2001-11-29 - 12:00 a.m.

The Moonfaced Mormon at work apologized to me today. He did it because he wanted to still feel important. It wasn't an apology. It was bizarre.

I try not to talk about work in this narrative because it's pretty boring, because it's kinda trashy to bitch about work in a journal, and because there's too much backstory involved.

Let's get rid of number three with a quick overview (if possible) as to what I do for a "living:"

I work for a downtown market research firm. My title is Assistant Manager of Data Collection. I work an 1-9 shift, and I'm directly responsible for the 5-9 shift.

I was a telephone interviewer when I was in college. The Girlfriend worked there too. When I graduated, I became a supervisor, just like the Girlfreind, who had had that job for some time. Things were nice--it was fun and it was my first "real" job. I had held the supervisor job for about a year and a quarter when the Big Boss decided to expand the company. This coincided with his ten year lease coming to its expiration date. Basically, the Big Boss, with growth and expansion in mind, wanted to create a new phone room for his Data Collection department to free up space in the original office for new professional staff. There was some talk of renting out the floor below and turning it into a much larger phone center. The problem was, the rent was going to be raised on the original office significantly. The Big Boss wanted to expand his empire, but didn't want to pay its rent. Looking around the city, the Big Boss couldn't find a single off-site location for a new phone center for which he was willing to pay the rent. After putting off the decision for quite some time, he ultimately decided to bring in a corporate expert--the Mormon.

Apparently, the Mormon was really, really good at business stuff. He was being groomed to take over the company.

The Mormon decided that the best solution to expansion for new staff and high rent would be to outsource the Data Collection work (formerly the heart of the company), and to focus on analysis and consulting work.

This meant the end of my department. Fortunately, the Big Boss, perhaps out of the goodness of his heart, decided to keep two supervisors and a small staff of interviewers so that we could continue to do some Data Collection work on site. We were doing some long term projects, and the changes in data collection results would most likely have been noticeable to our clients if we had sent that work to an outside Data Collection firm--everyone does things a little differently. (It's really, really bad to outsource work when you emphasize an internal Data Collection department in your marketing.)

The supervisors made sure to let the interviewers know what was coming, and most of them left (for the most part, just the ones we didn't really want stayed around). For some reason, the powers that be let the Girlfreind go and kept me. Another supervisor had already expressed an interest in leaving--he was let go for obvious reasons. M. was kept on as well, even though he was brand new.

Nobody knows exactly why M. and I were kept and the Girlfriend was let go. It could have been arbitrary, it could have been based on her salary in comparison to ours, it could have been because she was an "emotional" (and female) supervisor. I think it was all three.

This was around the holidays, too. It wasn't right. I kept my job (but not before telling the Mormon off--something foolish for which I am still proud).

M. worked the days and I worked the nights. I can very honestly and with 20/20 hindsight say that I played a large role in saving the Data Collection department (i.e. jobs. Mine included). I did a really, really, really, really, really good job. Things started to expand for my department again. I let my staff grow with it. I did all of the hiring, all of the training, and all of the administrative work (much, much better). I had no assistant--if I took a day off, we would have had to cancel an entire shift (never happened). We also couldn't fit as many interviewers as necessary for the projects we were taking. I worked a massive amount of overtime. There were times when I had two or three days off in a MONTH.

Things really started picking up and it was also obvious that the Big Boss regretted his decision. He described M. and I as "co-managers."

Then, R. got back after her maternity leave ended. All hell broke loose. Things were going well, but she decided to tweak things. What was originally considered my sweat and blood overtime sacrifice to the company became me being greedy and trying to bilk the company for overtime. Not good times.

Bad times.

M. got the Manager job, and I got the consolation prize. Which is fine. He's my boss (I end up making more than him on good weeks), but he doesn't give me any shit because he knows what's up. Things are going much better for me lately. I've been doing a very job consistently since the layoffs. Perception has changed back and forth--sometimes I'm seen as a valuable and integral (sometimes underappreciated) part of the company. Sometimes not.

It's the most boring rollercoaster ride ever built.

And now the circle is closing in. The next move (apparently) is to build a brand new data collection department EXACTLY like the old one.

So I never got to tell the story of the Mormon's apology. Believe me, it wasn't about this whole wacky ordeal. In fact, he apologized for threatening to fire me over a minor incident that resulted from a technology error that had nothing to do with me, and went on to blame R. for the whole thing (the one that cracked down on me).

The Moonfaced Mormon, who wanted to (and almost did) destroy my department, who threatened to fire me as if he was threatening to switch long distance carriers, who still refuses to acknowlege the fact that interviewers actually work in "his" company... is a joke. And everyone knows it.

So I guess we have gone full circle.