazy and WAAAHWAAAHWAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! So I got an email from Boss saying don't approve anything but spec and fit. Fine. Whatev.

So yesterday (here comes that slap of the coffee cup), she sends spec comments to one of the factories without asking me about it! I ignored her email and sent my own comments, which were not the same as hers - she wanted the pockets lowered 3/4", I wanted them lowered 2" - which is our regular placement. Again, she had a fit because SHE already commented first! After arguing with her I said fine - we'll do it your way. She proceeded to reply to the factory's email which was addressed to ME. I sent her a reply asking to please let ME reply to all spec and fit issues so we don't confuse the factories and because it is MY JOB. She replied that maybe there is a communication issue and we should sit down with Boss to resolve it. I said "Bring it." Actually I just said "Fine." The "Bring it" was implied.

So here I am, with my desk covered in coffee, trying to watch my back for the people trying to steal it or knock the cup out of my hand. Can't I just enjoy the damn coffee???

Fortunately, Boss has been to busy to meet with us over something so stupid. Maybe we'll sit down next week. Who knows. I just know next time she tries to knock my cup out of my hand I'm throwing it in her face.