Work stress...

I've figured out the root cause of my stress problem(s) at work.

It is not the workload, it is not the juggling of projects or even the fact that I juggle two different call groups (I'm on the customer care team and I also handle a hotel reservations program), or helping out our returns team.

It's the team lead (hereafter referred to as 'TL')  who sits next to me.  She hounds people who have their cell phone on but yet by our director's rules, cell phones are not to be on at all in the call center...but said team lead seems to be exempt from that rule as she spends in excess of 90 minutes per day on her cell phone and most days it's closer to 2 to 2.5 hours.  Same applies to the dress code as her brightly colored flipflops are okay for her but the rest of us are to wear dress shoes or something appropriate for "business casual" dress.

I am a back up most of the time for the hotel reservations program.  My primary "line" is the customer care line and emails related to it.  Mz. TL is also trained for the reservations program but she can't be bothered from 30 minutes personal conversations with a team member or from the numerous long running conversations with her kids, husband, sisters, and who knows who all else.  She likes to just tell me to get those calls and any thing that's given to her to spread to the team.  No, it's in my in basket.  I exist to do her work it seems.  If I'm not taking reservation calls, it's because I have two director-given projects on my desk, a stack of returned orders to get down to the returns department, and other projects directly related to the customer care side of my job.  The PRIMARY JOB that I'm hired for...

The worst of it is that she is all worried about my morale and making things better...and loves to poke at me when I'm in a foul mood.  One of these days...I'm going to pull her into a conference room and I'm going to unload the entire litany of things that she does that make me  &*($%! angry.  I'm starting to think about talking to other co-workers and see what they have to say (or have noted/logged) about the TL behavior.

It's to the point of when she's here, I generally hate my job.  As soon as she leaves, the day seems to pick right up.

Monday through Wednesday, the closing TLs are much more calm, rational, and actually work.  Thursday and Friday, it's all the TL from hell.  Right up until 7pm.  When she's around, I'm usually working through my breaks and my lunch.  I have so much crap shoved onto my desk, my only chance to keep from starting a snowball of  "do it tomorrow" is to work through my breaks and my lunch.

Now if I do that, Mz TL will ride me about how I'm entitled to my lunch break and how I should go outside and get away and not think of the place.  Hell, if I'd walked out of the building today to take my lunch break, I'd not come back.  I get angry enough to shake at times when she's around.

Yeah, as much as I love my job here and I'd actually like to make a career here at BI, but damn Mz TL is making it hard to stay here.

I know I'm not supposed to let it get to me and we're all a team and ... &*$#@&$*(@& that... we are not a team so long as we have a TL who can flout her rules violations and who pays lip service to those who are not her pets.

I really do love my job and realizing that it's just one person who makes me hate it has be thinking along two lines.

1: Document every thing she does and work to get her fired.

2: Find another job.

*laugh* Option 1 would likely get me promoted to take her place and option 2 is okay, but I really do like my job here.  It's stressful during the holidays, but it pays well and aside from the TL from hell...I really do like it here.  The only thing I'd change (and I am planning on changing here at the end of my lease) is the 23 mile drive to/from work every day.