One more lecture... Just one

And I may or may not snap like a brittle twig.

SO let's go back about a little more than month ago.  I screwed up, I get mad and I wrote a blog on men and how they suck and if you know me, I was kinda talking about one man while generally speaking about several.  He saw it, he got mad.  I spent three days crying.

And he has spent weeks now treating me like a redheaded stepchild that stole the last piece of fried chicken.  Don't laugh, it's something my family says.  It kinda applies to me because in the summer, my hair turns red but I digress...

For a week or so, he was just quiet and didn't say anything.  I personally spent this week crying over what I had done and the fact that he wouldn't forgive me.  Then slowly, but very steadily he began to speak to me in a tone that suggested I go take a long walk off a very short pier.  To my great consternation, I spent more time crying.  That continued for two weeks to the end of it being that one night I asked him point blank how many Hail Mary's I had to do for him to stop speaking to me like that.  He then replied he wasn't aware that he was speaking that way.  No, "I'm sorry."  Just , "I didn't know I was doing it."

It took everything I had then not to put on my ghetto fabulous black woman's ShaNaenae voice and tell him he knew.  But whatever for maybe three days, he didn't speak to me like I was the biggest bitch in the south.

Oh but those three days were heaven comparatively.  From day four until TODAY my work life on the nights that he is there have been a living hell.  And I don't use that term loosely.  More than five nights, he has been so borderline vicious in his tone that it actually made me cry.

And I am willing to admit that a couple of times, my defenses were down because lately I have been a PMS nightmare. (The fucking sky turning dark is apt to drive me to tears on my worse days)

My day starts off awesome.  I get up after getting enough sleep, I go into work and it's all good.  And I mean that.  I love my job, I love my co-workers so being there is never something I don't want to do.  But the second he walks in, I can almost feel the huge bulls eye on my face.  While certain people are there, he doesn't say a word to me.  Insert me jumping up and down in a giddy fashion cause I'm good with the silence.  But but when certain people leave the store, and he's the one in charge so to speak, the snake bites start.

A week ago I had a thing with another co worker that I was trying to annoy her because she has spent the day annoying me.  It was all good natured fun... no I take that back it was not good natured but she knew where I was coming from.  Mr. Man (A term i am using loosely because I will not say his name) took it upon himself to lecture me on being an adult in front of my children with some of the keywords being "She's 27, you're 35.  You should know better"

Basically saying she could annoy the eff outta me because she's not yet thirty but I need to grow up and act my age.

I could go off into a rant about how he is no one to lecture about acting like an adult.  He, the man who nicknames all of the equipment in the store (The docker is called Dockey, the sheeter is Sheety, the slicer is Cutty, the stepstool ;yes the stepstool is Steppy) as if I work in one big dangerous kindergarten was lecturing me on being an adult.  I even gave him a chance to realize that he was walking serious thin ice that night the way women do.  I looked him dead in the face and said "you are lecturing me on how to be an adult?"  He looked me right back in the eye and said "Yes."

But I'm not going to rant.  Nope.  As mad as it made me that night and still makes me, not gonna.

Friday, he made me cry again because of the tone.  This time I cried because I was so angry it was the bodily function that won out over grabbing a pizza pan and... well...  You know.  That being said, have you ever gotten so mad at someone that you couldn't say anything to that your body skipped right over the violent outburst and went straight to tears?  Most likely to save your ass?  That's what happened to me.  And I called my best friend crying.  I don't call people when I cry.  I never do but right at that moment, I needed someone to talk me back down to sanity and she did.  God Bless her, she did.

This past Saturday, we were all at work and one person stepped away from the make line to do something.  I never looked up to see that that person wasn't there and thus didn't see that the make line was unmanned. Trust me, if I had known that the make line was unmanned, I probably would have stepped over but instead I got a lecture, this time in front of anyone who could hear, I got a lecture about how I'm the insider and I have to step up to it and finish the pizzas.

Yes, in theory I do.  Not even the fact that I was told by the boss to concentrate on sheet outs really saves me from this.  I really should have turned around to see that there was no one there with three orders on the screen and one in the process of being made.  I get that.  What annoys me is that I got singled out for a lecture.  One that more than two people heard as one of the persons jumped on the makeline with me to help knock out those pizzas.  Saturday night was actually better for the first time.  I don't know if something was said to him or not but he seemed like he was at least trying to be civil, which I appreciated.  I even let go of the earlier public lecture.  I wasn't little miss chatterbox but I didn't tell him to go play in traffic either.  I think the worst I did was put one of my ear buds in my ear to listen to music while I flipped the make line.  I don't do oppressive silences very well.

So today was Sunday.  A.K.A. my happy day.  He doesn't work Sundays, I don't have to have my shield up because there will be no lectures or sharp razor edges to anyone's words.  It's an awesome day all around every week.  Honestly, it used to be my second favorite day and now it's my first favorite day but whatever.  Something I can't talk about happened and he had to come in for a couple of hours.

The shield didn't immediately go up.  It should have.  I put one earbud in to have some very low music in my ear while I cut pizza.  I think I said, I don't do oppressive silences very well.  I could still hear everything.  Everything except him mumbling.  (He has this crazy annoying habit of speaking while concentrating on the pizza he's making but he doesn't raise his voice, he just kinda mumbles and expect that everyone within hearing range is listening.)  First off I was by an oven that had the fan going.  On a good day I can't hear 65% of whats going on when I'm over there.  He starts mumbling.  Twice I only caught what he was saying because I had turned and caught the movement of his lips out of the corner of my eye.  The third I casually mentioned that I couldn't hear what he was saying.

Lecture number three about how I really shouldn't listen to music.  I didn't say anything about how the volume of the music was on 2 and it was really a random beat in my bad ear (I'm partially deaf in my left ear... well both really but more in my left than my right.) and I didn't say anything about his mumbling and me standing by the oven.  I just nodded (I may have rolled my eyes and made a face.) and took the earbud out.
Another employee came in and they began to talk about the massive amount of overtime they were both getting.  In front of the person who can't get overtime because of her position.  Who can't sub for people and get overtime because she has no car.  It was rather like when your married friends sit and complain about their men and you're all over there like "But I'm single and would step on several grandma's just to have a man But please do tell me more about your man troubles."  So while I had a few minutes to the next pizza surge, I stepped out back.  He was talking and I didn't want to break up the conversation but he saw me step out.  I know he saw me  I made sure he saw me.

Lecture number 4 about how I have to let someone know when I'm leaving.  Really?  I made sure you saw me and I didn't want to interrupt your conversation.

BAd me, what came out of my mouth was "Is the conversation about overtime finished?"  The fact that I cut him off mid lecture and asked this with all of the sneer I couldn't keep out of my voice hit a chink between armor plates and he backed off.

But then something went wrong which put him in a shitty mood for hours.  At one point he pretty much killed an extra large pepperoni pizza trying to get it out of the pan.  Something we have all pretty much done in the past week because the pan fairy visited us and we got new unseasoned pans.  I myself am personally responsible for the death of two extra larges yesterday.  He asked for a remake.  I said that I had to sheet it out in a minute because he had just pointed to an order on the screen and said to make it now not the others because that person was going to be there as well as one other thing.  A minute later, as promised, I sheeted out the extra large and handed it to the other person on the make line. She had to finish a pizza she was working on.  Took all of five seconds.  He turned, realized the remake was not yet in the oven and went twisted.  She said, "It's going in, chill."

His response, "Oh it's not your fault, you're not even supposed to be working."

Yep, you go it.  It was my fault.  Mine.  I didn't say anything audible but a coworker caught the gestures and word that my mouth was forming from the the side of the oven.  I'm not a violent person but if I could have frisbeed a pizza pan through the over at the back of Mr. man's head right then you can bet your bippy I would have.

And this is only about an hour and a half into my three hours of hell.

Around the two hour mark one of the accounts called up to ask if their pizza was on it's way.  It was due at 5:20 and they called at 5:28.  Their pizza was still in the hotbox.  He (Mr Man) could have gotten a blistering lecture from a couple of parties about an account's delivery being late (they could call the owners, the owners could call him or bless out the manager who wasn't there, the list of could haves could go on) but instead I said to the woman that called that it was my fault, I didn't look up at the clock and her pizzas were leaving right that second.  She was totally fine.  Said okay, and told me to have a good night.

Lecture number...5 (bear with me I'm starting to lose count of how many lectures I've had to sit through and not say what I was thinking) about how I shouldn't have said that because it needs to fall on a manager if there's a foul up or some shit like that.

So glad there isn't a big marquee on my forehead that teleprompts my thoughts.  I told the closing shift leader about that conversation later and their response was, "That was great, I would have hugged you, you didn't have to do that, thank you."

It's getting to the point where I'm not moved to tears because I'm hurt by his attitude and treatment of me, I'm moved to tears because I can't say anything because he's my superior.  I could come back at him and very well lose my job because my smart mouth started flapping and didn't know when to stop.  I'm angry that I have to stand there and take it.  I'm pissed that instead of coming to me and talking to me like a human being, he is whittling me down by belittling me.

And worst of all, my boss, who is both our friend, is being dragged into it.  That was the LAST thing I wanted.  I tried so hard to keep it out of the store.  Mr. Man dragged it in.  I held my tongue, I said nothing to no one and tried to keep my head up.  Every shot lobbed at me, I let lay where it fell.  I refused to make my workplace my battleground.

But one more lecture.... Just one... and I might get a really bad case of word vomit.

I have to fix this.  I have to stop this.  I don't know how, but I have to make this stop.  My mother suggests going to the big bosses but I'm not going to do that.  That would actually bring more casualties than help.  She also suggests that I change stores or jobs.  I don't want to leave my job.  I love my job and it's not as easy as she thinks to just change stores.  It doesn't work like that.  I have to fix this.  I can't talk to him because if I happen to go outside when he's on a smoke break, he walks away or goes back inside.  And then there are the moments when I want to say something but I don't because I know how it's going to sound coming out of my mouth which would solve more problems than help. (Like you wanna say something but you just know that that totally barbaric and murderous thought that's shouting across your brain is going to come running out of your mouth instead of the thing you want to say.)

I know I started this with my blog and I'm not even trying to justify that blog because there really isn't any way to.  There is none.  But people make mistakes.  You live you learn, you move on.  That's life.  IT's what keeps the human race going.

Sigh... I;m about all blogged out.  I have to get up in the morning and take my aunt to the airport.  Then doctors at two.  I should be able to sleep.  I've sat here and written all of this while my headache slipped away.  So I should sleep good.  I'm going to go lay down.

Stay frosty bloggers.  Love peace and Hair grease!