Bubbly
In the words of our favourite internet star of the moment (well... probably of 20 minutes ago, but since he's now featuring in TV advertising in New Zealand it's current for us) - WHAT DOES IT MEEEEEEEEEEEAN?!
Work has been a nightmare. A floundering, firefighting, issue-generating, blundering around completely blind kind of nightmare. I have three staff members. Two are currently on leave. I acquired one staff member's work last night, and I have pretty much no idea what she does. The last staff member and I have been trying to split the last team members work, where NEITHER of us know too much what she was doing, and I certainly am basically no use to anyone because I'm totally in the dark about EVERYTHING.
It's been a mess.
It's been stressful. And not just for me - Team Member 2, who I'm going to refer to as Quiet Girl (there's Quiet Girl, Scottish Girl and Kiwi Girl, let's say) has been REALLY stressed about the amount of work she's having to do, and how Scottish Girl has left lots of crap, and rubbish notes, and has made all these MISTAKES, OMFG. Kiwi Girl, meantime, has had... at least two full-blown strops about working conditions and personality clashes and YOU NEED TO DEAL WITH THIS RIGHT NAOW type drama moments.
I'm exhausted. Just EXHAUSTED.
I'm a control freak, and I hate not KNOWING things. I feel completely useless, because I don't KNOW thing and I can't DO anything really because I have no fucking idea what's going on. Scottish Girl was too busy in my first week before she went on leave to show me what she does. Kiwi Girl actually works in a different office, so I have ZERO CLUE what she does. Quiet Girl is JUST SO QUIET, and sometimes I take it as quite kind of.. surly. I'm still not entirely sure whether she doesn't LIKE me, or whether she's just ALWAYS going to be this naturally quiet. Some of the things I've talked about trying, or looking at or improving, have met with a derisive noise from her and not much else. She's been good about answering some of my questions, and has let others pretty much just drop without giving me any kind of answer. Or worse, she gives me a PARTIAL answer, or gives me PART of something in that YOU NEED TO DEAL WITH THIS RIGHT NAOW kind of moment, lets me go off trying to work out a resolution, and THEN fills me in on the other part which actually CHANGES EVERYTHING.
I still can't work out if she's sabotaging me or... if this is a communication issue. I'm new. Maybe I'm not... I dunno, breaking in gently? But I feel like I need to be DOING SOMETHING, dammit. Yeah, it probably won't make me popular. But if everything was working perfectly we wouldn't have all this DRAMA every fucking day, would we?!
And my interpretation of DRAMA is very different from theirs. Things apparently used to be worse. MUCH WORSE. So everyone seems to be under the misguided impression that everything is FIIIIIIINE now, or at least whenever I look horrified at the ridiculous lack of organisation/communication/attitude/massive overspend that seem to be very casually accepted in the organisation, everyone just kind of laughs it off and says "HA! You should have seen it LAST YEAR! It's SOOOOOO much BETTER now!"
Is it?
Because it looks like shite.
It's not last year. BETTER is not GOOD ENOUGH. And stop responding to all of my ideas or comments or questions with "Yeah, well good luck with that, that will NEVER WORK."
Now I know why I was asked some of the questions I was asked in interview. *sigh*
Anyway, one of the other weird things that has struck me at work is the strange reputation I have which seems to precede me. I am, evidently, a "Bubbly Scot".
O_O
Seriously. What the fucking hell does "bubbly" even mean in this context? I'M A MANAGER. I'm a business graduate. I've handled projects worth millions of pounds (sterling, so double that for Kiwi dollars, goddammit). I am CONCERNED about the state of my team and the lack of processes in place. And yet everyone seems to think I'm... fun? What the fucking hell?
Is this cross cultural? Because I am a FURRINER, hurr hurr hurr, check your funny accent and your crazy customs? Because I guess in a way that's kind of fair enough - I DO have a different sense of humour and I *am* very Scottish (with the black sense of humour and with the VERY irreverent attitude to authority and institutions that we tend to have). But... does this mean no-one is ever going to take me seriously unless I stop... well, being me and having a bit of a laugh?
Is this a FAT thing? A GENDER thing? Having been fat-thin-fat, it's really INTERESTING how people's descriptions of me change. When I was thin(ner), people always described me based on looks. It was all about my height (petite), my hair (long and dark), or my dress - pretty much never about "personality" traits. Now that I'm back to being fat? OH LOOK, let's describe the fat girl in nice terms... uh.. she's very BRIGHT and BUBBLY. o_O Aside from the comments about BUBBLY IS NOT HOW MY INTERNETS FRIENDS WOULD DESCRIBE ME. FUCKING VICIOUS HYPERBOLIC SNARKESS maybe. Bubbly maybe NOT SO FUCKING MUCH - I could also say that I am still petite (in.. height anyway) and I STILL have long dark hair. I'm not against being judged on my abilities - I'm smart and capable and organised (sometimes), and I have weird thinking processes that lead to some pretty cool stuff. But I am NOT being judged on those things. I AM BUBBLY. It is effectively the equivalent of having that legendary euphemistic fat girl "pretty face".
*sigh*
Judge me on ability. That's fine. But please don't reduce me to a small set of acceptable female qualities - i.e. either "HAWT" or "PERSONABLE". What is this, the 50's? Give me a fucking break.
I feel a bit like a performing monkey. Today, I overheard one of the senior managers who had interviewed me telling Quiet Girl in the kitchen that he thought I would be "louder and more bubbly", and how SURPRISED he was that I'm quiet. DUDE, I'm trying to fucking work. You know, that shit you HIRED me for? I think he's disappointed. DISAPPOINTED BECAUSE I'M NOT AS "BUBBLY" AS HE THOUGHT. What the fuck? 1. Maybe you give me more than three weeks in the role before you decide if you're disappointed and 2. MAYBE YOU FUCKING JUDGE MY EFFECTIVENESS IN TERMS OF WHAT I ACHEIVE, AND NOT THE NOISE VOLUME COMING FROM MY OFFICE.
Sweet Jesus.
When I went to the LIbrary for my orientation, the Librarian's first words to me were: "I'm told you're a bubbly Scot!"
And then she just stared at me. Like I was supposed to pull a pair of banana shoes out of my memo pad and make with the Billy Connolly act right there. I was fucking tired and just said: "Indeed! Shall we get started?" The disappointment was palpable.
*sigh*
The number of times I've had responses to my emails that go something like: "Hee! You're FUNNY!" is... well, huge. If I had a dollar every time and all that you know the drill. I don't OBJECT to it, and I do try to be personable and humourous in my correspondances, and I don't stand too much on ceremony and Proper Business Form, but now I'm wondering if it's getting in the way of being RESPEKTED and whatnot and actually being able to DO MY JOB.
I do not want to be The Bubbly Scot. I want to be That Team Leader Who Really Knows Her Stuff And Who Sorted Out All That Shit - And She's Actually Pretty Down-To-Earth Too.
GAH.