So because the (non) systems at work are highly manual and decentralized, I find myself executing conceptually simple but highly time-consuming duties. The highly manual nature of many of my duties (and the reliance on Excel spreadsheets while the company turns the database into a tool that's actually useful), means I spend a lot of time making sure things are on track.
Add to this the seemingly endless and random emails from all over the company from people who have apparently decided that I am a sort of corporate Oracle of Delphi, and a boss who is working on refining and redefining processes and is leaning heavily on me to coordinate information gathering and procedure documentation, and I am discovering that I am not staying on top of things. Yesterday two women in Accounting and I exchanged over fifteen emails apiece with an admin in one of our out-of-state offices who, after painstaking explanations of procedures just can't grasp the simple concept of how draws are paid. I don't like to use the term "stupid," but I'll confess that the phrase "box of rocks" has passed my lips more than once when discussing her with my equally frustrated colleagues.
Then came the email from the employee who had questions about how costs are transferred from pre-bought properties to closed properties and properties in development. I finally called him and explained I'm not in Accounting and he should call someone there to see how to allocate a particular cost. Then I looked him up in the directory.
He's a regional accountant.
But the absolute best things, bar none, have been the two emails from my boss' boss, whose assistant is out sick. He sent me some attachments. What does he want? Does he want me to review them? Give them to my boss?
No.
He wants me to print them for him. And deliver them to his office.
One floor below.
I need to start memoirs. Because if the Devil Wears Prada, The Village Idiot Wears Polo.
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