this morning started out like yesterday afternoon: surprisingly, much better.

see, i often find that once i’m resigned to a course of action, the tension — or, at least, a lot of it — surrounding that choice slides away. for example, i was really angry and irritable about mirapoint, until i decided that it was inevitable and i might as well just deal with it. now, i’m fairly laid-back about it … or as laid-back as i’m going to get considering it’s just problem after problem. in effect, mirapoint has slipped from being “this hateful thing being pushed down our throats” back to the “all computers and OSes are insecure, they are all buggy, and they all suck” category with all the rest of the crap i have to deal with all the time. it actually helped a lot to just give in.

so, when max related the straw that broke the camel’s back yesterday, in a fit of pique i made my “this place has one year” declaration (although, in fairness, that was something i’d been turning around in my head previously, so it wasn’t like i came up with it on the spot), and then i actually put it in words, thus committing myself to a plan of action, … well, after that i felt much better.

maybe it’s something like being externally removed from a bad situation. now that i know i don’t have to deal with things that irritate me, i’m free to not be irritated by them.

then i get in to work today, and things started out well enough, but then bob asked me to make a managerial decision (because both max and becky are out sick, so there were no more chiefs, and only two indians — and as bob says, “It wasn’t like there was a choice. blair would have laughed and then booted me out of the office.”). it was a kind of awkward call to be asked to make in any circumstance — “i know half your team is out sick and you’re all way behind, but these people are even more behind so can you help them out so that they’re only moderately fucked instead of totally?” — but this was, i knew, going to aggravate max when he heard about it.

sure enough:

* mutch expects to be the victim of a coup
mutch needs more drugs
true
As far as I’m concerned Becky is the stand-in mutch for today and tomorrow, (sorry)

i have told max and told him, a thousand times, that i have less than zero interest in his job. i won’t take an advancement opportunity at the expense of my friends. but he persists in making these remarks all … the … time. it makes me crazy. and it’s really upsetting because it makes it seem that max doesn’t think that i’m actually telling the truth. so not only am i a political climber, i’m a backstabbing one. marvellous.

what’s more, i don’t know why so many people think that management is so fucking fabulous everyone wants to do it. listen: i did it before; it sucked; now i just want to be a system administrator. because i like being a system administrator. being a system administrator does not suck. being a system administrator is often fun. being a system administrator > being a manager. okay? is it clear yet?

i feel caught up in the tension between max’s unjustifiably low opinion of his job performance and bob thinking that since i’m organized, i’m really keen. if only one of them was pressuring me, i could probably deal with it. but both sides at once is really wearing.

and i really don’t understand why no one feels that it’s okay to exploit me for my organizational skills without promoting me into management. hey! i’m an employee! i’m supposed to have skills that differ from other people’s, so that i am useful to the organization as something other than a warm body! thus, it’s okay to ask me to do things that no one else can or wants to do! if max doesn’t want to deal with sales people and i don’t mind, why the fuck should he deal with them? why does it seem that people, including max, think it’s a black mark against him somehow when i do things like deal with the puremessage people? i mean, if he’s delegating efficiently, that’s good management! he’s supposed to do that!

so. yes. cheerfully optimistic this morning. by mid-afternoon, just as cranky as ever.

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. story of my life.