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Last Five Entries
Veteran's Day and an Etiquette Question
2002-01-26 - 11:47 p.m.
Becoming one with the woodwork
Okay, it seems that I'm in trouble again for depending on the people I hired to help out in the office. One of the things I'm responsible for is making travel arrangements. How this works is the person making the trip calls the travel agency and finds out flight information. They give this information to me to be typed on an authorization form. Once the appropriate signatures are obtained, the form is faxed to the travel agency. They fax back a confirmation but I don't ever see it, it goes directly to the traveler.
This past week, three, count 'em three travel authorizations were never received although they had both been faxed. Two were faxed by student workers at my request (or so they assured me). I found out the day before each of those people left, that the forms were never received so the tickets were never issued. The travel agency would be more than happy to get us new tickets at $1,600 per ticket (read $3,200 total). I scrambled around and found them cheaper tickets (about $500 each out of BWI instead of Richmond Airport).
I thought all was well at that point, I was wrong.
I got a phone call from another traveller going to the same conference as the other two. She used a different travel agency and I faxed the form myself (I wrote the date I faxed the form on the bottom of the authorization). I was going to be out for surgery for two days after that (and then for the Christmas Holidays immdiately after that); and askd a co-worker to fax the authorization if it came back from being signed after I left for the day. It came back before i left for the day, so I faxed it myself.
I didn't hear anything about her ticket when I came back from the holidays (this is not unusual, but I was paranoid, since the ticket reservation was done the day before I was out for the holidays and my surgery). On Jan. 8th, I sent an e-mail to the traveller asking if she'd heard anything about her tickets, I got no response. Again, not surprising. I figured she'd let me know if there was a problem. Well, she did. She called me on Friday afternoon from her destination to let me know there was a problem. She went to check in for her flight and found that her tickets had been cancelled because they never received the authorization. The tickets now cost $1,700 and she called to let me know that my boss is (her words "pissed").
Now bear in mind, she never said that he was pissed at ME, or the travel agency, or at life in general.... but I immediately figured he was pissed at me and set about to do damage control.... in short, I panicked like a "big dog". Once I got my facts straight, I sent him an email before I left for the weekend (hoping he'd check his email so I could head off a screaming session on Monday. The email basically explained that I did was I was supposed to do, I have no idea what went wrong, that I emailed the traveler, and etc. I also told him that from this point on, bearing in mind the problems with the other two authorizations that I would no longer depend on my compatriots to fax anything for me, I would do it myself. I would also take the time to contact the travel agencies that I fax to verify verbally that they received the faxes I sent. I apologized for the problems, and told him what I would do to fix the problems on my end. I've been checking my email from a response from him (he sometimes checks his e-mail when he travels), and I've been checking it several times a day this weekend.
I'm not sure what else I can do, but I gotta tell you, with all of the state budget crunch we're going through right now, and all of the rumors of layoffs coming, this is the exact wrong time for this to happen. It wasn't because I wasn't paying attention or because something slipped through the cracks, I honestly believe I did what I needed to do; at the time, I didn't have any information to the contrary. Perhaps what I should have done was after the other two had problems, I should have checked to see if everyone else going was having the same issues. THe thought crossed my mind, but I dismissed it. If anyone was going, I assumed they would have checked on the tickets themselves.
I really don't like conflict, especially with an angry boss; I've been worried and scared and upset all weekend. I'm trying not to let it bother me, but here it is almost midnight and I can't sleep. Everytime I try to close my eyes, I think about all of this and it just makes my stomach churn. So at least tonight, it's playing havoc with my sleep and it probably will tomorrow night as well, which should make for a great Monday *sigh*
To make matters worse, I went looking at jobs on the web on Friday, just to see what was out there in the area. Under Administrative Assistant/secretary/clerical, I found exactly TWO. Both were the usual "temp ads". Now, it was on Friday, which isn't really a hotbed of job ads, but it does make me wonder what will happen if they can't justify my position or me in particular when it comes time for layoffs. I talked to my Love about all of this, especially the layoffs. He says that since it's not my fault, I shouldn't worry about it, but I do. It's my job and the ultimate responsibility falls on me. I told him I want to offer to repay the cost of the $1,700 ticket, and he said no, because that's not appropriate, and it's not my fault. I know the budget situation, our budget (our personal budget and my office budget both )can't handle a hit that hard. As for the layoffs that may or may not be in the wings... according to my Love, if I do manage to get laid off, and I can collect unemployment, we could survive indefinitely. I'd like to do better than survive, but if that's the best we can do, it's the best we can do.... at least we'll have a place to live, we'll be able to meet our financial obligations and we'll be able to eat, not everyone can say that.
I guess what I'll do is go into work on Monday and see what happens. He can't fire me outright, but he can make life miserable for a while. I can deal with that if I need to, it won't be fun, but I can deal with it.
I think at least for a while, I should probably "toe (or is it tow) the line" around there, which means not doing anything that's not work-related... no AIM, no emails, no websurfing during lunch, that sort of thing. That's not what got me into this, but it certainly can't hurt to be a model employee while all of this irons out. I'll follow the adage I used to use when my Dad was alive and not a happy camper; "keep your head down, be quiet and be a moving target." My father wasn't physically abusive, but when he exploded, the shrapnel could be dangerous.
Now is a time for me to become one with the woodwork.
Please don't forget to answer my survey... it's research for a small business idea... all comments appreciated, no reasonable offer refused!!! It won't take five minutes, I PROMISE!
