I started this week having a near-meltdown. Well, that’s what Monday morning does to me every week, but this time I had an audience, and it seems to have paid off. Julie phoned me early in the day on Monday, and she could tell by the sound of my voice that I was stressed. She did me the great favor of asking what there was she could do to help.

So: I told her. I gave her an assignment, a task that has been making me feel as if a thousand gnats were buzzing around my head. As usual, it had to do with insurance. Those people really know how to get to me. An overzealous workers comp claim manager has sent me eight separate requests for information in the last four days, all mailed in different envelopes. Most of the information she asked for overlapped, so that I’d be answering the same question five times on five pieces of paper.

And that wasn’t even the part that made me resent doing it so much. She had emailed me questions about the claim early last week, and I’d answered all of them. Then, a few days later, the blank forms started coming in, asking the same questions, all about an incident that took place a month and a half ago and was over almost before it started. Our employee had a slight injury and missed three days of work the first week in August. Now the workers comp carrier wants to know if “modified” work is available for him during his “rehabilitation.”

I’m getting a little heated just remembering it, so you can imagine how glad I was to dump it on Julie. And that wasn’t even why she’d called. She called because the Boss had asked her a question about company finances that only I knew the answer to. Why he didn’t ask me I’m not sure, but he wanted me to redo a work sheet that would show something about our financial position.

I told Julie to tell him I would do it, but that he wasn’t getting it Monday because I had other more important things to do. And he wasn’t getting it Tuesday because I had other more important things to do. I think by the time he got my message, he really got my message, because I didn’t hear from him more than two or three times the whole rest of this week. I’m thinking I should have stuck up for myself a long time ago. I like the way things are going right now.

So I started the week with a near-meltdown, but I’m ending it in high spirits. For me, anyway. High spirits for me, compared to how beaten down I usually feel this late in the week. The fact that I stood up to the Boss, even if it was through a third party, doesn’t surprise me nearly as much as the fact that I did it the week he gave me a raise. No second thoughts, though. It was something I had to do.