Musical chairs February 28, 2013
(At some point during all of the craziness, I started a parallel
journal that depicts the activities that went on during at the office – with the
ultimate goal of doing a book my time there. I won’t retrace steps and post the
second journal prior to this but pick up the second thread here – to sort of
give a backdrop to the overall insanity).
So far, the angel of death has passed over me. But these days,
the two owners have found a new scheme for scapegoating, looking at the other writer
working the north county beat who they claim is a piss poor writer and needs a
lot of editing.
But she appears to me to do a pretty good job covering her
beat – and now she’s being asked to cover three towns, when in the past we used
to have one writer for each town – although this changed later when (she) took
over the towns run by the Neighboring Mayor, the Virgin Mayor and The Small Man
– an impossible task even for superman. Now, with (A’s) leaving the remaining
writer will have to take over (A’s) town as well, leaving two people to cover
six towns.
Are they crazy?
She (who works for the Virgin Mayor now) was overwhelmed
with work and underpaid for it.
Her replacement (D) faces the same impossible task, and it’s
a wonder when he will leave for more profitable pastures and if they will
expect whoever is left standing to cover all six towns in the part of the
county for the same measly pay.
(D) already wants out and has made it clear he want to cover
Hometown, which I also put a bid on when I heard it will soon become vacant.
But my spies inside the upper circle tell me the boss – who has
been out for maternity leave twice over the last two years – has been
sabotaging my efforts for the change of beats.
The boss has been doing such underhanded stuff the whole
time she was out to protect her turf against the Temporary Boss who filled in
for her. She is crafty and excellent at office politics, knowing when to be
kind, and when to get vicious. She has kept down potential rivals ever since
she became Management’s darling when she spied for them on the previous boss,
and they gave her his job as reward.
Nobody is yet strong enough to challenge her, and frankly, I
think she has something on one or both of the owners that keeps them from really
cracking down on her.
I’m not sure management will allow (D) to make the move
because it would leave them with a bigger problem of who to they can replace
him with in those towns (she) used to cover – unless, of course, they intend to
bring her back, which at this point, might not be possible because she is so
entrenched in the politics, and frankly, the owners are too cheap to pay her
what she’s worth.
Meanwhile, the people most responsible for declining sales continue
unchallenged, namely (T) and her husband (R) both of whom scrape the cream off
the top of the client list and leave the other sales people crap.
What (T’s) hold on the owners remains unclear. But nobody
speaks above a whisper about it, fearing they might become the next victim.
All these changes put some of the focus on me since I remain
one of the few writers required to cover only one town, although I suspect management
has plans to combine my town with another large town, and then may play musical
chairs to see which of the current writers gets the beat, and which of us gets
the boot.
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