Nice to feel needed, if only it wasn't forced

Major update needed. Haven't written for a long time because I've been horribly behind on (fluff)friends and other Facebook applications. I'm also watching my week's worth of Daily Show and Colbert Report. I haven't turned off my computer in about a month because I have to keep track of which people I haven't returned pets/gifts/feedings too. It's fulfilling when you get to connect with people, and they give you Valentine's gifts, fulfill your wishlist and keep your elefant's speed up, but it sure takes a lot of work. And perhaps it's pretty sad when you feel more connection with strangers (I've only got 4 friends on Facebook that I've never met personally), than with your parent. And you feel more appreciated online than at work.

Work's been...annoying. Not the actual work itself, I can't believe how much time I've had so that I can clean up files, do extra things, or just spend 15 minutes trying to compose an e-mail. It's more trying to deal with a certain group of people who are loud, unorganized and have little work ethic. I really wouldn't care about their doubled break times, messy files, and lack of usefulness...if it didn't cause them to be useless and increase my workload.

We're supposed to cover each other's breaks, and there's even a printed schedule. So, I've already covered for his shift twice because he just has to go out to a restaurant for lunch with the same group of people he goes out to lunch with every day. And of course they approach you in a group and say it's only going to be for the period of the allotted lunch time, but then they somehow manage to stretch it out to an hour. So I end up taking my lunch an hour or two later (depending on if I get caught up in something)

And I have to audit whatever he does because it's so sloppy. It's not my job, but when he gave me a file he'd worked on, I found 2 mistakes, and then it turned out that they had to take down the poster once already because of his errors. He doesn't look things up or do a lot of work. And he nearly threw a fit when I won the coin toss on who was going to be on the assessment board for the Co-Op student. And boy, did he remember to remind me that he gets to go on the next out-of-province trip and assessment board. In our meetings, the advisor keeps saying that we should help each other out, but there's little reciprocity.

So 2 weeks ago, I was telling my friends about deploying back to my old department because even though the workload is 4x more, at least everyone had a great work ethic and didn't have high school cliques. And at least when I talk about anime, there are people who know what I'm talking about and even if they don't, they won't roll their eyes. And if we're working in a group, at least I'm included and don't have to hear them having a party, loud enough that I can hear them laughing through a closed door and headphones.

So I ended up going to my manager with a list of my concerns. And even if it weren't for the fact that they're reorganizing the structure so that we're losing her, our other senior advisor and our most senior assistant, I think she still would've listened and acted. And 2 days after that talk, one of the perpetrators calls me into her office and explains that they never meant to leave me out, and she has a different sense of humour. And day after that, it was the other person who did the same thing. And suddenly I was included in the process (since I am an assessment board member). Huhn. And the other problem person is much nicer to me, although it might be because I'm the assistant for the process she's applied on. I guess we'll just see how long it lasts. But it's going to totally suck when they split off the other people. Aside that I will be much busier (since the workload will be split among 2 assistants instead of 3), it was always nice to be able to talk to her about anything.