Where’s my witness? ***edit****

My mind is overflowing with things right now BUt I have to calm down and process them one at a time.

Today is well. Nothing too bad has come upon me. A little work stress but hey who doesn’t have that.

I AM a little petrified because I opened up to a coworker about how I feel about some things. I hate opening up to people. I never realized this but I think I have trust issues with people. I never ever open up to people unless I can completely trust them and even still I won’t reveal everything. I’m a little nervous because I feel like she’s going to tell people my business and how I REALLY feel about this place. Not that I bad mouthed anybody or anything it was just general conversation but still I feel a little nervous.

Opening myself up to OD has been a tremendous leap in faith in very many aspects of my life. I’ve had hair journals and weightloss journals and it’s been pretty transparent but there are deeper issues that I am working through that I sometimes am reluctant to tell but on OD I let every thought that processes I try to get out. I guess this a part of the healing and revealing process *shrugs*.

Okay so at work this is the situation……. I have went into detail somewhat about this but I’ll reveal more. My boss is in Belgium working from a corporate helpdesk, I am the Local helpdesk for 3 locations here in the US. I AM THE IT DEPARTMENT,  there is no one else here to help me,  it’s just me in a nutshell. When I was hired into the company I was taking the place of an employee that was being let go because of downsizing. There is one guy onsite here that has been with the company for over 18 years and he knows EVERYTHING about the IT but his job description was never explained to me. The guy that was being let go had an IT director that he reported to onsite at his current job. Although my boss was in Belgium the guy that was left here ended up training me on many different things.

Now when I was hired on it was made known to the company that I would be the new IT person and that the guy that has worked with the company 18 years whose title was never explained would NO LONGER be doing IT work. Instead he would become a corporate trainer on software…okay fine. Well my boss comes to the US for 1 week, my very first week working here to train me in which she NEVER trained me. She showed me how to create and handle the ticketing system (which by the way NOBODY uses),  and she taught me how to go out to eat EVERYDAY for lunch. she introduced me to tons of people whom I would barely even remember their names,  and she taught me(rather she let me watch her do it) how to deploy pcs. Then she went home to Belgium and said there ya go now you can work.

The guidlines were that associate that’s been with the company for 18 years at the end of the month would no longer be bothered with IT stuff he was to work in his new position no questions asked ?!?!

Now as soon as my boss left I had issues left and right I had no idea what I was doing so I would ask the coworker. He would help me then proceed to train me on alot of different functions but he had this annoying little way of answering all of my questions with the history of the company and all the positions that he’s held and how HE would do it if HE were in control .  Word gets out that he has been training me on issues outside of our 1 month period that I had to learn the systems the phone systems,  the filing (which NONE of this stuff was EVER documented), and he gets yelled at for helping me and it is clearly made known to him that if I have questions or need training that I can call Belgium and contact my Boss who is usually out travelling to other sites,  not answering her emails, or just out right ignoring me. I naturally  freak out ! How am I supposed to learn how to do this stuff where there is no documentation because no one ever took the time to document?  I can’t communicate with coworker because he is supposed to do this new job and there is no help. Shortly thereafter the guy who was let go from his position’s Boss gets let go? Guess who has to take the brunt of the IT director’s work in the US? Yeah you guessed it…me. Shortly after that  another coworker that I work closely with in the other location gets let go . Now I’m really freaking out. So I am trying my best to contact Belgium for help but Belgium is 6 hours ahead of me so they are leaving the office by 11:30AM my time. So I think, " well what am I supposed to do from 12-5Pm twiddle my thumbs?" and I ask my boss this and she states if it’s business critical to call the after hours cell phone for help but if not it can wait until tomorrow.

Well, come to find out coworker and my boss don’t get along as a matter of fact I don’t even think they like each other. So since Belgium was CLEARLY not training me I went to coworker for help. He slips up one day and tells me that my progress on the job is making him nervous  and he doesn’t want to teach me everything he knows because he’s afraid that their going to fire him! All I’m worried about is doing my job and not compromising the security of this company I ain’t on all of that yanno? But the more we train I began to discern somethings…. he would only teach me bits and pieces of information instead of completely how to handle issues. Then he has these magnificent epiphanies about things that he wants to incorporate that he was never able to do when HE was in IT. This is adding extra pressure on me and he already knows this because he knows EXACTLY what I do. Well then comes the big issue about this laptop.  A user in a remote location needs a new laptop in a dept because their’s is slowly dying. I think Cool no problem we have plenty here and I go to set it up. Coworker has been looking at my tickets and I am completely unaware of this, and he comes over because he has a suggestion. He thinks since the dept is heavy moving and things that the user needs an industrial laptop because a standard laptop would be broken within a week,  that’s how he’s always done it and if it were him he’d push for that although the last time we purchased one 5 years ago it was 2000.00 dollars. So I have to tell my boss that we need to purchase this laptop. I go and look it up online and the laptop is 5000.00 . Ofcourse she kicks it back saying there is no way we are paying that much for a laptop seeing as how we have plenty standards in stock. So I break the news to the user and he states they don’t use an industrial laptop anyways,  they’ve used a standard laptop for the last 3-4 years with no problems it’s just dying cause it’s old. Strike one against coworker . Then the user states that he doesn’t want the laptop to be on the network it is a standalone laptop that they use for testing I tell boss this she gives me a suggestion for the type of laptop to send and onc

e again coworker snoops into my info and he FEELS the user absolutely CANNOT use an off  network pc,  if it goes down how will we fix it it’s on the user (fine by me lol). Out of consideration for his seniority and expertise I say okay lets try seeing how the user will react. User is dead set against it because they only need it for testing.  Coworker goes back and forth with me on this so  I send my boss an email (since coworker is not allowed to speak to her because he’s not supposed to be in the department) with HIS suggestions. I get no response and coworker is in my ear to atleast call her and blah blah blah. I call her and I tell her "look,  I’m putting you and coworker on a conference call and yall can fight this out", I get literally chewed out with the , "first of all’s ,  secondlie’s, and thirdly’s". I tell coworker and he is pissed,  he’s in a rage because , " who does she think she is to tell me I shouldn’t ‘ve had anything to say about it cause I’m no longer in this department, does she think she’s smarter than me" and all this other hoo hah. Then he turns to me and says, " well what do you think?"

So I told him,  I completely understand your stance,  and I completely understand her boundaries, but you are putting me in a very awkward position. Now, my boss just chewed me out because of an idea that wasn’t even mines. When I came into this company it was made very clear to me that I would not have alot of creative control,  I understood that and now when I go to my boss with your ideas in her eyes I am contradicting myself. I’ve only been with this company for 3 months and at your disposal when I go to my boss I’m making all of these decisions that completely goes against what she wants me to do. I am the middle man in everything and I don’t like it.

His response was, "well I’m just so sick of the bureacrisy(sp),  and politics and I feel that good customer service is that if a user has an issue we shouldn’t have to keep placing them on hold to go through corporate to resolve their issues if we know how to do it we should be able to handle it but every since this company bought us out 10 years ago (back to the history) and I was in hoity toity position ,   I wouldn’t have stood for this and blah blah blah womp womp womp ( I began tuning him out by then lol). "

 

****edit*** Oh yeah I forgot to tell you guys coworker is so in a rage that he went to the CFO of the company to complain about it LOL! Then He tried to go over the CFO’s head to the COO. MInd you they are all OUT OF THE BELGIUM OFFICE. They all know my boss VERY well and speak with her on multiple occasion and their…. well their Belgian,  ummm so whose side do you think their gonna be on? Instantly when he told me that the first thing I could think was " he’s going to get fired".. man the way they are cutting peoples jobs back around here and he is meddling in an affair that has nothing to do with him.  ******

So he gets upset and takes 2 vacation days to go to a techie geek convention somewhere that’s he’s raving about.

I tell yall those were the 2 most relaxing stress free days of my life for the company. And then he took off monday too. Once again relaxation and stress free. Thank you Jesus!

Tuesday he comes back and I not one time asked him for help I’ve decided that has got to stop I don’t care if it takes me 2 weeks to figure out resolutions I’m not going to him anymore,  he stresses me out.

Well in all of this I was thinking about my witness and examining myself and since I’ve been here there has been no LIGHT in my spirit. Whenever I get to work I’m stressed or wanting to go in my shell and not talk to anybody which is normally what I do. Yeah I’ve got a big ole sign over my desk saying "SMILE GOD IS IN CONTROL" but my actions are always stressed, tired, and sarcastic. And I’m thinking God Where is my witness? Most days I get off from work and I run until it is time to go to bed and I haven’t been able to pick up my bible until I get to church. I’ve been oversleeping and not communing with God in the morning for the past 4 months  , I mean I get up and pray but it’s not like I want to do, Imean like Get in God’s face and love on him and talk to him and intercede. I can only do that when we go to church cause that is the only time my hectic whirlwind life slows down.  AS I was thinking about this on my lunch I sat in the car and listened to my christian station (the gospel stations got shut down), and there was an inspirational speaker that spoke and put somethings into my spirit and I began to think, " My God,  where is my witness? Do people even see my light around here? I’m always so busybody and stressed can they see it?" So i go to sit and ponder it and another coworker I’ll call her sweetness sees me and beckons me over. And I think hey God maybe I can witness or just fellowship with her (don’t ask why just an impulse thought). So I go sit with her and we talk and I just break down and tell her about things at the job (basically the above) and she gives me encouraging words. BTW I had to tell her thanks because when I started working here she was the ONLY SINGLE SOLITARY person that would come up to me and say, " I was just stopping by to say hi. well hi " then leave. Everyone else it was always a catch or they’d try to butter me up to get me to work on an issue that they had. I told her she didn’t know how much that meant to me and she was shocked because she thought she was bothering me. I told her no she was fine.

And now I’m nervous and I hope what I told her doesn’t become a topic of office gossip

 

I know it seems silly but I am really serious about it.

Well thanks for your eyes if you read all of that lol.