In charge for a week

The Boss is on vacation this week but I unfortunately I have to be on good behavior.

Usually when she’s out of the office I play out my repertoire of cube Nerf football followed by a 90 minute lunch intermission. In the afternoon I enjoy an off-site ice cream run and end with a back door 4:30 p.m. sneak-out.

No fun for me this week, the boss left me in charge.

Everyone else on the team has scheduled time off this week except me. Therefore I won the job by default with muffled snickers.

I can’t do any real damage this week due to the small time constraint. It’s like she shifted the job into neutral and trusted me not to drive off the road.

The morning kicks off and we’re a man down. A gal needs the day to fight flu. Plausible, but I’ve played the Monday morning sickness card to my favor too (hmm, not since last year…….interesting)

Things are rolling smoothly through the morning until I’m forced to jump on a large financial dispute. After I haggle with the accountant, I then dial up a northern manager we exchanged heated words over the application of fault. Division was the compromise.

Inbound call from a side boss (who monitors branch numbers) notes our team’s lack of participation on a foolish report. I email the bad news and receive a few drive-by gripes.

Then it’s noon, the real piss time of this shoddy job.

Everyday each manager leaves a voicemail with the team’s morning numbers. We register zero; I have metal rod shoved in my ass during a lightning storm.

I scramble and toss in a small deal. Hopefully this will pacify Cerberus until I figure how we can get something bigger for the afternoon update.

But Satan’s bride impales me through the phone because she’s unable to argue her way out of a contract. It’s a simple case of refusing to accept responsibility but the she takes pleasure is draining me for an hour.

She then calls back because her service is down. Karma rules.

Voicemail check reveilles a callous response by the man: what’s up over there? Why aren’t we working? It’s now my job to remind these people that the fate of our company is in our hands and we’ve been horsing around all day. He’ll be monitoring our performance and improvement must follow.

Man I’d love to super glue his office door handel.

Now it’s 4 p.m. and I must finish my pointless report. A few people have some hours off tomorrow and we’ve cleared way for there absence with work shifts.

Stress is high but it’s five. A long workout on the Elliptical machine and some football is my aroma therapy.

Then tomorrow is day two.