Insubordination

“Ben I’m gonna need you to FedEx this out, collate these drawings, drop off my dry-cleaning, and then wipe my ass.”

I am an administrative assistant. It is a dubious title which comes with inconsistent responsibility and the nametag “Bitch”. Some workdays you are a veritable lifeline to higher-ups and the outside world, and some days you are plunging a toilet because your company is too cheap to hire a plumber. The job is literally and figuratively about cleaning up other people’s shit.
But one of the few luxuries of the job, besides being able to check my email beyond the point of usefulness and surf countless websites concerning nothing important (according to WebMD I have three different rare disorders), is that being judgmental and general bitchiness are not only required but encouraged. So, to exercise that benefit, I would like to tell you about the evil-she-who-must-not-be-named. (Thank you JK Rowling.)
To note, being an assistant is its own penance, but having to assist an assistant is murderous to your all ready waning self-esteem. Especially when you aren’t supposed to be assisting her at all.
But she isn’t your normal assistant, she is an EXECUTIVE assistant. As if the single word entitles her to disregard your life and kick you out of prom court. Her technical job responsibility, that is what she is supposed to do, is to assist four different executives in the office. Her actual job description, apparently, is to subjugate me by giving me the shit jobs, blaming incidents on me and not knowing who or where she is most of the time.
Ex:
“Ben, thank god I found you. Do you know where L____ is?”
“Um, I think he went that way?”
“Where was he going?”
“Um…that way?”
“What was he doing?”
“I…don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Cuz I don’t.”
(“Because I am not his assistant!”)
Now, if you were an executive assistant don’t you think it would behoove you to know where the executives you are assisting are going? Shouldn’t you know if they leave the office (which she never does) and if they do fall off the radar shouldn’t you have a contingency plan or know how to contact them?
But, what do I know I am a just a REGULAR assistant. Grant you a regular assistant apparently blessed with the prescient ability to know where all executives exist to make her job easier.
Then there are the presents. Or rather what I assume she thinks are presents. You know all of those office niceties that everyone appreciates. Like, envelopes that need sorting or FedExes that need to be sent out. Things that other people have given her to do, that she has decided I deserve.
Granted it isn’t the simple delegation of these responsibilities that unnerves me, it is the gaul in which she delivers them to me. Usually the FedEx slips are already filled out they just need to be placed in a proper envelope or box, sealed and left at the reception desk to be picked up. Apparently though, to finish that last step (an activity that at most would take forty-seven seconds) is just too much for her busy executive-misplacing day.
I imagine, because I refuse to actually ask and peer behind the great big curtain of Evil, that the delineation goes something like this:

“Excuse me, She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but could you send this letter out FedEx for morning delivery tomorrow?”
“Of course I can uh….(looks at post-it note stuck to computer screen with each Executive name and physical description) R____. I will send that out right away.”
“End of the day is fine.”
“No…I will do it right now.”
Hmm…FedEx. Okay. Name…that’s easy. Address…that has to be somewhere. Let’s see early morning delivery. Oooh…I need to file that nail down. Sent through…what do I want for Lunch today? Maybe I can get a nice mani at lunch today. Who was I sending this for? Oh screw it I’ll just give it to Ben.
And then, in the forty-seven seconds it takes her to walk to my desk (the same forty-seven seconds she could have used to finish the task) she manages to not only lose the contact sheet and account information so I can properly send it off but she also manages to leave this wonderful present for me somewhere that I can see it oh-so-easily. Like, underneath my chair ( I assume it slid off, because I refuse to believe she maliciously put it underneath my rolling chair) or on top of my computer monitor where it will sit for hours before I notice it; and whereupon discovering it, it is warm and smells of ozone.
And I really shouldn’t speak of the Holiday Party catastrophe, but of course I will. She-who-must-not-be-named took it upon herself to design the invitations to the party and order over seven hundred dollars in gaudy party supplies without speaking to anyone in the Marketing Department (department being two people…so its not like fighting back the iron curtain here) or having her invitations approved before production. So when the higher ups got wind of her cheesy, come dressed as your favorite Jane-Green-novel character ( I don’t really know what the theme was but I can only extrapolate based on the books I constantly see her read) it was immediately vetoed.
In a huff and I do believe tears she threw all seven hundred and forty-seven dollars worth of merchandise on my desk. Some of it landing underneath my chair and on top of my computer. Now I suppose in her fragile state I should have felt sorry for her. But try as I might I couldn’t even muster a sympathetic eyebrow raise. Which for those who know me, not to raise my eyebrows even in boredom is extreme.
Add to all this her utter lack of ability to communicate and it makes for an infuriating work day. When I say something, using even a remotely sarcastic tone, she takes me for deadly solemn and when she doesn’t understand something I am saying I can actually her heavily sun-tanned eyelids blink in wonderment.
I feel, at best, our “relationship” can be summed up in the most frustrating conversation I have ever had with her:

“Ben, I have been looking for you for the past hour. The copier
broke.”
“Oh…sorry. I was on lunch.”
“I couldn’t find you.”
“Yeah, I was on lunch.”
“Where at?”
“Subway.”
“You didn’t eat here?”
“No.”
“Why?
“Because I was on lunch.”
“You could have brought it back here.”
“Yes, but I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was on lunch.”
“But I needed you.”
“Yes but I was on lunch.”
“The copier is broke.”
“Is it jammed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it out of paper?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay…I will get to it after I finish my lunch.”
“…”
“Thanks for letting me know.”
“…”
“Bye.”
“You’re still on lunch?”
“Yes, for a whole hour. I still have about twelve minutes and forty-
seven seconds left.”
“But the copier is broke.”
“You know, She-Who-Must-not-be-named, I am not actually the
IT guy. If its jammed or out of paper, that is fine, we should ALL
be able to do that. But if it’s broken then I can’t do anything
about it.”
“Well can you tell him then?”
“Tell who?”
“The IT guy.”
“You want me to tell the IT guy that you broke the copier?”
“No. I want you to tell the IT guy that you can’t fix the copier.”
“I didn’t say I can’t.”
“Well then fix it.”
“FINE. I will after my lunch.”
“We should talk about that at some point.”
“Talk about what?”
“Your lunch.”
“What, like you want to know what I ate?”
“…”
“Hello?”
“Oh…that was a joke right. No…I mean, like how I needed you
and you weren’t here.”
“Um…I get an hour everyday. And I have to take it at noon
because I have to cover the phones. Sorry there isn’t another
option.”
“Look, I don’t really have time to discuss this. I have to go to
lunch. I’ll see you when I get back in the office.”
“Great. Hope I won’t need you over lunch.”
“…”
“…”
“…”