Thank Goodness It's Friday!

Yesterday was the most awful, yet self-satisfying day of work that I can remember. I am the type of person who totally works my tail off and strives to be the best at whatever I'm doing. Whether that's being a mom, accomplishing career goals or scrubbing the bathroom. The task doesn't really matter. I will still give 100%. I've been a perfectionist for as long as I've lived. I don't see that changing any time soon. That's what makes what happened so hard to swallow. Our department received random evaluations from "the man who calls himself our boss." (From here on referred to as "Mr. Incompetent"). There really was no reason for these evaluations seeing as not one of us were at any kind of anniversary marker nor did they play any role in the standard raise each one of us will be given. Nonetheless, the evaluations proceeded. I walked into Mr. Incompetent's office at my scheduled time. He attempted some small talk which was really just a bunch of rambling and head nodding. Then the evaluation began. Mr. Incompetent went on for about five minutes about how great of an employee and Blah, Blah, Blah, I am, and how happy he was that I accepted the position even though it was a HUGE pay cut for me. (Flexible schedule = More time with my family). Our family is our first priority, so Chris and I knew we could handle the smaller income to reap the bigger rewards. Anyway, I digress. As Mr. Incompetent is droning on and on never once making eye contact with me I glanced through the entire evaluation. The scores I received on the majority of the categories were below where I felt they should be. Finally, I could no longer take his nonsensical verbiage. I interjected. "I know you keep saying that I'm a great employee, but I don't see that reflected in the actual evaluation." I remained calm. Mr. Incompetent FREAKED out. He got completely flustered and could not put words together to make a sentence. Seeing his reaction, I continued. I pointed out a particular category about having a positive attitude and asked what I would have needed to do inorder to get a higher mark. His answer, "I just think we could all be more positive about our jobs." That's great! But this is my evaluation, not everyone else's. So, I clarified. "Give me a specific example of when I did not show a positive attitude or made a negative comment." Mr. Incompetent sat in silence, still not once making eye contact with me, for at least two minutes. He finally spatted out some hogwash about me saying I wasn't ready for a group presentation when the group arrived forty-five minutes early. Apparently, the person I made the comment to came running back to Mr. Incompetent complaining I was being rude toward a group. None of which happened. It was exactly what it was. The group was here early and I said, "Oh, shoot. I'm not ready yet." Then proceeded to set up the powerpoint, contact the other departments who were also presenting and chatted causally with the group until the formal presentation was ready to go. No big deal. This group presentation to which he was referring happened TWO MONTHS AGO! That's when I lost it. I told him it was not only absolutely ridiculous for him not to mention that this was a concern the day that it happened nor consult with me as to my side of the story but completely degrading to me as an employee to have it reflected in my evaluation. Everything pretty much escalated from there. I am confident that when I left his office he not only knew I thought he was an idiot but he also knew he was an idiot. And completely unqualified for his job. By the end of my evaluation (which took and hour and a half because I told him everything--but very articulately and politely) he was apologizing profusely and changed the marks on my evaluation. Not my intentions, especially since this evaluation means squat. But, who does that? As a boss, a superior, an authority figure, who does that? Not once did he try to defend his actions. He crumbled like a cracker into chili. There was a point in which I thought he was going to cry. AND HE'S MY BOSS!!!!

On a lighter note, Back to School Night went off without a hinge. Not that I expected much of one. Grace and I, with the little ones in tow, circled around the tables set-up in the cafeteria to turn in our required paperwork. Grace saw a couple of her friends that she hadn't seen since last year. By the end of the evening, she was a tiny bit more excited about starting school. Just by knowing Grace's personality, I know the reason she hasn't been overjoyed about starting school again isn't because she doesn't like it. Rather, she is anxious about starting something new. She has gotten accustomed to being at home. She's nervous about learning new things, getting acquainted to a new teacher and meeting new kids in her class. After the first few days of school, she'll be sad to see the weekend come. Only a week and a half left until the unofficial-official end of summer. We have a few last minute summerish activities planned for the next few days and maybe a little weekend get-a-way. We'll see what next week brings.