Valuable lessons about office...politics.

Today during my annual review I learned an important lesson about office politics-which I hope to impart to you through this entry.....

It all began several weeks ago when "Supervisor M" asked me if I might be able to fill out several award certificates(that she had printed out from a website I provided her with) for our department's upcoming Peer Recognition Awards ceremony. As I was in the midst of dealing with a HUGE, career changing deadline in half the time I had been originally given , I told her that regretfully I would not be able to do it. (Thinking that the task of writing names of a line was something a 5-year-old could do, and that it would not be a problem for her to just ask someone else-maybe one of our data entry people.)

Fast forward to today. Where in a scale of 1 to 4(4 being the best), I scored a 2 in the "Ability to Prioritize" category of my annual review. This being accompanied with a note stating that I had REFUSED to make these certificates for "Supervisor M" and that in the future I really need to learn how to better organize my time.

Then my immediate supervisor told me "Now I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but... newly-promoted "Supervisor M" is a director now and when she, or anyone in her rank asks "us" to do something, "we" really have to do it."

So for those of you who can't see beyond his implication, let me decipher what he was really saying: "When a supervisor asks you to do something-REGARDLESS of how menial-you are to reach for the lube, bend over and let them have their way."

Lesson learned. Guess I better swing by Walgreen's before coming to work next week.