Cruella Was A Sweetheart

I was lulled into a false sense of security. After staying up until past 3 am last night finishing two more of the 50 tasks on Dragon Lady's task list, and after rolling in this morning bleary eyed at nine, I was pleasantly surprised when Dragon Lady responded to some of the work I had done this weekend by saying, "This is good." Granted, she was talking about the information I had compiled, and not my work per se, but saying anything is "good" is high praise from Dragon Lady, and I was glad to take it for a change. I continued working hard during the day and I was feeling like I was in pretty good shape.

Then, at approximately 4:00 pm Dragon Lady called. Since I was feeling relatively safe I picked up the phone instead of letting it go to voice mail. Foolish child. Dragon Lady said nothing about the fact that I had worked the entire weekend for her, nor that I had worked until past 3 am last night. She said nothing about the 40 odd tasks that our team has completed, nor anything at all about all of the work I had accomplished. Instead, the conversation went like this:

B: Hi, Dragon Lady.
DL: I thought you were going to talk to our consulting group about the definition of Miscellaneous-Accounting-Word ("MAW")?
B: I was, but Nizz took over that task. She called our consulting group today about the definition of MAW like we discussed at our meeting last Friday.
DL: Didn't I tell you to do that weeks ago? This was supposed to be done weeks ago. I thought the consulting group was looking into this. [Unintelligible curses]
B: ...After we talked about this earlier, I had [a summer] research the definition...I was talking to [another partner] about what we were finding, and we were checking financial texts like we had all discussed. On Friday, when the issue came up again, we [meaning Dragon Lady, me, and Nizz] decided to check with the consulting group...
DL: [More unintelligible curses] I spoke with the consulting group today and they have a two-page memo that they did on MAW in 2003. If we had talked with them earlier we could have figured this out weeks ago instead of wasting all this time.
B: ...You're probably right about that.

Long story, short: Dragon Lady called me for no productive purpose whatsoever. She just called to bitch me out because, while busy busting my ass on the other tasks she had assigned our team, I didn't call a consultant to get a memo that Dragon Lady now has in her possession, a memo we don't need until Wednesday, when we meet again with our expert, and a memo Nizz would have received from the consulting group today when she spoke with them like we had told Dragon Lady we would do.

After the call, my good mood evaporated. That's an understatement. I sat staring at the phone thinking about calling Dragon Lady or going up to her office and having it out with her, or going to see another partner about her. I felt humiliated and I knew, that given the circumstances, it was unjustified. I had worked hard for her, but she didn't give a shit.

Nizz, a 5th year recently assigned to The-Case-From-Hell, called while I was in the midst of holding back some tears and we ended up talking. It turns out that when Nizz was assigned to this case, the assigning partner and several other partners, one after another, called her to apologize for the assignment. Nizz didn't realize why until she met Dragon Lady.

During the conversation, Nizz confided in me that she had felt like crying on Friday after the meeting. I was momentarily confused and asked her whether she meant the meeting with her, Dragon Lady, and me, and Nizz said yes. I said, "Nizz, you don't understand, Dragon Lady was nice during that meeting. I was thinking the whole time that she was on her best behavior just because you were there." Nizz replied, "You've got to be kidding."

Oh, Nizz. I wish I was. I sincerely do.