Attention Seekers

As any person who has ever worked in a management field knows, you invariably end up with at least one individual working for you who is a constant attention seeker. It does not matter who you are talking to, where you are standing, or what you are doing, they will go out of their way to interrupt you for the silliest of excuses.

Unfortunately, most of my teams are comprised of such individuals.

I start my day each and every day bombarded by the attention seekers from the minute I step through the door. 10 steps into the building I already know who has talked about who behind their back, who has come to work with alcohol on their breath, who has been working while everyone else has just been screwing around, who has received an email that has ticked them off, and who has had financial/medical burdens befall them and 'I' need to find a way to work with their schedule.

To be honest, it pisses me off.

Just once I would like to make it to my desk, take my jacket off and hang it on the hook, then return to my desk and boot up my computer without someone attached to my hip unleashing their burdens on me.

Thank God I have Sophia, I still have no idea how she can sit there and listen to me grumble all the time.

For some reason, today seems to be worse then most days.

Because of corporate spending limitations, our incoming package count has been very erratic. Some days we have a ton of stuff that needs to be received, others, I have so little I worry that I can even keep one receiver busy for the entire day.

On the light days, I am forced to loan out people. Yesterday I had chosen to loan out The Scavenger. She was not happy. Apparently she had felt that since she had 17 years with the company she was exempt from the need to be managed by another individual.

Forced to give her an attitude adjustment, I simply stated to her that she was going to work in prep and I didn't care if the girls in the prep area told her they had no work, I had spoken to their boss, and she GUARANTEED me they did.

The look on her face was priceless.

Needless to say, this morning the Scavenger became one of the attention seekers. In a desperate attempt to make herself appear busy so she would not need to be loaned out she has begun to grasp at straws and dredge old failed projects to make her look industrious and necessary in receiving today.

I can't help but chuckle to myself at how obvious she is.

So, here I sit, at my desk, with the Scavenger coming up to me every 5 minutes to talk about 'how' we should be scrapping something out of the system and should she contact the accounts payable department.

I want to throttle her.

In my politest yet most authoritative tone, I tell her she is expending time and energy on something that does not need to be evaluated. She needs to stop. GQ has set up a meeting and is WORKING the issue.

It continues on.

Several minutes later she comes back and asks the exact same question. This time I had to tell her, point blank, to let it drop. The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, she is NOT to think about it again.

While she has not approached my desk in over an hour, I have reason to believe she is still consumed with that 'problem'.

Then there is Misery. Misery is a chronic complainer who is not satisfied unless she has something to bitch about.

Seeing that the Scavenger had given me a break for a moment, Misery had made herself at home. Of all the things to be complaining about, Misery had chosen to complain about her coworker who had been driving her insane because she would not leave her alone.

It was all I could do to NOT laugh.

There I sat, listening as Misery complained about the exact crime in which she was complaining about, while Hedda Hopper interrupted to seek some attention of her own.

If I could just get my hands on one of those invisibility cloaks.......