Beware of those who set fires!

I resemble a Gremlin, I know this, anyone who has seen me knows this. I have big eyes, keen hearing and have the ability to scamper about unnoticed. With these huge eyes I see EVERYTHING, especially the mess folks try to disguise. I hear everything too, especially the things people don’t say. And I’m quiet, so I guess people think I’m less likely to repeat the drivel they inundate me with everyday.

Anywho, while I’m at work, I notice how people react to situations, and I’m here today to talk about the “Always an Emergency/Crisis” coworker. For awhile I had a coworker and cube neighbor who would go on and on about how late they stayed up trying to finish this task or that. And how they never seem to get their head above water. Now I’ve been slammed with tons of projects, asap deadlines, and no time to complete. So I understood for while. As things in corporate are cyclical, my hectic times past just as my slow times. I’ve managed (with superb project management skills, process improvements, and good ole fashion time management) to maintain and get up out the water and onto the shore. My coworker still hasn’t made it out. She either has gills, uses her fat as a flotation device, or has a wicked backstroke with one short arm (swimming in circles, get it?) either way 6 months later she’s still drowning. Over the past week or so I’ve had the pleasure of working with her on a project. This has confirmed some things that I had been suspecting but had no confirmation. Its not the organization, its not her subordinates, its just her that is keeping her perpetually sinking in the corporate cesspool (which is 4 ½ feet deep by the way, I suppose you can figure out how I get out).

She has the innate ability to make everything 20x harder than it actually is. She then makes things harder for her subordinates who are there to help her. Which in turn ends up being back on her plate because they cannot compete the task that she made impossible to ever get right. She does this so much that she even admitted it to a group of people one day as they were showing her how to complete a (small) task.

My light bulb went on, then burst. I no longer listen, believe, or participate in the fires she sets all around her. I also never want to work with her again. I understand that that wont happen, but I can still put it out there. BUT outside of the fire setting, she’s mad cool :)

FYI, I don’t help people to the shore. I cannot swim, but if I can manage to continuously make my way to the shore after being dragged out onto the boat and dumped into the water, repeatedly, I think anyone who tries can make it as well (I get out by staying grounded amidst the chaos, I just stand up, I mean the water is only 4 ½ feet deep). Besides, everyone knows what happens when an untrained person tries to save someone panicking and drowning…yeah nuff said. See ya on the shore!