I've been working freelance while studying and I have to admit that while having the recompense for the necessary effort and trouble is great, it is often at the expense of my sanity, with certain incidents illustrating the foibles associated with human incompetence and a need to rid oneself of blame so as to keep one's job despite that ineptness.
Being a contract writer, the onus is often on me to schedule appointments for interviews and photoshoots, and of course, it brooks no delay as any holdup in the whole process means that the stress increases for the people in the back end, who have to clear the final article. And when the stress gets too great they become very unpleasant people to deal with. Since they have a tendency to call very late, it is really in everyone's best interests to keep relations cordial.
Unfortunately, most companies have this person in the payroll that is a testament to why you should be more discerning during job recruitment exercises. They are so bad at executing orders that if you were to ask them to make coffee for you, they would use coffeemix but forget to add water, and deliver the subsequent product to the wrong person.
They would then proceed to blame someone else for it, saying that it was not their fault that the office pantry had run out of hot water, and that it was really the cleaner who had moved the cup during her cleaning rounds.
Of course, the only reason such people are still in their jobs is, they have certain skills that make their extermination from the workforce very difficult. Like cockroaches, they have simple structures and limited ability, but hell, no matter how hard you swat them they never seem to die. Sometimes, it helps that they disgust you so much you don't even want to swat or go near them.
Having said so much, I shall now relate one incident. I was commissioned an article, and given two weeks to do it up. Normally, two weeks would be a luxury to someone like me, because I'm used to working on two hour deadlines.
Unfortunately, as this is an ad, I have to make sure that the stuff I'm writing is approved by the client. Even more unfortunately, since it is an ad, I have to let them choose an intervieweee for me, and the interview has to be at a time of their own choosing.
Do you see a problem? Probably not, so I'll highlight it for you. The problem is, the whole process is kickstarted by the PR department of the advertiser, and if the PR is a cockroach, the son of a cockroach, or just a cock, nothing can get done! And it looks really bad on me, because it appears that I'm holding up the process by not getting the PR to move his or her fat ass off the supply chain.
So, this PR that I was dealing with, she took the liberty of being uncontactable for days. And despite my best attempts to reach her by phone, sms or email, she remained so. As I watched my two week deadline tick away, I felt it necessary to inform my superiors that she was being a dipshit.
This dipshit then had the cheek to call me back a day later, asking why I had got the company to pressure her for not doing her job. Well played, but I'm not interested in your petulant Hobbesian displays. You are free to do anything you wish, except not answer my calls because you are paid to do that, dipshit, and society is an amalgamation of individuals cooperating to further their own self interests. You do your job so I can do mine, and we both get paid without getting screwed.
But of course, with me being the civil professional, I simply requested with some urgency that she get the ball rolling. She did do so, but she arranged a photoshoot for me only after the final deadline, and the interview slightly before that, leaving me just one day to write everything out. All I could tell her was, she was cutting everything a bit late, but she insisted that it was the best she could do. Obviously, my bosses wouldn't have any of that, so they went ahead and sent the unapproved drafts for print.
And on the next morning, the shit obviously hit the fan. The draft was full of mistakes, and they had used the wrong picture. The PR then had the cheek to call me asking why I hadn't waited for her amended and approved copy. Well, have you ever seen a newspaper wait for an advertiser?
In the first place, she was uncontactable and slow. And she started saying that this was not the way to do things, that I was irresponsible because now her job was in jeopardy and someone had to be accountable for the mistake (aka not her because she created this mess and she's useless but you cannot let her bosses know). She even had the audacity to claim that she was always contactable, when she had just missed my call on the night of the deadline itself to check errors in the copy since she was taking forever to get back.
In my opinion, if you work in the public relations department, and you cannot keep yourself contactable, what kind of relations with the public are you looking to build? The frosty kind?
The PR, also known as dipshit, then took her argument up with my bosses directly, which resulted in them and her calling me and ruining my whole Saturday morning from 7am to 12 noon to clarify the whole mess, and since it was the first day of my recess, it left me more than a little pissed.
I could not even sleep in on the first day of recess, and on top of that, I had to deal with the Machivellian power plays between both sides, and the spinning of intricate yarns of deceit as she sought to pin blame on anyone except herself. She even tried pinning the blame on me, except that I had everything in black and white that showed that it was her who had held up the whole process. FML.
The good thing about school is, if a person is lazy and stupid, they get a fail grade. The bad thing is, these people will still eventually come out into the workplace, where there is no fail grade. These people will also have evolved survival mechanisms, to make their otherwise routine extermination a very challenging process indeed.
I haven't heard from the PR since Saturday, so I'm going to assume that all is well. But definitely not taking up any more assignments for now thanks.
