22 February, 2012

Alternative medicines

It's a week with a Monday in it, and in accordance with ancient tradition the Stress Fiend called in sick on Monday, citing a bad experience with seafood. Then she called in sick on Tuesday, prompting our admin assistant to comment "You'd think she'd have learnt to leave the prawns alone after the first night."

(Sadly, knowing the way the Stress Fiend works, I could all too easily imagine her doing exactly that: "Stupid seafood, making me violently ill! I'll show it who's in charge here! I'LL EAT IT ALL!")

Today she's finally back. It's possible (if unlikely) she did the same maths as me and realised that as of yesterday she'd achieved an impressive absenteeism rate of 20% for the year so far, but more than likely it's because a third day off would have required a medical certificate.

My cynicism is running a bit high at the moment, so it's possible she was still genuinely under the weather when she shuffled in late this morning, speaking softly and wearily. If that's the case, though, then there may be a therapeutic use for Stress Fiend Bile, as once she started raging at client emails and service desk jobs all traces of illness and frailty just fell away.

(Of course so did reason and sanity, but any new treatment has some inevitable side effects).

15 February, 2012

Beyond collateral damage

The Stress Fiend is once again sitting on requests out of spite. Except, and this is the bit that's likely to come back and bite her, she's holding things up to spite the technician handling the job and the actual client simply has the misfortune to be collateral damage without even the flimsiest pretext of justification.

Unless, that is, you count the fact the tech has asked her a perfectly reasonable question that she doesn't know the answer to, in which case it's clearly his fault.

08 February, 2012

Willful stupidity

"I know there are better ways of sharing this information than in elaborately hand-crafted HTML files that need to be constantly and painstakingly updated, but this is the only way I get to practice my web skills."

I really don't know what's worse: thinking the Stress Fiend works the way she does because she's incapable of coping with change, or knowing that she deliberately chooses the path of most resistance because it satisfies some obscure personal impulse.

06 February, 2012

Filling the vacant clown shoes

It's a Monday, and that can only mean one thing: another long weekend for the Stress Fiend! Presumably she just couldn't wait until this Friday, which she's already applied to have off. Although, to be fair, it's been a whole three weeks since her last Monday off, and before that it was a full week and a half since she decided to spontaneously extend her weekend by two days. And we haven't had a public holiday in, oh, nearly a fortnight, so I can certainly see how the poor dear might be feeling a bit overwrought and in need of a break again.

In other news, though, we're finally advertising externally for someone to fill Ted E.'s position after many bumblingly inept and inevitably doomed attempts to fill it internally. Of course it's also been advertised in typically over-blown and excessively-detailed fashion, so no-one's actually going to want to apply for a job that (apparently) demands so much and pays so little, so whether anyone actually applies for it remains to be seen.

No sooner had the ad been placed, however, than the Stress Fiend began fretting about the kind of person who might apply.

"What if we get someone useless?"

"More useless than Ted or La Mondaine?" Politeness dictates I not remind her that La Mondaine was all her fault. "The bar's been set pretty low. If they're capable of stringing a coherent application together in the first place, that already puts them well ahead of what we've had in the past."

"What if - and I know I'm being silly here - but what if..." and suddenly we reach the real source of her fear "What if they're better than me?"

And this isn't an unreasonable fear. It's why the Stress Fiend likes to operate in secrecy, and to obscure her tracks with crazed and arbitrary work practices. It's also why, a couple of years ago, the Stress Fiend allied herself with Ted against me and the one efficient, useful team member we've ever had - they were a threat, because not only could they do the Stress Fiend's job more effectively in half the time, they could see exactly what she was up to.

Fortunately for the Stress Fiend, the Invertebrate has already caved into her anxieties and allowed her to be on the selection panel, giving her ample opportunity to ensure we add yet another mutant to the organisational gene pool.

Yay.

02 February, 2012

Living in a different reality

The Stress Fiend has barely stopped talking for the last two hours.

The disturbing thing about this is that only about fifteen minutes of that time has actually been spent talking to another person, and ten of those were spent torturing me by telling all about the show she watched last night about people who believe in government conspiracies about aliens. All the rest, or at least the parts I've been unable to tune out, have been spent arguing with emails (which would almost make a bit of sense if she had some kind dictation software installed, but she doesn't), muttering angrily and inarticulately in response to largely unseen stimuli, and occasionally cackling vindictively and swearing vengeance on unidentified clients or workmates. Sometimes she'll repeat information to herself in a strange, sing-song voice as she works.

In an earlier age, she'd have been burnt as a witch or chained to the walls of a madhouse.

This isn't really that unusual, I suppose, but my Stress Fiend Tolerance Threshold seems to have been a bit low lately.