Another Day at the Office

Mood: Overworked
Song: Dancing Girls and Dancing Men - Robert Pollard
Units of Caffeine: 2
Days Until Vacation: 94

My "to-do" list at work just gets longer and longer.

K & I went to Barnes & Noble the other night just to get out of the house and do something. It's a fun, inexpensive thing to do: to got B&N; grab a cup of joe from the cafe; then proceed to use the bookstore as a library. I am sure that this is not what the CEO of B&N had in mind when creating the cafe and introducing the nice chairs and coffee tables. I'm sure (s)he thought that people would just take time to browse; flip through books and then purchase something. Well... okay... it works, because K always ends up buying something. Anyway, I was reading a book on financial planning and read that most Americans feel as if they are overworked and underpaid. The book said it in a tone that made it seem like those Americans are just whiney brats and should be thankful they have a job at all. So, I started thinking of myself and the situation I am in - I have noticed that, since I've graduated from grad school, my boss has given me a crapload of work. The work that I have been receiving falls under two categories:

(a) Work that should be someone else's responsibility, but since it seems that no one else in the office knows certain, standard MS programs, I get the work.

(b) Specialized work that is way beyond my job description.

I guess I wouldn't mind so much, if I were getting compensated in some way, but I'm not. I have been given responsibilities typical of someone with a college degree; (even some post-bac type work); and yet, I am still only getting paid that of someone with no more than a high school education. I also don't understand this concept of me getting someone else's work simply because they don't know how to use a program. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the "real world" if you can't do parts of your job because you don't know how to use a certain program you either (a) learn the program or (b) start looking for another job.

...to be continued. (My office has started to get busy).