Can we talk?

Passing the Buck

         This is a personal rant, so you may not want to read.

         I'm an HR clerk with a college degree and lots of management experience when I was younger. But the years took some nasty turns, and women over 40 don't get the same opportunities. So I've ended up in this part-time hourly position in a company that puts out fires, but manages to hold onto a lucrative contract with a big company. After a long period of unemployment, then very low under-employment, I settled into this because I have good living arrangements, and most days the people around me are pleasant. Now that I realize it is a dead-end job, I also realize retirement is only a few years away. I don't really want to start over again somewhere else and get a new routine.

         I have tried for years to tell the managers when they were due to write employee evaluations and do competency training. The only thing they listen to are the big wigs or outside deadlines. They are always too busy to tend to routine yearly chores. At least until an emergency happens. I succinctly remember telling my superiors a year ago that certain papers were due. By mid-summer, I gave up and told someone that the crap would hit the fan eventually, but I had to move on to other things,

         Now the fan is blowing. I got a call tonight while at dinner from my boss wanting to know why these papers weren't in employee files. I told her the managers didn't do them last year. They're due again this year, which I told her about a month ago. She was very upset with me, like I didn't do them. I can't do 300 papers for people I don't know. I don't have the authority for one thing. So I see where this is going. If they get caught in the audit being done this week, I will be the scape goat. But I'm setting my foot down. I will not take the responsibility for mangers who get better pay and perks, especially when I went to all of them last year and asked them to do this work. Putting my foot down could have bad results for me. Either way I'm in trouble for someone else's incompetency.

         I'm mad at myself for letting it bother me so much. I know I'm powerless to do anything about the first half--getting people to do what they should. I'm powerless to stop getting blamed or written up for the absence of these forms, which I'm only supposed to file. The tone of her voice on the phone, the fact that she called me at home to ask about it, has made me so angry all evening.  I have to go to work early tomorrow to help her fabricate as many as possible before the auditors pull some random files. I'll probably fume all  night instead of sleeping.