The Short Straw that Broke the Camel's Back

I had an unsatisfying discussion with Boss yesterday afternoon.

I politely complained that Ob is not doing his job. In fact, he is doing the opposite. As I have mentioned before, a new residence hall was constructed this year. That involved new furniture, all of which was shipped in cardboard boxes. It was a veritable trove of product to sell to our vendor. Something odd happened, though. During my monthly review of the solid waste invoice, I noticed that 14 roll-offs, marked with the work order number "for the cardboard boxes to be taken to recycle", were sent to the landfill. Ob said, "There was packing material mixed in, so we just sent it all to the landfill."

Excuse me? Isn't the purpose of the recycling manager to, oh, say, recycle?

I went to Boss, who told me, "The contractor was supposed to separate it." So? Why couldn't Ob's staff (since Ob can't be bothered to lift a finger other than to steer his truck around campus as he practices "management by driving around") pull out the styrofoam or plastic wrap or whatever? That's what they were hired to do, wasn't it?

All in all, Ob isn't even going to get a slap on the wrist for sending 12.68 tons of cardboard to the landfill. (That would have been worth $1,268.00 if we sold it, not to mention saving $389.28, plus tax, in landfill fees.) I give up. Ob is incompetent, Boss doesn't care, and I am not appreciated for not only doing my job but frequently going above and beyond. I might as well just show up at 5:59 a.m. and leave at 2:31 p.m. and tell everyone else who wants me to do something to f*ck off.

The cherry on this sundae was that, just as I was walking out of Boss's office, he told me to go to a meeting in his place. This is for a committee that he doesn't want to belong to, so he has sent "proxies" (i.e. Sub or me) every two months for over a year. Now I have eight hours to print out hundreds of pages of documents (the agenda is one page; the "packet" is 105 pages; there are 19 separate amendments, drafts, maps, and what-have-you), read and understand them, and do my real job at the same time.

I have crossed the line from being indispensable to being strictly utilitarian. Why don't they just stick me in a drawer and pull me out whenever I'm needed?