monster sarcasm rally

There is a strange sort of hierarchical structure where I work.

My boss is the director of the department. There are about 15 analysts. They're the ones who (in theory, at least) write the documents that I edit. The analysts all have assistants. Each of the assistants hopes to someday become an analyst. It's a stepping stone position. They consider themselves to be 'doing their time'. They do all the dirty work, all the real work, while the analysts do all the schmoozy stuff.

Additionally, my boss has an assistant: Bridget Jones. She's not the same kind of assistant as the rest, though. She's the kind that used to be called secretary until that word became politically incorrect. The Ferengi and New Chick do document layouts and post stuff to the web. I do a bit of that, but mostly I edit.

For reasons that are clearly more political than practical, Bridget, the Ferengi, New Chick and I are considered support staff. The rest of the department (the boss, the analysts and the assistants) are considered real staff.

There's a distinct difference between the support staff and the real staff: the support staff are women. There is one female analyst and one female assistant, the rest are all male.

Does this bug me? Not especially, but it does make me a bit curious. Do women not want that job? I know I don't, but that's because I value life over money. That's part of what makes me the local hippy freak. Occasionally I find myself wondering why there aren't at least a few more women in the office, but whatever... It's not exactly keeping me awake at night.

But now, though, something about this situation is bugging me.

The lone female analyst is crazy. She's great at her job and she's completely married to her career, but she's a freak. With a capital freak... If I can ever think of a name that encompasses her personality, I'll tell you about her.

She's not the source of my buggedness, though. The female assistant is. I'll call her Luanne. It just came to me this very moment, but it fits. She's really, really nice. She tries really hard. But she's an idiot. I'm sorry; she just is. She screws up constantly. She can never just send me a document for editing. She sends me a document for editing, then sends it again three more times over the course of an hour, with apologies each time.

Sorry, I made a mistake in the last file. Please disregard it and use this one.

She sends files to the wrong people. She sends files at the wrong time. She sends files with the wrong names. She has had the process explained to her repeatedly, yet she continues to get things wrong.

I have to spend a large portion of my time correcting her mistakes. This is not what bugs me. Being the person who fixes other people's mistakes makes me look good. And I like doing things that make me look good.

No, what bugs me is this: as the lone female representative in the tight-knit boys' club that is the world of assistants, she has a responsibility to do at least a half-way decent job. If one of the 15 or so male assistants is an idiot, the he is useless. If she sucks at her job, then maybe it's because women weren't cut out for that sort of work.

And that's what's pissing me off today.

I could do her job. I could do it well, even. I don't want to, but I could. You know?