She giveth and then she taketh away

If anyone has seen the comedy show "the office" and has worked in an office for more than a few weeks, they will not be surprised that the amount of irony, sarcasm and double standards that actually take place in a real office make the fore mentioned TV show look positively tame by comparison.

The last week in my office has certainly been one of those weeks as far as I am concerned. Ever since the take over of our company things have been getting steadily worse, and the politics have taken on a more intense and nasty edge.

On my behalf, my boss has agreed that I should take on extra work for our new owners, as their own accounts department has been allowed to leave en mass and although the work load is fairly small, it is still needs doing.

It was primarily accepted on the basis that we at least were guaranteed our Christmas bonus. This might make you feel that she is on my side, or at least our side, as we have many more than two staff in our company but you would be sadly mistaken.

For the same day she completely blocked any chance of the possibility of me taking over the role of head of our companies IT section, with the reply that I am already overworked as it is and do not have the time.

Funny as all of last week I was downstairs in the basement doing archiving to make way for new files and I am head and shoulders more up-to-date for a year end period than ever before. 

This is a double shame as the current role is filled by a lovely middle aged woman who :-

* hates IT,

* has asked to give up the role on many occasions and,

* has only just felt the time is now right to purchased herself a mobile phone in the last few weeks as she didn't want to confuse or bother herself with learning anything new!

Whereas I on the other hand :-

* am in charge of our parent companies Intranet ( a recent addition to my work that did not have a pay rise attached to it I may add! )

* run and update my own blog ( yes, this very one your reading now )

* have at least 5 computers in my house linked for online multi-play gaming and,

* am the only person in the entire company who took and passed computer studies / IT at G.C.S.E. and A-Levels.

Oh, and did I say that on at least two occasions I have managed to fix problems that not even our existing outsourced IT consultancy firm could handle?

It's not that I am bitter, but when you have the current head of IT stumped by a little things like printing directly from a web page, or not even realising that I have already coordinated the entire blackberry / mobile phone swap over beforehand ( so gets all in a tizz and sends out abrupt emails to the staff telling them to organise it themselves cos she won't be doing it !?! ) I can't help but feel that in a "progressive and forward looking company", such as ours, that the IT department should not be left dragging back in the dark ages.

And then what should I hear the very next day? That two other members of staff are being made Associate Directors, both of whom have been working for the company for less time than I have.

But it was the killer comment which came from our MD that really took the proverbial biscuit for me, after he was 'pleased to be able to reward certain members of staff for their hard work and efforts in the last twelve months thus proving themselves worthy ' - or words very close to that effect.

That really left a bad taste in your mouth and left thinking what does an honest guy have to do in this company to get recognised?

Yes a very bad taste indeed, or perhaps that was just me choking on the champagne, after knowing that said newly appointed directors have already been claiming expenses to take clients to "Spearmint Rhino's" and yet I can't even get paid properly for the work that's being foisted upon me.

The sooner some literary agent recognises my writing skills and offers me several great wads of cash for my forthcoming bestsellers the better.