I know all the lyrics to that song, JZ, and I'm so sorry you've had to learn it (I have gas for the flamethrower. It should still be good since I last used it).

Oh geez JZ, I'm sorry.

JZ, sweetie, this is a clusterfuck not of your making.

Ugh, JZ, that sounds incredibly rage-making.

JZ, that sounds just awful. I'm so sorry you have to deal with that.

Thank you. I'm kind of crying just reading your kind words.

I'm also starting to feel angry for real at the person who shrugged and said, "Oh, yeah, they changed all that" last year. I really don't like feeling full-on angry, but it's starting. He's the assistant to his division chief, the way I am to mine, and to be fair he has a metric fuckload of his own work to do, and faculty recruitment is a months-long logistical nightmare.

But, sigh. He does this stuff when he has to and isn't swamped with recruitment and he does it well and diligently, but it clearly never occurred to him to say anything until long after the fact about all the changes, even after I was clearly flailing and asking for help. And he's always pleasantly absent from things like, well, this party, and the heart patient family reunion picnics, and the monthly staff lunches and the birthday potlucks and all the little social lubricant events that are expected to happen in a big office full of extroverts. He opts out of everything, and I show up at all of it even when it sucks (which it does, because, introvert).

I hate having to be on and smiling and helping with directions and parking passes and drink tickets and nametags and remembering faces and names and personal details, none of which I'm good at and all of which is utterly draining, but I suck it up because that's what division chief assistants are expected to do and our group can have *one* Bartleby who would prefer not to but it looks bad if there are two. And it's easy for a dude to Bartleby out of this emotional-labor shit in a way that it isn't for a woman.

Ugh. JZ. I'm sorry. It sounds like they need an event coordinator on staff.

aurelia, that'd be so very good, but not really financially feasible. Short of that, it'd be a huge improvement if, instead of dumping everything on one person at a time, they just divvied up all the various tasks. A bid-and-contract seeker, an accounting app wrangler (who checks the guide I wrote up and revises as needed), an invite list wrangler, a day-of greeter. We have enough staff to tackle all that, and it'd make the burden so much lighter for everyone.

This way sucks, and now I've got a ding on my record because I hit my breaking point.

I'm already on record with my Major Depressive Disorder diagnosis; I could probably ask for reasonable accommodations if needed.

It might be healthier for you to ask for accommodations than to drive yourself beyond that breaking point.

Asking for accommodations sounds like a really good idea. Especially because you've hit the breaking point. Also because you are struck doing the emotional labor all the time because some dude just swans off and doesn't do his fair share. And your job seems to have imposs expectations about the event (it seems their expectations are it will happen somehow and just leave it at that)