Another Week From HELL

It's been a week from Hell at work == again. I have found myself pushed to tears of anger and frustration a couple of times, sometimes even feeling unable to even function for several minutes at a time. Now, the work I am doing is not particularly difficult and the physical environment is acceptable. The money isn't bad either. However, the management (?) philosophy and practice leaves much to be desired. The management of the company in general (as I have said before and Ben has mentioned in his posts) is problematic, but the management of my current project is beyond organized chaos -- the term "torential turmoil" comes to mind. We are processing work for our European clients. This has involved several conference calls and webmeetings for "training", adding access to several software applications, and more. Of course, the training and the software never seem to coincide, so that by the time we get what we need to do the work, the work has changed. We are being called on to work 10 hour days and weekend hours to catch up the European backlog. The interesting (and ironic) thing is that European labor laws severely limit the number of hours workers can work and weekend work is nearly unheard of. So -- we are being called to work excessively to complete the work of people who aren't allowed to do extra. Go figure. Now, if I were a permanent employee, I might have some interest in the success of this endeavor. However, being a temporary contract employee, the future of this company means little or nothing to me. However, if I refuse the extra time or complain about the work, I could be gone in sixty secconds. I think what is so horribly upsetting is the feeling of powerlessness. Short of quitting -- and losing needed income -- there is nothing I can do to change the situation. To top it off, we learned this week that all of the temps are being transitioned from the agency we've been working through to a different temp provider. Again, what is the choice? I can either sit back and accept the stuff being thrown or I can quit. The upside of this is an increase in my hourly wages. However, there is no holiday pay or vacation pay or anything extra. I suppose it's a fair trade off but it's all a decision in which I have no say. Hmmm! Do I sense a pattern?

On top of all this, I received a rejection for the fulltime position that I was hoping for in the Boston area. As with most rejections, there was the "Thank you" and the "we've selected a different candidate" statements with no explanation or suggestion as to what might be lacking or how I might improve my resume or my skill set. Go figure. I am dying to see who got this position. My guess is that it will be a woman -- this is a position that I have been following for a few years -- I have applied for it twice and been rejected. Interestingly, over the past six years, there have been either five or six people in the position. It's either a horrid job or the employer doesn't have a clue as to how to hire people. I offered to sign a two year contract to provide some stability, but that fell on deaf ears.

Anyway, it's time to end this rant. Suffice it to say -- this week has sucked on many levels. Hopefully, next week will be better -- we shall see. Thanks for listening to my tale of woe. Have a great weekend.