hy.per.ven.til.ating.

I am now the queen. In the queen’s office, with the queen’s responsibilities.

And having a very un-queenly panic attack.

No, no, I’m fine!! I’m not stressing out, not at all! I’m not worried about being the one who is supposed to know all the answers like the two previous queens who knew all the answers because they were in this job for, oh, thirty years! While I’ve been here, let’s see..10 months. I’m not having to fight the urge to dive under my desk every time the phone rings!! Not at all – that would be silly! And very un-queenlike. And my mind is certainly not going blank when I’m asked one kind of weird question about PE transfer credits that made me completely overlook the obvious and easy answer and think I had to email all kinds of people to find out the answer which I didn’t see because it was too obvious and easy. Fortunately I did realize I knew the answer – and it was obvious and easy – before I emailed all sorts of people and demonstrated my un-queenish lack of common sense.

And I’m not spending one second worrying about what will become of Draaaama Queen. And how I’m probably going to be the one who ends up having to fire her. Because Draaaama Queen has now been written up twice. She’s received two letters outlining her serious shortcomings in the areas of attendance and personal phone calls. The second said this behavior WILL stop. She got the second one during her review Friday. On Tuesday and again on Thursday she came in several hours late. With the excuse that her child was sick. In the past it’s been that she didn’t hear the alarm or was up all night and needed to get some sleep or whatever. Now she’s using the Sick Kid card, because nobody is going to say, "Oh, yeah, sure your kid is sick! Riiiiiight!!!"

Well, apparently if it comes to it, we can start requiring her to have doctor’s notes. So I may have to look into that. And of course I’m sure her kid IS sick sometimes. She’s a kid. They’re always getting sick. But I also think it can be a very handy excuse for being late. The really odd thing is that her mom is very sick – she was diagnosed with cancer a couple of months ago and has been having chemo and is in and out of the hospital, yet Draaama Queen has not once missed any work because of her mom. Which is something nobody would even question the validity of.

So what I am going to do is continue to document her comings and goings, and if she keeps being late, even with the Sick Kid Excuse, I’ll have to talk to the dean about what to do next. The really really good thing is that the dean is WONDERFUL. She’s a fantastic boss, and I don’t doubt for a second that she will both give me excellent advice and back me up. She’s been in on the whole thing previously, and told D to write the second letter after the Day Long Creditors On The Phone Drama last week. Or whenever it was. So, I have support.

Right now they’re trying to fill my position so it’s just me and Draaama Queen, and this would be a very bad time to fire her. Today she’s behaving very well. She was a few minutes late, but called and was trying to find a parking spot, and I knew that was valid because I’d taken the last one. Apparently a street is being paved and we’re getting a lot of overflow parkers. And none of us realized it would affect us so she can be excused for not leaving earlier to allow space hunting time.

ANYHOW. The good thing is that I now have this very very nice office, at the back of the building, away from any noise of people coming and going, and best of all I can’t hear Aggravation Receptionist’s constant phone chatter. Oh, and another good thing is that one isn’t my problem. I’m not her boss so her slackassedness is just irritating and not something I have to deal with. I also have a window, not quite as big and nice as my old one, but I get some sky and part of a dorm and a bank with bushes and decorative stones. I can also still see out my old window by looking down the hall – where Draaama Queen is now. AND she can’t play online like she’s used to, because I can very easily walk up behind her and see what she’s doing because that office has two entrances – it’s like a maze in here.

And I need to get back to work. Because I do have quite a few things to do. I just needed to make it clear that I am in no way about to have a nervous breakdown. And I’m SURE I’ll be FINE. I won’t fall apart or screw completely up and get fired and end up eating out of the McDonalds dumpster!! No, no, I won’t die insane and penniless and homeless and curling up with the mad and hungry cats in an abandoned refrigerator box!! I’m sure that would NEVER happen.