No one said there'd be days like this

For two years while finishing my graduate degree I was in intern. It paid ok for part time and included tuition, I even got good health benefits. The position was dependant on my being in school and in my particular program, so when I graduated I had to vacate. I was lucky to have a mentor where I work and he got me another job, and from there a promotion--the postion I've got now.

Since then I've had one of my other co-workers (she used to be my direct supervisor as an intern) treat me like I'm still a lowly intern and dump me with her work under the guise of "giving me more experience." When I was hired I was trained well I had a good supervisor and a month after I got here, she retired. All the interns that came after me were trained under this other woman, D. Well, you can't really call it training. D doesn't do our job, she doesn't know what it is we do and yet she hovered over them as they "shadowed" her and made them go to a "Service Acadamy" that was meant for undergraduate student assistant positions. It taught them nothing about their job which as soon as it got busy she left them with no idea of how to function in their new position.

So this time around now that I'm a superior to the interns I volunteered to help train them. I figured I could save them the confusion and frustration I've seen others go through when they got D's version of (non)training. I was told by D that by all means take the lead in their training. At this point the resumes of potentials had not been read. But I put together some materials, made an agenda, ordered lunch for the day. Finally resumes are read, the field narrowed and interviews begun none of which I was invited to paricipate in. In respect of her position of their supervisor I let D proof my training materials to make sure that these are the procedures she wants followed (knowing full well she doesn't know procedure for their job, but whatever). She gives them back to me (drafts of course) covered in food smears and not a single constructive word. The very points that I asked her to consider were ignored. Again, because she doesn't have a clue what the interns do.

So, I am told that I am training the newbies. I am even told that we'll have a conference room with laptops because she didn't want to use an instruction lab in case it was booked (we have a scheduling program and I knew our lab was open and wanted to use it). I start thier training on Wednesday with a comprehensive tour and go up to the conference room only to find D waiting there. She proceeded to sit next to me and interupt the entire time. She would spend 20 minutes or more at a time prattling on about things that are not thier responsibility. If they want to find out about these things in the future fine, but don't waste their training time, my time on it. And to top it off, there were no laptops. I ask where they are and she asks me, in front of the newbies, "didn't you call tech to request them?" Umm no. You told me you reserved the room and laptops, someone else told me we already had the laptops arranged, why would I have called about them? So we went into the lab, which, lo-and-behold! was open.

At that point she actually left after giving an inane little powerpoint presentation. And I actually was able to give them real information that they are going to need when they do their jobs.

I volunteered to do the scheduling for the interns. Normal one intern would be chosen to do it, but the job would fall to a new person and that seemed kind of harsh when it needs to be done with in a few days of thier starting. It would have been fine, but one of the new people kept changing their other commitments forcing me to change the schedule. I finally went to D and said that perhaps this person needed to be set straight now about the kind of commitment this internship requires. To which she responded, "No, you're their team leader." Huh? What? When did this happen? Let me go back over my contract and see if I see this anywhere. Since when does taking the lead in their training automatically translate to you are now leading them all the time? And if I'm part of this "team" and supposedly a leader why was I not included on the selection process? Did I help narrow the resume pool? No. Did I get to sit in on the interviews? No. So what the fuck! I understood that I was being given the opportunity to train the new guys because D didn't want to. This was confirmed by my other coleague and mentor, M. Who point blank told me that I was only given that duty because D is lazy. But now, she's asking me to be their supervisor, but I get neither the title not the authority that comes with it. She tells me to have them fill out the right forms, but in the "supervisor" section of the form it's her name, not mine. She even came to me today and says, "I have this on my desk, just so you know it exists." It being a manual for supervisors of student workers. Great, thanks for offering to let me look at it, since you obviously want me to do your job for you. Thanks for shoving it under my nose reminding me that I'm not really thier supervisor, I just get to do all the crap work for it.

This is my first experience with a "real world" job. I understand that some people encounter this behavior and probably expect it to be done to new hires and the inexperienced. But it grinds me. I realize she's a colleague and was my superior at one point. But I hate her with a passion. She thinks she's being sweet and nice giving me more "experience" as if I'm stupid when she's really just a transparent bitch who thinks that everyone around her is an idiot and that she's the only one who knows what's going on. Everytime she feels like regaling us with some pointless story noone cares nor knows about she takes on this conspiratorial affectation in her voice and dimeaner as if we are great buddies. But when it's something that actually pertains to our areas of expertice she becomes haughty and snobbish and talks as if she's the only person in the room with any kind of knowledge, experience, or common sense.

The phones went out for half a day on Monday. All she could comment on was how it's just like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dummer. "You got Tweedle Dee up in here, and who knows what Tweedle Dum is up to." What the fuck does that have to do with broken phones? Are you calling the phone company stupid? Are you telling me that you've seen the repair guy and he's not doing his job? Were there two of them? I wanted to scream "What the fuck are you saying? You make no sense?" Seriously, I'd like her to try to fix a phone. And then she complains because they fixed the phone without ever coming out to see it. Hmmm...maybe the line was messed up, maybe it was glitch, but what ever the problem it was fixed. The inernet isn't working do you need the webmaster to sit at your computer to figure it out? No. He can do that at his own end.

Arggg...every time she opens her mouth I want to punch her in the teeth. Oh and then there was the lunch after training when, right in front of me as I'm looking around for a second sandwich, she took the last veggie sub. She's not veggie. "Well you can take the meat off another one." Ummm...no actually I can't and no I shouldn't have to. Get your cheeseburger scarfing, snotty nosed, chapped lipped face out of my site. And then to have the nerve to talk in a quiet voice about how I'm being difficult because I don't want to touch a peice of ham which is wrapped around some salami and cheese in order to eat a peice of bread with some slimy lettuce on it.

Quitting and running away seems like such a good idea everytime I hear her voice.

But all I keep thinking about is my stupid ass step-father thinking I couldn't hear him the last time I complained about her at home. "She's got to learn to deal with people. There are going to be people she doesn't get along with whereever she goes. It's a convoluted reason for looking for another job." Yeah, because I'm moronic and I haven't been working for more than a decade and I don't realize how to deal with people. I've only ever been in customer service/instruction related work. Trust me I'm the poster child for a calm demeaner. Even when my co-worker went crazy behind the desk and tried to shave a girl's head, I remained calm and delt with it. So don't tell me I need to learn. I'm not 15 at my very first job at McD's.

Arrgghhhhh...I wish it were time to go home. I'm so tired. But instead I'm going to go look at an apartment, then go eat with L. He better be civil about my food and/or body or I'm gonna rip him a new one. I swear he's going to see the uber-bitch from hell come out. Maybe I shouldn't have agreed to go?