There's value in apologizing, but don't undermine yourself. Cw didn't mean harm, but she didn't help.

There's plenty at work I suck at, but managing personalities and defusing drama is not one of 'em.

I need to vent but I can't even put this amount of irritation into words. I am this close to ending a six-year friendship, except we're still going to live in the same building and send our kids to the same daycare and see each other every fucking day in the lobby, so...yeah.

But holy shit, I am so angry right now I can barely type. I was over at their place for the weekly potluck and since all the adults there tonight have kids in the 5-6 range the conversation turned to schools and he says, standing right the fuck next to me, "Oh if we hadn't gotten into [new school] we would have had to move. There's no way in hell I was going to send my kids to our local school. No offense, Jess."

NO FUCKING OFFENSE YOU GODDAMN JUDGMENTAL ASSHOLE? The only reason I didn't leave right then was our kids were having a great time together, and I couldn't see myself explaining to them the reason we were leaving. "Sorry kids, Mommy doesn't want to be in the same room with our good friend J right now because he apparently thinks your school isn't good enough for your best friend."

And we're supposed to be going on vacation with this family later in the summer, but I think I'm going to have to call it off. The kids will be crushed. I don't know, I'm seeing red right now. And DH is out of town for the weekend so I have nobody to talk me down.

Jessica, I wouldn't make any decisions at this moment (though, yes, it's totally valid pissed-off-ness), especially not unilaterally.

The irony is that we've also applied for the new progressive unzoned school his kid is going to in the fall, because it's an excellent program and I think Dylan would thrive there. But you know, if we don't get in, we'll be perfectly happy sending him back to our neighborhood school for first grade! The way he recoils at the notion of his precious darling being condemned to kindergarten there, you'd think 6 year-olds were being knifed in the halls. I really have no idea what his problem is, except that he's got a bug up his butt about the school district we live in.

AAAAAAAAAAAARGH. Fuck everything.

Since I'm in the mood to play agony aunt... you can go several ways with this, depending on whether you want to build up steam and go scorched earth or not. Since you don't have your best sounding board at the moment, derail until you have him... marvel at what hidden snobbery lurks in your friend. Or what a super-special-flower J must think his kids are that your local school would rooooo-iiiiin his child.

I say go with mental mockery of his perceptions rather than giving space to his opinion of your choices. Kookery and totally horrible social skills.

I pulled off three projects last year that no one else is willing to learn enough to do. But aside from that, responding to business requests, etc, I marked myself way down. WE ARE USELESS. But the idea that we are useless because I can't convey the business needs...say the Research department needs to communicate information to the field, and they've decided that a website is the way to do it. They then go to the front end people, who are not in iT, and they write the HTML and associated front end code, and then web dev comes to me and says "Can you set up AllTheResearch.com on our public site server for us? We have to publish a site."

And what happens on my end? "They've asked for a load balanced website to be added, and they will go live June 6th." :"Why do they need a new website?" "Because Research wants to roll one out." "But what is Research's need?" "To put information on a website." Which other people will code, publish, and maintain. All we need to do set up the webserver to serve that URL--we don't even have to do DNS tasks.

I got enough pushback that one site never got launched, because we didn't think it was important enough. When did this become my job? To advocate for (and fail) a department that has never had any contact with me, because we are suppliers, not workers. We give them space on a server and walk away. We used to give them space on a server and walk away. Now we second guess and bat the responsibility around, start a project and when I get to the point where someone is going to have to write code, I get told we have no one to write the code.

Well, thanks? Don't start me working on stuff and then tell me it won't be done. It's like a three week cycle, and all we do do is add menu options and create folders. We don't enhance, we don't develop new features, we just wave our arms around and take stuff off the support queue and jam it down between the cracks.

I don't know how else to convey my frustration. God forbid I take complex requirements, because there are no complex developers allocated to the task. Just the one incompetent woman I can hear my manager asking if she's still okay with working on this system every time they talk.

No one asks me that. I need to make this work with the new director. Not because I want to move, but because I want to have someone in IT on my side. The business likes me just fine. The PMO likes me just fine. The CIO does too. But the two people directly above me are not buying it, and I have to work out how to fix that.

And, man, do we have some interesting people who don't read emails either. Or don't reply to them, even the ones I resend when something blows up as a result of them not doing or saying something. Fine, that's me being mean, but still. I am not a manager. That's a conscious decision on my part. I don't like the added stress, but still...people need to be coddled and walked over to the solution and it's fucking irritating to be doing this past age 40.

Jesus, Jess, that's terrible. People.

That also sounds terrible, ita. Differently so, but, argh, how aggravating! I wish I had advice or something but all I have is sympathy. And wine. Y'all are welcome to both, of course. (You too, Lee. Surely drinking at home when you have visitors is okay? Therefore I will visit.)

I am super amused that whatever I typed while thinking "Jesus" auto corrected to "Seuss". That's kind of awesome.

And if the header of the email doesn't contain info regarding what she does consider her job

I would give each email the subject line "your job".

hah!

Sara, thanks again, just hearing that makes me feel better about my own reaction, and will also help me clarify my apology. Because I did feel like I'd been smacked in the face.

Glad I could be of some help. It's complicated, navigating your own reactions but at the same time seeing that the situation justified the reaction, if not the manifestation and then trying to remedy that without throwing yourself under the bus.