Tea is Ready

I need to vent. Hopefully it will be a cathartic experience and then I can go enjoy Survivor and the Office.

I work in an office, and am lucky enough to work from home a couple days a week. It was 2, but it is becoming 2, but that's okay, it is still a perk. For whatever reason, people have it in their heads that because I sometimes work from home I am hard to reach. Nevermind I have a cell phone on me at all times and am always on my email.

So, I get this "I've been trying to reach you" b.s. all the time. In my head I think "really? because I don't see any missed calls! I didn't get any voicemails! I don't have any emails from you!" So, what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to just KNOW that people are trying to reach me and call them? I may be a bit clairvoyant, but I like to save my pyschic powers for things like my family and loved ones, you know?

So, today I was in the office at my desk and on my desk phone with a customer. My cell phone rang and it was a number I didn't recognize. Whoever called the cell phone did not leave a message. I don't know about you, but I don't call back people who don't leave messages if I don't know who they are. It is always this uncomfortable situation:

"Hello?"
"Hi, did you call me?"
"Who is this?"
"Kate, did you call me?"
"Who's Kate"
"Dude, you called me!"

I'd rather avoid it.

So at some time around noon today I decided that I had enough. I was in miserable sinus pain, I had done everything I had to do, and I was trying to work on things that could be done (but weren't urgent) but I couldn't concentrate on anything. So I talked to my boss and went home. I pumped, popped a benadryl, took some cough syrup and went to bed.

When I woke up I have a couple of voicemails from people. The first was our IT person saying our CEO was having trouble getting some information about training from our website. The second was from our VP saying he needed to speak to me urgently.

I called the VP back and he said the website wasn't working. What part? I asked. The training page. What kind of information are you looking for? Training. Grrr and DUH! I told him there wasn't much I could do, and that I was home sick. He didn't flinch and was just silent until I said I would call someone else to see if they could help fix it.

Turns out that call this morning was from the CEO in Sacramento... but he didn't leave a message, so how the hell was I supposed to know that he was having trouble getting information from the website?

If he had just left a message I could have a) fixed it before going home, b) gotten him the information he needed some other way, or c)... there is no c), but there doesn't need to be.

This culture we have at my work where you have to be available the moment someone wants you is soooo unproductive. If people could just leave messages then I could be working on things sooner and problems would get fixed faster. If I didn't have to wait to talk to people and didn't get cryptic answers about what people want I could get them what they needed. Sometimes their way isn't the only way, and for some reason they are not aware of that.

They rely on me because I am an expert, but they treat me like I am a moron.

Grrrr.