What a long, sad trip it's been

The next time you want to disagree with me about something and you choose to start off your argument with the word "um" or any variation thereof? I will begin any and every response to you with the same non-word so that you can see just how juvenile and snotty and imbecilic it looks and how it strips nearly all semblance of intelligent thought out of anything that follows it. This goes double when your argument is um...WRONG, which, I have found, is almost always the case among those who start their comments with "um" because they think it's a terribly clever way to make a point. And then I will hunt you down and kill you with a blunt instrument while screaming "UM! UM! UM!" in your face. "UM!" will be the last thing you ever hear on this earth.

You've been warned.

I think a problem I have at work is that I come across as being kind of cool and pally with people so that when I ask them to do something that's part of their job they think it's okay to say "no" to my face with a nice big dose of attitude to go with it.

This was my day today: I wrote a 32-page Powerpoint proposal for a client and filled out a complicated 9-page RFP for the same client, then reviewed it with the sales rep and submitted it to the client AND printed and bound hard copies of it to mail. This while working on two other proposals and writing, producing, editing, proofreading and getting approval for no less than 15 separate advertorials that all have to be completed by Thursday.

At 4:00 I asked our department coordinator to mail a media kit to the client whose proposal I'd been working on, with no help, for half the day. Here's our phone conversation:

ME: Can you mail a media kit to...

HER: Listen I'm really busy right now.

ME: I'll give you the address.

HER: Okay FINE.

(Hangs up phone. Seconds later, via IM...)

HER: I'll give you the media kit.

ME: (silently fuming) OK.

HER: Get Rob to mail it.

(Rob was already gone for the day.)

ME: OK.

At which point she STOMPED into my office, SLAMMED the media kit down on my desk and STOMPED out yelling, "YOU'RE WELCOME!!!" over her shoulder.

Moments later she was blithely yakking it up in the hallway with one of the editors, then later with the production director. She left for the day at 5:30 despite having come in at 10:30. I was at work until 7:00.

She's going to have a polite but really firm email from me waiting for her tomorrow morning. People SLAMMING shit on my desk and then snottily HOLLERING at me because I ask them to perform one of their MOST MINOR job functions is one of my biggest professional pet peeves. And you know what? If you're going to pull that shit because you're SO BUSY then at least have the common sense not to spend the rest of your come-in-late-leave-early day chit-chatting like you had all the time in the world. I don't think that's too much to ask but maybe that's JUST ME.