The Thrill of Confrontation.

Yesterday I was totally down. More bored and depressed with work than ever. Today has been much more interesting and invigorating. Apparently all I needed to get me going was a battle.

It started simply enough with an email to my boss asking who was in charge of the old, old intranet website. My boss is a little uhm, excitable. He called me in and proceeded to get bent because decommissioning this site was assigned to the minion probably a year ago. While he was riled up on incomplete tasks he brought out another ongoing item on the minion's plate. Then went balistic over something I was apparently taking in the wrong direction.

But the opponent is not the boss. He just gets like that. You have to learn to take direction in small, violent doses. Nope all this encounter did was make me follow up on a task assigned to the minion. Which, of course he hasn't done anything with because we haven't been poking him. Apparently he prefers management by constant proding.

I ask - what's the status? He sends a very defensive reply bemoaning his overworked status. Of course he sends it to the boss and I - because just responding to me would imply I have some authority (god forbid). The boss emails to all - does it work or not we need to move forward. Minion replies just to boss and includes a whiney bit about why do I want to know what he's working on it would take too much time to account for his time.

Apparently it is time for a little "come to Jesus" meeting. I sent a long agonizingly crafted email on the topic of status and what he's working on and why yes, I need to know because I'm the supervisor. He by-passed me and sent boss an email saying he wasn't going to respond and boss should call him. Bad choice. I've already got the next move planned.

Nothing like a little invigorating conflict to make work more interesting. Plus with a half hour of work I've got the decommissioning probably a third completed. But, you know, he didn't have time to do it because he was too busy.

Silly little man, this bitch bites.