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)

{{JZ}} It sounds horrible. I am so sorry. The frustration you're describing would have driven me to tears and anger and sickness, too.

Work and life sanity~ma to you.

Oh JZ, this all sounds so familiar. The medical university system is, I think broken from an administrative angle and they get what they pay for. In my mental breakdown I sort of bailed on an event I was only tangentially related to (I set up the registration), but usually did name tags, sign in sheets signage etc. it was all sorts of fucked up this year. (Like it never occurred to people to Chan's the year on my name tag template) I am lucky right now I have enough social capital with deans that shit isn't falling on me. Also I told them I was going to have a nervous breakdown, and then I did. But I think it took my boss(faculty) saying she was going to have a breakdown that finally got any movement

Which is to say -can you deploy your boss to advocate for you?

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.

I'm not sure the process to advocate for the above, but it sounds like you could propose a change that would make everything smoother. Mostly, {{JZ}}, I'm sorry. I'm frustrated and angry on your behalf.

JZ, that is some kind of bullshit. I too am frustrated and angry on your behalf.

My brother seems to be in a good holding pattern so far. He had friends who stayed with him almost all day yesterday, including overnight, with more who are going to come over today. And I have therapy in 90 minutes, thank God. At least my brother's relapse was well-timed. (And I told him that -- "It was thoughtful of you to have a relapse right before my therapy appointment." His response was "I am so curious about what you're going to tell your therapist about me, because I inherited our parents' narcisissm." I feel like if he's cracking jokes like that, he's going to be okay. At the very least, it's proof that his brain isn't scrambled by the relapse drinking.)