so i heard back from work today and i am extremely upset.

my boss is mad that i am not doing the newsletter this month. he has a very unique view of the world and everyone has to accomodate him. he apparently has been "upset" that i have been "so difficult to contact" and thinks that i have had no interest in doing any work for the place. this is in spite of the fact that i have answered every single one of his emails and tried to get intouch with him and others in the shop when i heard nothing. in the past i've made concrete offers to do work, on the newsletter and on several other projects, and he has reacted enthusiastically and agreed to send me the files to work on these projects and then he never followed through, on each and every occasion. i know he didn't forget because he reacts to things immediately and keeps a daily log with a to do list, most of the things he would normally have responded to immediately with a forwarded email. so at those times his lack of following through was a conscious decision for whatever reason. but now I'm the one who "appears as if i don't want to do any work" and the guy who filled me in on this says it is due to lack of communication on both sides. i have gone out of my way to try to be in touch even when i was at my worst and gave up when i recieved no responses from anyone in the shop so don't lay this on me.

as for the immediate newsletter issue, here's the play. back in october i offered (concretely) to work on the newsletter from home, and he answered me (i have the email) thanking me and promising to send the stories for the letter when they were ready, which should have been in two weeks. i heard nothing from him, the newsletter was done on time (so he wasn't waiting around for me and then took other action, if his email was lost or something) and i was removed from the email list so i didnt even receive it. (i found it on my own on the company website).

when i spoke with the other guy from work (the "first guy" noted in previous messages) the topic of the newsletter came up and i told him about the events from october and apparently andy didn't want me working on it for whatever reason. i also told this first guy that this was in the past and my intention wasn't to make an issue of it. that was a little more than a week ago. this week the newsletter is due again, and i know that noone there likes working on it, so this first guy brought up to the boss that maybe i would be interested in working on it again. the boss misinterpreted this (as he always does) to mean that the guy had spoken with me and that an agreement was made for me to work on this newsletter, so the boss fired off the email with the files to me, which of course was a total surprise to me, because i hadn't even made another real offer to do the newsletter i was only relating past disappointment.

so i sent the email back explaining that i couldn't do it on short notice but maybe next month.

i hear today from the other guy at work (the third person in this story, my other friend there) that he realizes that the boss misinterpreted the events, but nevertheless in his mind i had screwed him once more by promising to do the newsletter and then backing out. this third guy (lest you are not keeping score, he hasn't answered my emails nor tried to make contact with me on his own for the past three months) suggests that because the lack of communication is "on both ends" and since the boss has tunnel vision that it is up to me to contact the boss and explain to him that i would work on the newsletter next month. (which of course i did say in my previous email).

while that would be the wise thing to do under the circumstances i am completely fed up with the whole situation. i am really really suffering here, struggling to cope with each day on my own, and have no desire to take on the task of explaning myself, or defending myself, or feeling like I am expected to be the one to tiptoe around a "delicate situation" especially when i have been forthcoming in the past and that doesn't count for anything. why should i think that future attempts would be any different?

do we have that anger forum yet?

i am so upset i haven't eaten or taken meds or anything yet today i am completely beside myself. the boss is out of town for a few days not that i necessarily want to say anything to him. i sent a long email to the "third guy" explaining my point of view and i just hope i didn't upset him.

-- The world is what we make of it --
-- Dave
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