Wow. Today I realized just how much I DON'T want to work at the place I have been working as a temp for the last 3 months. I went back and forth at first, when permenant positions came available, as to whether or not I could handle this being my life for a while. Sure, there are perks. No one seems to pay attention to you if you step out, leave late or stay late, flex your schedule to meet your needs a bit. You can wear jeans. There is always someone baking all night and bringing in tons of awesomely bad-for-you treats the next day. There is soda on tap. And coffee. And occasional free nice lunches. And the Xmas party was some place I would never go on my own, could not afford, and I drank effen vodka all night for free.
Then there are the lamenesses. Everyone is really dull and boring and from the suburbs. I still don't know half the peoples' names. My boss is a psycho hose beast. I can't look at the internet for more than 5 seconds, and most of the sites I wanna see are "Surf Alert Blocked!" I stuff envelopes all damn day and have the paper cuts to show for it. I feel like I am being judged secretly all the time. It's stupid work. blah blah blah.

But today...
Today really sealed the deal for me.

Yesterday my boss wanted me to stuff more Xmas cards. This entails me folding pre-signed cards from the President, sticking in a 150 dollar gift card (which I don't get as a temp and which makes me more bitter with each envelope I stuff), and sealing them into an envelope, then labeling all the envelopes. I thought we were done with the mass mailing Friday (the entire office took time out to power horse through them) but apparently the Toronto and Vancouver restaurants were still cardless. So, thankful to have something to do where I could read a book and mindless work my hands at the same time, I sat down and pushed through them quickly in order to please the boss lady.
I did notice that these particular cards were not signed by the Prez. They had her name printed in boldfaced type though, so I assumed we had run out of signed ones and who cares cuz its just the Canadians and the cards weren't even labeled personally anyway. The whole thing stunk of impersonality either way, so I just did what she told me, ignoring the urge to double check about the lack of signature. After I complete the task, there is this whole annoying misunderstanding due to my boss's lack of competancy about who and how they are to be mailed. Finally, the sweet office manager tells us it is complicated to mail to Canada so she will just take care of it for us. Very kind. Very Xmas spirit of her.
WHOOPS...

Today my boss comes barreling up to me (like she does) and says in her typical frantic spaz voice, "Did those cards I gave you yesterday have (nameless president here)'s signature on them?"

Mid-filing, I paused and stared at her with my best confused face, pondering whether or not to tell her the truth. Acting like I was really having to think back when I knew the answer was clearly NO, IDIOT! YOU GAVE ME BLANK CARDS AND NOW I KNOW YOU ARE GOING TO THINK I AM AN IDIOT TOO BECAUSE I DIDN'T NOTICE BUT I DID I JUST DIDN'T CARE!

So I finally say slowly, with much debate in my vocal quality, "I don't...think so. I would have to say no, I don't think they were."

She runs to check if they have been sent, and of course, our always-on-top-of-her-shit office manager has already taken care of it. They went out last night.

Then bossy lady comes back and raves about how we can't let them open them. "I have to get a hold of them and tell them not to open them," she mumbles crazily, "And (president) isn't here till tomorrow, so we can't send and new ones and..." she trails off, honestly looking like she is going to cry. Seriously.
"Sorry," I say, mustering up whatever ounce of sympathy I can find for something so stupidly trivial.
"Oh, its not your fault," she says. No shit.

I feel slightly bad about ignoring my urge earlier to question the lack of signature, but I let that go because honestly, its so incredibly idiotic to care at this point. In fact, why does SHE care?

"Her name is still on the cards," I offer. But she is too far gone at this point to recognize logic. All her tiny suburb-raised brain can comprehend is that these people, these Canadians so far away, with no other restaurant nearby to compare cards with, aren't going to have a shitty fake signature (which the president's assistant probably did for her anyway) on their mass produced, generic Xmas cards with 150 gift certificates inside them.

"Yeah, but..." she is at a loss. She proceeds to get to her office and return with a stack of cards that do have the signature on them. "These are left from the other mailing," she explains. "Just stuff these and we'll have enough for Vancouver at least."
She shoves them in my hands and I resist my intense desire to shake her. What I would say if I could would be:

WHO CARES???
These people are going to laugh at the attempt at personalizing, tear open the card, grab the gift card in glee and throw the remaining signed card away immediately. Then they will wearliy return to table 8 and ask if they need more iced tea. That's it. Seriously. I KNOW!!!

When I overheard my boss in near tears asking everyone in the office for advice about her predicament, and when said individuals all seemed to take her situation really seriously and offer the best advice they could, I realized right then and there that I could never stay here permenantly. I could not deal with small things like that being of vital importance. Perhaps that makes my boss more successful than I will ever be--her desire to be anally retentive about EVERYTHING. But I think I will be aware of things that are worth stressing about, and perhaps my blood pressure will be lower and I will live longer. Who knows.
And to think I get upset when I have to put more money into my car I don't drive. I freak out sometimes about that. Really. But even that looks valid compared to the ado I witnessed today.

Tis the season, people.
To get a grip.