40 Hours of Hell a Week

More work stuff.  There is a good opportunity to assess my status coming up.  I found out today that my manager’s manager is going to be visiting the Seattle office at the very start of February.  Naturally, no one told me and I wouldn’t have known if they didn’t pin up a notice on the door of a spare office to reserve it for when she is here.  She doesn’t visit the Seattle office very often – maybe once a year – but is probably here to congratulate the (undeserving) promotions of some of my colleagues/rivals.  At least she visits, which is more than can be said for my current manager – who there is zero chance will ever visit me!  The last time my manager’s manager visited (October?), I requested a 1-1 so that I could let her know how frustrated and unhappy with my job I was at that time – which I did.  Unsurprisingly, I never heard anything back from her following that meeting and absolutely nothing has changed for me since then – at least for the better.  Some context, we do have some history.  She was my direct manager when I left the company the first time around – under less than happy circumstances (I requested a leave of absence, which was initially granted to me and then rescinded, so I quit – I think she was probably the one who made the decision to rescind, though I can’t be sure).  So although we get on relatively well, I do not trust her – and I am still extremely bitter about what happened when I left, which could so easily have been avoided.  It will be interesting to see if she requests a 1-1 with me when she is here next month – as a follow-up to what we discussed before.  I don’t want to be the one to initiate that meeting, I’d much rather it came from her if she cared at all about my situation – but if she doesn’t, then that is a good indicator of my (lack of) value, importance and standing within the group.  And probably helps make any decisions on my future easier.

Work is bugging me so much that I haven’t even commented on the shambles going on with the US government right now.  I guess that's where my mind is.  At least I have been able to channel a lot of my frustration into some of my best ping pong form for a while!