So once again...work is hitting rock bottom for me. Though I did have Jess, who I adore and who has been with the company for 7+ years, working alongside me for the past 3 months, once again, she has been screwed over to the point that she is giving her notice in the next couple days. This is now going to leave me with another associate who can't function properly in the role that he has been given full time, and a supervisor who can't function in his position at all. Once again, I have a sinking suspicion that it is going to fall to me to make sure that my department runs smoothly and efficiently. Despite the fact that I am just an associate, and that I have only been in position for about a year, I am the most senior person in my office at this point. I don't know if that is an accomplishment to be congratulated, or if I'm crazy to have stuck it out this long.
Yesterday was easily one of the worst days I've had. I woke up in a bad mood, and while I know I shouldn't bring that to work with me, it was impossible to avoid once I got there to perk up. I was stressed out and cranky, and then I got into my very first fight with my assistant manager. Let me just say that that is completely uncharacteristic for both of us. We generally get along amazingly. However, I think he was feeling some pressure and was stressed out, and I was definitely stressed out and we clashed.
I was outside having a smoke, and he came out for his break as well. Normally, this isn't a huge deal, he will ask me a few minor work things but otherwise, it's just regular convo. This time, he pretty much laid into me about my lack of follow up on a customer issue for which he had asked me to reorder a part for a customer (which I did minutes after he asked me to, but apparently I should have emailed him to let him know that I did that-- which kind of makes me feel like he doesn't trust me enough to do my job), and then he was getting irritated at me because I haven't learned how to deal with installs. Here's the thing, I have never refused to learn new things, because generally, the more you know, the more invaluable you are. But. I have my own job, with my own responsibilities, that I am struggling to deal with. I used to share my job with 3 people...and now I am left to do it myself. Clearly, I am kept busy all the time. He pretty much insisted that since it is the store's busy season, I should be able to make time to learn another job on top of my own now. I don't get the luxury of having a slow season...
I feel like he doesn't understand that I actually work my ass off. I don't know what he thinks I do all day, but it's clear that he doesn't think I work hard enough (or it was yesterday, anyways). I don't know that I can meet his expectations of me. I get the impression that he needs me to make sure that all facets of the business are taken care of, but I am not the supervisor of my department. I don't WANT to be the supervisor of my department, or of any department in that store based on the way they are treated by customers and upper management. And I do not make nearly enough to be expected to take on the responsibilities that I think he expects-- though I've been told that there are no "off-cyle" raises.
Regardless, we left on fairly bad terms yesterday, and he was off today. I know through other sources that he has had a pretty bad week this week, and I do actually feel bad for the way I reacted. It was immature and unprofessional, and I was snotty to him. But he did the same to me. I think we both needed that person to vent to, and we just bounced everything off of each other. It's both good and bad...We are very similar in personality in a lot of respects, we both have high expectations of others and get frustrated when they aren't met. We take things too personally. Unfortunately, we both kind of exploded all at the same time, and once again, I left work in tears.
So we'll likely need to talk tomorrow. I'd like to offer an apology for the way I reacted, and I hope for the same from him. I'm sure we'll be ok by tomorrow. And hopefully things in general will be ok. I'm pessimistic about that, but I have to hold on to the notion that things can't get worse.
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