RrrrrrGgggHh!

Okay, I need a new job, that much is clear. I'm so sorry that you all now get to read my rant but if you'd like to be calmed afterward, just scroll down the page and read my partner-in-crime's beautiful poem.

I have been trying to teach my techno-phobic boss how to answer her own goddamn email for about two years. This no secret. So on Tuesday, a day which will live in infamy, she finally sees the wisdom in my persistant suggestions. "I think it's time I learned" was the phrase she used when she asked me to teach her how to answer her email. I was elated! They gave me the title "Technical Manager" at Claudia's which unfortunately means that I have to take care of or fix everything from a computer on the network, to a faulty stapler. This is a source of annoyance to me.

So there I am at 5:00, saying that I do actually have a class at 5:30, but that I'd skip it if she were serious about learning her email. She says she'll be done in 15 minutes on the phone with some nut. 35 minutes later, she is interrupted and I ask if se wants to do this today. "Oh my goodness I totally forgot you were still here! Yes! Lets do this now!" she says.

We sit down at now 5:40ish and I get as far as telling her what the "Internet Explorer Icon" looks like (yeah, we're starting at the begining...) and the phone rings for her. It's her husband with whom she proceeds to have a 15 minute conversation the subject of which is whether or not to purchase a tennis racket for their middle child. (Obviously that had to be done just then, right?) She gets off the phone and I instruct her in the fine art of double-clicking the icon to pull up a webpage and my sister (poor Clara) interrupts us again to say that another urgent phone call is waiting for her on line 3.

GODDAMNIT!!!!

My face obviously conveyed my annoyance because my sister looked so ridicuously apologetic and worried at the same time I made a note to tell her that it was in no way her fault later. Claudia also noticed my anger and asked, in her absolutly unacceptable, unprofessional, unthinking, and careless way...

"Can Ruthie just show me on Thursday?"

I should have said no. I should have thrown my nametag that had the silly little title "Technical Manager" at her. I should have screamed at her how unacceptable it was that she even said that, since she knew I'd been waiting to show her how to do this for years. I should have quit on the spot. I shouldn't have cared...

But I do and I told her to go ahead and have Ruthie show her, even though I'd waited an hour for her into time that I wasn't even scheduled to work. I don't want to ever see her again. I don't want to have to deal with her ever again. I hate the fact that because they pay me well and offer a flexible for school schedule, I can be made so angry and so ineffectual at my own job and I won't quit. It shouldn't matter to me but as strange as it sounds, I don't think caring about your job is a bad thing.

I cried for twenty minutes in sheer frustration (this is only one example of the complete incompetnancy in managerial technique at Claudia's Health Food Market) then I started to fold laundry and clean. Jason got home and I cried for another twenty minutes. I'm okay now it seems but this is just so ridiculous I have to find a better place.

If any of you have any suggestions as to how to deal with her and my working environment, I'd appreciate them. As a good friend once said of Claudia's... "This isn't a health food store, it's Claudia's emotional pinwheel"

Okay, done now... read the poem down there