The Announcement

Don't get too excited. I didn't tell my boss yet about the baby. I know many of you know about my "D-Day" deadline of April 3rd to tell my boss. That is in 4 days. However, I have decided to change the date. The new date is the 17th, two weeks later than my original date.

And why, you ask, did I decide to do that? Well, I think you all read about my horrible day on Thursday. (That was the blog about workplace bullys, remember?) The short story about the day is that I lied and Jean totally caught me. I'm a HORRIBLE liar, and she called me on it. When the truth came out, she told me that I was being "sneaky" and I shouldn't "go behind her back" and do things without her permission.

Wanna know the ironic thing about that? Jean lies ALL the time. About EVERYTHING. Even small, stupid, inconsequential things. Most of the time it's easier for her to tell a lie than to tell the truth. Even when it would only take her 30 seconds to find out the truth, it's easier to make something up and spread it around like it's truth.

Anyway, after this incident where she caught me telling her ONE lie (compared to the one lie a minute she tells) she then proceeded to treat me like crap for the next 2 hours. Here is a partial list of comments/demands I got in those short hours:

Where are those papers? (me: I put them in your box Monday) Her: Well, I don't have them. Do them again.
I need this now. Get it for me now.
Did ______ call? What did they say? Why didn't you tell them ______?
What is going on with the ____________ file? Why didn't you tell me that ______ ago?
What is that smell? I have a sensitive nose.
It's too hot in here, turn on the air.
Now it's too cold in here. Alicia you have to be BETTER at monitoring these things.

And my personal favorite:

What did you DO today? It seems like you didn't do anything today.

Please remember that as she's screaming all these things to me, the phone keeps ringing and Matt, Dan, Maria and Peggy keep calling in with things for me to do. Agents keep calling to show houses, so I have to call the home owners to set those up. Inspectors, agents and clients continue to call to find out questions about their files. I'm the ONLY one answering the phone, and I'm the only one doing anything. And I have Jean, the Harpie, 15 feet away barking orders at me.

Here's the thing: I think that I'm a fairly realistic person. I'm very VERY good at seeing things sensibly and from a rational point of view. For example: I am mature and self-aware enough to recognize that while I don't really like my father, I have certain characteristics of his. (Those tend to be the things that I hate most in myself) But I don't think that everyone has this ability. I think others want to excuse their actions away, or justify that the rules don't apply to them for SOME reason.

Anyway, my point is that Jean is the least self-aware person I've ever met (besides my father, that is) because she never takes responsibility for anything. So when things make her mad, she's not bright or aware enough to say, "Why am I frustrated? What is making me so mad? What is affecting my mood right now?" Wait. Let me take that back. Whenever she feels mad, she's quick to blame me.

But most of the time, she just REACTS and doesn't question her actions. Why should she have to question them? She's the boss right? And the boss answers to no one, right? Well, that's what she did Thursday afternoon. She just reacted to her frustration and didn't actually stop and pull me into her office and say, "Alicia, I'm frustrated with you because. . . ." When she finally did that 2 hours later, things were resolved and over.

Can you imagine if those two hours lasted 6 weeks? I do NOT want her to treat me like that for 6 continuous weeks. That is my main reason for not telling her. If I didn't fear her reaction, then I would've told her MONTHS ago. I wonder if this experience will "teach her a lesson" about the way she treats assistants? I bet it doesn't, and all she does is make her agent contract even MORE strict. (Strict=making agents waive certain civil rights right at the beginning of working here)

But here's the other reason I'm not going to tell her: I think Karley quit. This has a back story too. So Monday Jean sent me an email saying that Karley told her she's sick and wouldn't be in that day. I've never taken more than one day off for being sick, except for last month when I took a few hours on 3 different days, and then told a lie and took off TWO days. (I still think that action was necessary, especially because I'm STILL coughing up fluid from that cold to this day)

Anyway, so I was expecting to see her on Tuesday. When it was 8:50 and she still wasn't here, I assumed that she had called Jean again about not coming, and that Jean just forgot to tell me. But 30 min later when Jean comes in and says, "where is Karley?" I'm stumped. Jean calls Karley, and finds out that Karley said that she sent her a TEXT message, and figured that was good enough. Jean says that she comes from a different "generation;" a generation that thinks texting is RUDE (and also apparently a generation that doesn't take "handouts," right Heather?) and so she wants a phone call when you call in sick.

She then continues on to say, "I don't care if you are on your death bed. I've never been too sick that I can't pick up the phone and make a 3o second call. And I don't want your fiance, or brother or husband or someone else to call for you. I want you to call." When I heard that, it seemed quite clear to me. Doesn't that seem clear to you?

Apparently, it was NOT clear to Karley. Come Wednesday, she didn't show up again. I asked Jean if she had a call from her, and she said, no. Same thing Thursday. Same thing Friday. For THREE DAYS the girl doesn't show up, doesn't call, doesn't tell us where she is. Friday morning I ask Jean, "Any news from Karley today?" and Jean says, "KARLEY DOESN'T WORK HERE ANYMORE"

I'm thinking, "Holy crap!! She fired her over the phone." But she the continues and says, "Well, she doesn't know that. Don't tell her if she calls. But I don't think I want her around anymore, someone who would do that. But she doesn't know yet. She still has my key. I need to get my key back from her." (even to the end, Jean is protecting herself and her belongings)

The truth is that I can see Karley coming in and telling some sob story and Jean letting her stay around. Jean is SO indecisive and won't do something if there is a chance there would be some sort of inconvenience to her. But Karley is just WEIRD, so I can also see her just not showing up ever again. It's just so up in the air right now.

So here is the bottom line for all of you:
Karley may or may NOT be fired.
I'm a horrible liar.
I'm not dropping the baby bomb until the 17th
I have Lynn's tape recorder that I will be wearing in my cleavage 24/7 in order to catch jean in some illegal conversations. This means that I hope to have some good recordings of Jean's illegal comments very soon!

Have a good Sunday, everyone!


P.S. At my ultrasound on Monday, my Radio Tech said that my baby has TONS of hair. We know it's Latino now for sure! I just hope it doesn't look like a gremlin. I think that sometimes half Latino babies look like gremlins. Please pray for my gremlin baby!!