Blog Withdrawal

My blog server was down for maintenance last night so I wasn’t able to access the blog at all. So the three or four posts I wanted to publish last night disappeared into thin air.  There’s just something about not being to blog when you feel like writing.  It was a momentary blog withdrawal.

The server is back up and so am I.  The wind is howling outside and I have a good mind to request to stay home but I don’t really feel like cooping myself up here.  The connection is bound to get affected by the wind and I can always request to go home early because of bad weather.  What’s more, the boss isn’t around today, so it’s a good day to just pass the time in the office cleaning up.

Yesterday was a pretty busy day that saw me relieved that it was time to go home by 5:30PM.  It’s always a task to pull a meeting together between the heavyweights whose calendars are no different from my boss’s.  I have one more meeting I need to pull of today and I can rest easy next week.  I’ve kept to my little corner, steering clear of possible aggravation.

My neighbor who assists one of my boss’s direct reports has this habit of relying on me for step-by-step instructions to do everything, and the last time I tried to help her, one of the managers in their department practically chewed my head off.  I can understand disagreeing with colleagues, but I believe that there are rules and parameters for hostility and aggression.  It got so bad that when the boss and I started sending each other instant messages on the internal chat facility we have, he must’ve sensed there was something wrong he called me and conferenced the manager in.

Even with him on the other end of the line, the hostility from the manager did not end although it became more restrained in a very pronounced manner.  In the end the argument ended when the boss cut through all the issues and told the manager the end result of not complying with corporate policy on a contract he was being asked to sign off on.  The dust settled. 

I felt so drained not so much because I was put on the defensive because in truth, I was not.  I just didn’t have enough energy to explain why requirements were requirements, and that these were corporate procedures I had given the manager’s department ample warning about.  This manager wasn’t even my boss’s direct report.  She was one of the minions who felt like she was the smartest in the group.  Perhaps she was — but that did not give her reason to talk down to others who obviously knew the procedure better than she did.

So that neighbor of mine was asking me something about the same issue yesterday, and I knew my non-involvement will not spell the end of that engagement.  It did, however, ensure being shielded from any further hostility.  I simply said I don’t know.. I am not the best person to ask, and I don’t want to get into trouble with them anymore.  Period.

Somehow that felt good.  I managed to tell them off without firing a single shot.  I didn’t even raise my voice.

Time to hit the shower.. the boys are still asleep in the bedroom.  Meanwhile, I have to start getting ready for work.