Demotivated

I am, at the moment, completely and utterly lacking in motivation. I
have just been taken to task for a situation about which I know
nothing and over which I have absolutely no control, by the president
of the company. Not a particularly good feeling.

I inherited the problem when my boss, who is out of town this week,
asked me to call a few people about participating in a discussion
forum, on an unnamed topic for unnamed purposes. Difficult to do as he
also didn't give me a date for said forum. When I finally got hold of
him this morning, he said it was quite urgent, that the whole thing
needed to be wrapped up before Christmas, and to check with our
president to see if she was available next week. Then call back all
the other participants (both internal and external, about 18 in all)
to confirm their attendence.

So I spoke to our president's secretary, to see when she was
available. Ten minutes later, said president descends upon my desk,
somewhat overwrought, because this project has been stalled for over a
month, she's been expecting but not receiving regular updates, she
needs a list of the external participants, their backgrounds and
respective areas of expertise … and we need to include her brother,
who is the extraordinarily difficult president of the company's US
division. And he's not available until the end of January.

And I get all the blame, because the file was dumped on my desk on
Monday. And I look bad because I can't answer any of her questions, or
reassure her that everything's on track, or do anything other than nod
sympathetically because I know bugger all about what's supposed to be
happening.

Oh, I do so love being vented upon.

And I can't reach my boss to tell him a) the forum has to be postponed
until January and b) the president wants an internal meeting next week
to fill everyone in on the details. Which, apparently, I'm supposed to
arrange. And, given the way things are going, probably chair and take
minutes. And serve coffee. While juggling chainsaws.