Bow to Me… I Rule… Or so I Thought…

They’re calling me the Queen at work. I know, it sounds ugly, but I started it and it’s become a joke. (It is very fitting, come to think of it, knowing who Boudicca was and all...) When someone disagreed with me today I could hear some cube rat say, “Off with their heads!”

It’s because I hate training. And I hate people making me do things I don’t want to do. I get this attitude where I glare them down, cross my arms, dig my heels in and say, “No. I don’t want to. And YOU can’t MAKE me.” Nice, eh? You’d think I’d grow up. But at some point in time, I just got tired of the proverbial corporate crap I was constantly having to take and developed ‘attitude’.

It happened during the pregnancy of my 3rd child, although it may have been before I just don’t remember it. Perhaps it was a “I’m creating life, dammit, hear me ROAR!” thing. Who the hell knows? All I know, is suddenly I didn’t want to play by anyone’s rules anymore. I had kids, a husband, a house, a job, someone was always wanting something from me and I was sick of giving… giving up, giving in… all of the above. I was sick of not being the Mistress of her own Ship on all aspects of my life… tired of it all.

At my old company, they said we all HAD TO HAVE 40 hours of training a year. I called BS on them. I only worked 20 hours a week and they wanted 2 weeks of my time for training? I had a job to do and quite frankly, I no longer wanted to expand my horizons or anything else, my hips and abs had been expanded enough. I wanted nothing new in my life. Leave me the hell alone, let me do my job. Dammit. So somehow I seemed to fly under the radar, doing just enough training to get by… and not really being noticed as they were in the midst of constant lay offs and preparing to close the plant.

So now, for the last four years, not being monetarily employed, I have been ruling my roost. I make the rules in this house, my husband isn’t home enough to create the structure, and I do it all… doctors appointments, food shopping, cooking, nuturing, tutoring, carpooling, signing them up for extra curricular activities… and… I listen to no one. Nope. Nobody. Sure, major things I talk to my spouse about when he’s at home, like whether or not it is time to buy a car, but for the most part, I just run the house by myself. (Except for the damn social crap he keeps making me attend, but we won’t go there.)

But… but… but… now I am working FOR someone again. And I get an e-mail from my company and it says something about ‘Compliance training software issues’ and I think, ‘I’m part time, forget that’ and… I blow it away. About two hours later, something is nagging me in the back of my mind and I walk down the hall to the freezing cube farm and say to my boss, ‘Uhhh, does that compliance training crap apply to me?’ to which he laughs and says,

“Oh yes it does, my dear. You must have the first 3 completed by 10 March or you lose your job.”

And so it goes:

Me: Me? I have to?

Boss: Yup.

Me: Are you sure because last I looked, I only worked 10 hours a week and that is barely part time. I mean, me?

Boss: Yup. You’ll be terminated if you don’t do it.

My friend who hired me: (laughing)

Boss: there is a password…

Me: A password? Oh crap.

Friend: You blew that e-mail away didn’t you.

Me: Umm. Probably. Me? ARE YOU SURE *I* have to take this training?

Boss and Friend almost simultaneously: YES!

Me: But… I’ve been the Queen for the last 4 years, running my own castle with three kids… Crap. You’re serious. I have to do this, don’t I?

Boss: Yup. If you have to, e-mail HQ and they’ll send you a new password.

Friend: Do that as a last resort. I don’t think it’s cool to call HQ and tell them you blew away the e-mail for mandatory training for all employees because you didn’t think it applied to you.

Me: This sucks. I can’t believe *I'm* being MADE to do something.

Friend: Off with their heads!!!

I found my compliance training password. For some reason I hadn’t blown that e-mail away. Thank you to the Gods of Boudicca’s Universe… I didn’t have to call HQ in shame.

This sucks. I really really want to dig my heels in and say, “You can’t make me!”… but they can. They have the upper hand. This sucks.