This That and Another Thing

Allie asked, why not go to another pharmacy?

Because, Allie, this is America. In America, we don't have socialized medicine because the brainwashed, the brain dead and the pharmaceutical companies have decided that would be one step away from communism and that would be bad. One of the few worthwhile benefits of working at this hospital is that, although the pharmacy doesn't take insurance, employees can purchase meds at 10% above cost, or $1.85, which ever is cheaper. I can't use my insurance to buy my parents drugs: that would be fraud. It would also be about $10. a prescription. If they buy them themselves (and at 85, they have Medicare, which does NOT cover drugs...) some of my mother's meds would cost over $300 a month. By suffering the insufferable Mr. Pimple, I can save about two hundred dollars a month for them.
On another front, my office is about to move again. We will be sharing space with another team, unrelated to the work my team does. They have a manager who is one of the most toxic individuals it has ever been my misfortune to meet. In this, he is typical of the average employee at this institution.

Six months ago, when the move was announced, my manager took us to look at the office space, and we all picked out our rooms, ordered furniture and waited for the painting, carpeting and furniture. I was going to get a private office for the first time in about seven years.

A month ago, it was announced that this other group would be sharing space. Fine. Two weeks ago, we went down and reorganized ourselves. The furniture that had been ordered was for certain rooms and configurations, but we were able to sort it out and make it work. The Toxic Manager complained that if my manager had one of the two rooms with a window, then he had to have the other one. Although, when asked, he insisted that it had nothing to do with square footage, or a case of "if he has it, I need it too." There was no other reason offered, except that it was his wish. Period.

My two co-workers who had been assigned that windowed room were switched to my office, and I was sent down the hall to a small, but still private, office.

Toxic Manager had a shit fit. If my manager had people in private rooms, then HE had to have people in private rooms. I was thrown out of my office, and my other co-worker, the Boy Wonder, was moved from his private office to another private office. I was told I'd have to share space with one of the Toxic Manager's people. I said that I didn't care to do that, I as rely quite heavily on my team, and need to work with them. Toxic Manager told me that what I wanted was irrelevant. HIS person was going to get the single.

I offered still another floor plan. I said what if the two huge manager's offices get configured to each hold two employees (the way we had it originally) and the other two big offices get two employees, and the two smaller singles become the managers' offices and the little bitty, odd-shaped room becomes the conference room? That way both managers get a single, and none of their employees do. Each manager has four employees in two large offices. Everybody has the same square footage.

Toxic Manager refused to give up his window. The director refused to listen to this crap and said: here's the deal. Each manager has a window. One manager can have two private offices and the stupid crap room that is going to seat two people, even though the space is so small that you can't push the chair away from the desk, you have to slide in from the side. The other manager will have the two two-person spaces. Toxic Manager, you liked that decision, so the other manager gets first choice.

My team. Except Boy Wonder insists on having his own space. Big Man insists that he's too big to share any space with anybody, and he already lost his window, so therefore, if Boy Wonder gets a private office, he gets the other. That means I will be sitting in a space so small that I won't be able to turn around at my desk: literally.

Boy Wonder and Big Man are no longer speaking. I have lost any hope of a private office. In one afternoon, the Toxic Manager has managed to take a well-oiled team, one which truly had an esprit de corps, and turned it into a feuding, toxic pile of crap, just like his own "team."

And we will all have to share space. Toxic Manager is known to snipe, and make snide comments and belittle and badger. And we, having stood up to his bullying, will now be the focus of his bile. Toxic Manager is a bully. He is loud and he is abusive. And so, he gets his way. Because even the directors above him don't want to stop him or even confront him.

One afternoon. That was all it took to make my work place go from a respite from the back-stabbing snakepit that is this institution, to more of the same. One afternoon and one toxic bully.