The First Step

Hi, my name is Hera and I'm a crabby bitch.

It all started in the spring. The receptionist at my work announced her departure, which meant I had to take on one of her duties as no one else was trained to perform the task. The goal, according to my VP, was for me to train her assistant to eventually take over the duties the receptionist left behind since that position would no longer be a part of our department. I thought "that's fine. I can handle a little extra work for a short period of time. It's only temporary and I'm happy to help if necessary".

Of course, the executive assistant announced her departure from the organization shortly after the receptionist left. At this point, I gained even more extra duties "in the interim" as the search for a new executive assistant got underway. Again, I thought "that's fine. I can handle a little extra work for a short period of time. It's only temporary and I'm happy to help if necessary".

The applicant search was excruciatingly long. It bled over into a co-worker's maternity leave and into what is the time of year I refer to as "hell on Earth" for my position. In essence, for the last four months I have been holding down three, sometimes four jobs--all during what is the absolute most stressful period for me even in a normal month.

As the time wore on I became a quite the bitch. Scratch that, the term I'm looking for is crabby bitch. At about month two I reached crabby, by the end of month three I was unbearably bitchy. The things that sent my mood South varied. Sometimes it was the mounting workload, sometimes it was the stupid questions I didn't have time to answer, sometimes it was the recognition of others' efforts while mine went unnoticed...again. Most days I hated everything about my job, my employer and 85% of my co-workers. I even brought my anger home on occasion--an extremely unfair thing for Maverick to put up with. However, he has weathered the storm as if it was nothing at all, and simply his job to make me feel like it's okay to uncontrollably sob at the drop of a green bean onto the kitchen floor.

No longer.

The executive assistant position has not only been filled, but the person holding down that job now seems to be (almost) trained and self-sufficient in the tasks I needed to be able to get that position responsible for once again. Great hire too. I think this person will be an extremely good fit for the organization. Just in time for my busiest time of year to be almost over as well. I'm back down to just about one and a half jobs. The stress level is way down. Thankfully. I've come to realize that a) I simply could not handle that amount of stress any longer, b) I was about to have a complete and utter mental/nervous breakdown, c) I have got to get back to my old happy self--being miserable every day is just not a way to live.

So there it is. I'm a crabby bitch. Rather, I have been a crabby bitch lately, but as of this moment I apologize for my crabby bitchyness and I will no longer be a crabby bitch.

With that in mind, I'm off to celebrate Halloween with some of my favorite people in the whole world--Maverick and my BFF.

Yes, I went junior high on you! It's the spirit of the kid holiday. It's taken over me.