Warning - this is very detailed and very petty
REALLY annoying me today is some people's attitude toward admin staff. They seem to think "and other other duties that may be required blahblahblah" on our contracts mean we can be dicked around in a way they would never think of with staff on the same grade as themselves.
Case in point.
When our new CEO decided to move into the office with the best view in the building (previously occupied by my Manager) he decreed that the furniture in the lobby on this floor should also go.
My department had a long, low cabinet which was in the lobby because there was no room for it in the open plan office. There is another grumble about moving the team into a space which will only fit the people and not the paperwork but I'll leave it out. This was a smart piece of furniture in exactly the same bland design as the round table and chairs that were allowed to remain. It also gave people somewhere to sort the printing/ photocopying from the machine opposite.
So, a very useful piece of furniture, and one that I only heard would be moved on the Friday because I was working late. I stuck my nose in, put my case and actually thought I'd won.
Nope.
Came in Monday, cabinet gone.
After about an hour I tracked down the person responsible for the move, who grumpily informed me that he'd been just about to call me (yeah right). My cabinet was on the 2nd floor (I work on the 6th). Broken. Dropped by the movers and now the sliding door was jammed shut. All my material had been stacked in the storage area behind Reception.
I was pretty mad at this, but decided in the bigger scheme of things I'd probably best just let it go. He was supposed to be contacting the movers for damages and in the mean time would look at it himself to see if it was something he could remedy. Two emails from me regarding the cabinet went unanswered.
FFward to today - I get a phone call from Reception. The office manager wants the storage area to be used only for stationery and not to be a dumping ground for various departments' miscellany. I am now tasked with finding somewhere to store my material - it has been suggested to me that if I clear out the cupboard on this floor (which was already full when we moved here because we were the last department to move) I might be able to fit it all in.
Why am I expected to waste my time on this problem caused solely by other people?
Why should I have to find space? I had a perfectly good space before.
Why should I have to load up 2 trolleys worth of material and haul it round the building?
Exacerbating this is the fact I've already moved the boxes of leaflets we brought with us from the other building 3 times. Once because they were stacked around our desks and a member of another team wanted to hot-desk in our space (we are currently understaffed so have more space than people). They were then stacked against the wall but apprently the new CEO didn't want any boxes on the floor when he moved up. Then the storage area I co-opted was turned into a "quiet/ prayer room" (which is never used).
Just because I'm not a pharmacist or a technician doesn't mean I'm a bloody serf. I may work with paper but that doesn't mean I need to be the one to move it around.
I'm also sick & tired of having people come to me and say in a blase fashion, "Oh the copier has run out of paper..." or "I think the printer is jammed...." What? Oh sorry I forgot that I graduated from the Hewlett Packard Academy and are therefore more qualified than you to get toner down my top or fill up the paper drawer.
Stuck up, short sighted, grade-ist arseholes.
I will feast on their egg heads the day the revolution comes.