InVOXicating

So... Vox.

It's good.

But.

One of my bosses, heretofore known as Buckethead, wins the mixed message contest without any effort.

Since I've started working for Vox, everything I hear from him is similar to You're awesome! Do all the things! followed by Wait wait -- how many hours are you working this week? Didn't we cap you at 15?

It gets very tiring. I don't have time to work on the calendar, do some editing, and spend the rest of my time second guessing myself.

I'm learning more dirt as the weeks progress, which is great. I've formed opinions about some people and scenarios and it's fun when it turns out I was right about something. I can't think of any specific examples. Just know that I was right a few times.

A couple months ago, a bigwig editor who wrote about culture decided to resign. He just wanted to be a writer and not a boss, so he exited stage right. I was sad because I really liked him. Instead of hiring someone to directly replace Bigwig, a City Editor was hired. Enter the Earl of Pandemonium who likes to write about politicians and apparently has no culture.

(Ba dum bum.)

I've gotten more used to EOP but the urge to bean him with my stapler is still pretty strong.

In Bigwig's absence, Buckethead took on his duties. That doesn't really work since it's two full-time jobs (ah! one of the things I was right about!) but Buckethead wanted his culture back (he used to be the Culture person) and now he's overwhelmed. (Shocker!)

Buckethead is kind of a spy, I think. He's VERY good at suddenly noticing things. I'd written some 15 blogs for Vox before he told me that I wasn't supposed to Capitalize My Blog Titles Like This. So I changed them. The other day, 75 blogs in, he told me my blog titles were pithy. If there's a heaven and I get to go there, I hope I get points for not telling him to fuck off.

Yesterday Buckethead noticed the language of one of my calendar entries had been pulled directly from the press release. You know, the document that the theatre company/bakery/school/health care organization sends us to use? That press release.

Why is your language the same? he says in front of everyone.

Uh... I... uh... it's... okay, what's happening? (Watch Barely-Employed Maxine start to sweat! Extra perspiration sold separately!)

You need to change the language, he says. Every time.

Oooooooookay, I think. I've been editing my ass off, including the time I corrected someone's event so that it wasn't a Walk to Benefit Prostrate Cancer Research. I've been cutting and pasting and rewriting and moving and WAIT A MINUTE it's their press release! Isn't that sanctioned? Considering the last journalism job I had was as a staff member of my high school's literary magazine, the details are fuzzy. (I was right. Queen S and King V (a journalism major) were outraged.)

Yesterday, Buckethead let the subject drop, but I spent the rest of the day feeling like I was being watched.

Turns out, I was.

Today Buckethead wanted to talk in the Little Glass-Walled Office with the Door Closed. We've done this before but it never ceases to make my soul scream aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

So we talk.

Another one of your entries was pulled from the press release, he says. After 15 minutes or so of fairly accusatory language (accompanied by all the smiles in the world), including a lecture about plagiarism and his very casual "Now I know why you're getting so much done -- you're cutting and pasting!", he cheerily said, "We good?" and smiled.

(aneurysm)

His comments, especially the shaming one in which he all but announced that I was lying and cheating my way through my reported productivity, upset me badly.

Like crying-in-my-cubicle badly.

I emailed an editor I really like who seems to never be in the office. I knew her when we both used to work for my alma mater. I didn't reveal any details about my talk with Buckethead, but I asked to talk to her. She was available in the afternoon. It was around noon. Ugh.

I spent the day pretty upset. I also spent extra time making sure none of the calendar entries I worked on during the day said exactly what they did in their press releases. I didn't really do that much more work than I'd been doing: I just filtered everything through a very paranoid lens and did silly things like spend time changing verbs and stupid shit that's unnecessary. These are, as King V hotly retorted, calendar entries. I'm not writing some whistleblowing article and cutting and pasting entirely from Wikipedia.

Finally Good Editor arrived. I told her what happened. She apologized for Buckethead and then shared some details, including the fact that she does not like and did not want to hire the Earl of Pandemonium (YES!). Before we got to what was essentially gossip -- turns out I'm working in a soap opera -- she said that Buckethead is incredibly passive-aggressive (grrrrrrrreat), is overwhelmed with his two jobs (duhhhh), and apparently doesn't like confrontation. Great qualities to have in a boss, no?

Good Editor assured me that I am well-liked, even if I am quiet. She was so surprised when she said it, knowing that I am generally more demonstrative. The simple fact is that I'm in a pretty new environment and still feeling things out. I know no one believes that I'm quiet and/or shy but put me around strangers and I might as well have no mouth.

So I'm quiet, right? Getting louder but still being cautious. Given Buckethead's lackadaisical look (rollerblades everywhere, apparently does a lot of drugs) but apparently bat-sharp senses, I've likely been more cautious than ordinary but self-preservation is paramount. I'm not like The Useless Intern, an unattractive girl who has taken to dressing like a hooker (yesterday's outfit included fishnets and high-heeled dominatrix pirate boots) and sits around quite literally with her mouth hanging partially open, looking as though she's trying to remember where she put her personality or wondering who just hit her with a skillet. She allegedly helps Buckethead with tasks; in my experience, she doesn't write very well and doesn't know when to shut up, but I'm not Buckethead so maybe she looks very different to him. I think she's just sucking up valuable oxygen.

During yesterday's editorial meeting, The Useless Intern said that Vox should have a Facebook page.

We... do, said Good Editor, clearly irritated and wanting to get back to her point.

Really? said Useless in a very distrustful/I'm surprised you know how to run an entire business all by yourselves! kind of way, oblivious that she should cram something -- ANYTHING -- in her pie hole. Internally, I was BEGGING her to stop shooting herself in her ugly-booted foot but it didn't happen.

We should have a button on our website where people can post our articles to their Facebook pages and to Twitter! she said, plowing ahead despite the roomful of ironically-slack-jawed editors staring at her.

We... do, said Good Ed, even more irritated.

Useless is, quite simply, missing her social cues filter. She'll keep talking to you even if you turn your back on her or walk away. Not that I've, uh, done either of those. ::whistles:: I can't wait until she leaves which will be some time in October. She announced, as we were trying to talk about other meeting things, that her internship ends on blah date and how she needs to have blah paperwork turned in but that she would just LOVE to keep on helping out around Vox and thinks she'll stay through the end of the month plowplowplow BACK OFF HARLOT -- IF ANYONE IS GETTING MORE HOURS AROUND HERE, IT'S ME. Turns out she's driving everyone but Buckethead crazy and even he thinks she's kind of nuts. SEE?? PICK A MESSAGE, YOU TOOL.

*ahem*

ANYWAY. The point that I clarified with Good Editor during today's meeting is that I'm appreciated around the office. I keep getting assignments and compliments... I just need fewer Buckethead sneak attacks. I suggested that Buckethead share some of his Culture duties with me, which is apparently basically what the last calendar editor did. He'll have less work and I'll have more -- WIN WIN. Tragically, Buckethead is apparently afraid of his boss and can't manage a budget. AWESOME AND EXCELLENT, NOW SEATING PARTY OF WE'RE ALL FUCKED RUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNN.

The awesome news is that Good Editor wants me to work increasingly more hours. Her goal is for me to be full-time by the beginning of next year. To borrow a phrase I haven't used probably since high school, hearing those words just about made me cream my jeans.

(It's not a family show anymore, folks!)

As I'm on my fifth tier of unemployment and not sure I'm eligible for a sixth, that was pretty good news. I've mentioned time and again that I am ready to be done with unemployment. (At least I have in the conversations I have with myself.) I don't even refer to myself that way anymore. I simply say, "I'm working part-time." It's like calling a used car pre-owned; we all know what it means but one of those phrases feels a lot less like I just contracted herpes.

I'll start working with Good Editor next week on an editorial project, I'll get some more hours when she goes on vacation, hopefully the apparently-somewhat-transient Earl of Pandemonium will resign before I lose it and beat him to death with his omnipresent bottle of hot sauce (puts it on everything and then complains about ulcers -- seriously?), and I'll soon be back to working full-time.