Inside this place is warm. Outside it starts to pour...
It's been a back and forth week...
Remember my coworker Timon? I'm about four seconds away from reporting him to HR for having no boundaries whatsoever, and making half of our team highly uncomfortable. I cannot stand him in the slightest, and the past two weeks he has been getting much worse. He will literally corner people in their desks and continue getting closer to them, leaning over them and breathing all over them. It's not anything sexual, he just has no boundaries at all and thinks it's ok. When you tell him to back up, he laughs you off and gets CLOSER. Not to mention his breath always smells like rancid, rotting food. The man is addicted to eating mints (very loudly, which aggravates everyone), and it doesn't do a gorram thing to help. He tries to move in to other people's desks, too, by giving them things, such as oranges or pencils or candy, to try and seem nice, and if you accept he takes it as permission to help himself to your desk and anything on it whenever he wants. I've told him to stop he - again - he laughs me off and does it more. He will even lean all the way over, thinking I can't seem him in my periphery, to look at what I'm doing on my computer. Now, I have really good peripheral vision, thanks to my training for mounted search and rescue, so I can see everything he does. It is long past the point of irritiating, to where I feel like he is spying on me. I've given no reason for anyone to feel the need to keep tabs on my work, because, as my boss said in my meeting with her on Friday, I am doing extremely well for being so new. He could just be feeling threatened. Apparently, he has been asking for a management job for five years, and keeps getting turned down because he is "just not management material", as the rumor mill has repeatedly said. I believe it. He writes at a first grade level, and most definitely does not have a personality that can manage other people. Not only would his underlings not respect him, but he is EXTREMELY petty, which has led to a whole host of other issues I've had with him the past two weeks.
Oh man. So, on Tuesday he went to literally everyone's desk on all three AP teams (all 20 people) to tell everyone that he would be out at least part of the day Wednesday because oh boy he was going to take his college placement tests to start getting his associate's degree and we weren't. Yes, he did it to make sure everyone knew and he could rub it in their faces. If he were going to better himself and learn, I would be all for supporting that, but he really didn't need to wave it in everyone's faces. Now, not everyone on the teams has a degree. It's not required, but everyone did come in with finance experience, which was a requirement for even an interview. So everyone knows what they are doing. I mean, half of management doesn't have college degrees, necesarily, but they are all highly experienced and have several certifications in management. Plus, they have all proved themselves. So a degree isn't necessary, but it makes him feel more special than the rest of us. But I digress. So he gets to my desk.
Timon: [looks at me after bragging to another coworker] Have *you* ever taken any placement tests?
Me: [having absolutely no patience for this idiot] I went straight from high school into two different universities and earned two degrees. I never needed to.
He didn't speak to me for the rest of the day. I had a pretty good day after that.
On Friday I met with my boss for our annual Personal Development meeting. It's basically to check in, set some short and long term goals, and see how you're doing. I have only had one other meeting with my boss... She is a nice person, really, even though her emails can come across very cold and mean. In person, she is very excited to teach new things, and see how you're doing. She isn't exactly an amazing manager, but she is a nice person and a great resource. In my first meeting with her, she went on for two hours about herself and her background... Like, I trust that you earned your posiiton. I don't need to know your work and personal histories. I walked out of that first meeting feeling no different or less lost than when I had walked in. Anyway, this meeting went a whole lot better! She said that I have been doing extremely well for someone so new to the job, which was really encouraging to hear since I had no real way of knowing that myself (no one could answer my questions about that... or anything else). For my short term goal for the next six to twelve months I said that I wanted to learn more about the other AP teams and what they do. She was happy to hear that and said that over the summer she is all for me shadowing someone on the other teams to see what they do for a day. I thought that was pretty cool that she is so willing to have me learn other things, even though it would mean me not doing my own job for a day. For my long term goal, I said that I wanted to possibly move to one of the other teams, and down the road gain more responsibility and move up to management. She got so excited! Most of my coworkers are pretty content where they are, just doing data entry all day. I don't mind it, but if I spent the next twenty years doing it I would go insane. We have someone who has been in this same job for almost 30 years and she is perfectly happy with it. Good for her, but wow, I could not do that. So my manager said she would look at her list of smaller projects in the next month or two and see what she might be able to give to me to work on. I'm pretty excited, and would really enjoy having my own project, even though I would definitely be nervous about it. So I walked out of the PD meeting feeling really good, and much better than I did walking out of my first meeting with her.
Friday night, I went out with some of the same coworkers from before. There were only four of us, but we had an ok time. The food was very bland and incredibly overpriced, and the mixed drinks were subpar. Pretty sad for an Irish Pub the night before St. Patrick's Day. We had a good time chatting, at least.
On Saturday I met with a friend of mine and we looked into apartments in the area. I've been looking since January, but there are only 4 complexes in our area. Two of them are owned by the same company, and they seem VERY sketchy. Of the other two, they both look promising, but one is a little outside of our price range. We are hoping to meet with both of them, and if the slightly pricey one has utilities and internet included, that could definitely influence our decision. The other one is in our price range and seems ok. Not the best, but it seems like an alright starter apartment, if that makes sense. I also looked into town houses around here, but they are a good $500+ more a month, and neither of us really know anyone else looking to move, nor am I willing to room with a stranger. I have severe paranoia that flares up, and living with a stranger will most definitely cause bad things to happen. My friend knows about my issues and I trust her, so I don't forsee it becoming a big issue. We are hoping to meet with and tour the places in April and when we decide we are looking to see about moving as early as the beginning of May if there is an open apartment.
And that brings us to today. My group is getting ready for our usual Sunday D&D. I tried to talk them into enjoying the gorgeous weather, or even playing outside for a bit, but it is a bunch of basement dweller-type nerds, so that was a futile attempt from the start. Ah well.
Hope you all are having a good weekend!