So last night I didn't sleep well at all. I didn't go to bed angry but something on my mind manifested itself in my dreams all freaking night long and would not go away until about five this morning when my subconscious tired of the repetition and inserted my standard wake up device.
There is this girl at work and when I came in I honestly tried to be nice to her but one of the first things I noticed was that her elevator didn't quite reach the top floor. This actually made me want to be a little nicer to her... at first.
But slowly, she shattered all of the walls I put up to protect myself from people like her.
First I have a pet peeve with people being in conversations that don't involve them. I have three kids and one of the first things I tried to instill in them is if someone around them is talking to someone else DO NOT put yourself into the conversation. You really never know how it's going to be perceived. You could be welcomed into the conversation or you could be viewed as a busybody who gets on peoples nerves. This particular person does this all the time. You could be telling someone about something that happened to you ten years ago and she will come into the middle of your conversation with "I know! I..." And all I wanna scream is "Friggen stop that! How the hell do you have any place in this conversation knowing that ten years ago you were climbing on the short bus wearing a sturdy plastic helmet to keep you safe?!?" But of course that is not a nice thing to say and believe it not, I am actually a nice person... sometimes. Saying something like that is neither appropriate for the workplace nor something that is tolerable in the workplace. It is however, something that is liable to come flowing out of my mouth when the censor guard is away...
Second I have a thing with people being unnecessarily loud. If people wince when you start talking or if people can hear you from the back of a place that has a roaring over, a blaring stereo, and a loud sheeting device going at full speed, you are too loud. Not a clue if you've ever been in the back of a pizza place but a good bit of the time we have all three of these. Maybe not a blaring stereo but a semi loud one and if she says something in the front, most of the time I can hear her in the back. Other people could fairly shout and I might catch every other word but with her, I can hear her clearly.
Third, I'm sarcastic but with me, ninety percent of the time it fits the situation. There is that odd ten percent of the time when it's totally uncalled for and I understand that and I usually apologize because I realize it was inappropriate. I never try to go out of my way to hurt people with my words unless they have pushed me off the high dive and insisted I swim in the cesspool of words that can come flowing out of my mouth. If you have known me more than ten minutes that you already know that I'm a writer and the daughter of an English teacher. I can phrase things in a way that can will actually leave you feeling like I've become the hideous old hag in town that cut everyone down with her sharp tongue and kept walking. Mostly I prefer to create you as a character in my stories and verbally (maybe physically) hurt you there but every now and then, it happens in real life. With her, every other word that flows from her mouth is sarcastic.
Yes, I make fun of her behind her back and have for a few weeks now but trust me making fun of her to her face is not my style and would get out of control very quickly. BUT I'm not the one that started that. That situation was going way before I got there. If she only knew what people say about her behind her back...
And for awhile I even defended her dumbass. The poking fun would start and I would turn away or actually say, "Her elevator doesn't go to the top floor, it's not fair to say that." I was sorta kinda on her side, or at least straddling the line between throwing rocks at her and taking up her cause. But it's ME that's she's decided to make a point of annoying now.
For the last six or so shifts, she has made it a point not to say a word to me. At first it wasn't an outright snub that I could see. But in the last couple shifts I've noticed that she will make a point to speak to everyone in the room BUT me. People who have actually told her to her face to leave them the hell alone she will speak to but me who has never actually cussed her out gets snubbed. Okay. People who have made it clear that they would prefer her not to interact with them, she will sit and talk to but me, she snubs.
Last night she actually said something to me but she chose to snap at me in front of customers and coworkers. The worst I did was slam the hotbox door.
So last night my dreams were pretty graphic. Most of the times my brain went over the fictitious situation I simply used my words to cut her down. Then somewhere near the end of my minds tether, she actually slapped me first. In a couple of the scenarios I didn't react. In a couple I beat the ish out of her right there in the store, one I hit her with a pizza pan, and the one that scared me the most because it actually seems like something I would lose control and do making it the closest to home my subconscious got to pegging me last night was she slapped me after I verbally cut her down and I went, clocked out, drug her butt to the parking lot off store grounds and beat the snot out of her.
I'm going to be honest. That last one was so close to being something I would actually do that it was frightening. It was just after that one that my mind put a full moon in the sky at daytime to make me realize I was dreaming and enabled me to wake up. That is my device. If i see a full moon in the daytime or the sun at night, I know I'm dreaming and can actually force myself to wake up. I lost control like that once before and afterwards it took way too many people way too long to calm me down. I didn't like me, I know others didn't like that side of me and it was one of the few times that landed me on behavioral meds that I didn't argue. Because I'm totally silent. Something snaps in my brain and the me that everyone else sees, just goes to hide. The one time I snapped like that, I didn't realize I'd done it until I came back to myself and was told what I had done. One of the main things they kept telling me was that I didn't say a word, just commenced to bashing the girl silently.
My hope is now that I've dreamt about it and blogged about it, I have gone a fair way to blow my steam out. I have put a little more time on the egg timer and given myself sometime to reassess.
I'm not going to say a word, I'm going to be okay with her not saying a word to me. I'm not going to speak about her, and I'm not going to make fun of her. I am not going to go out of my way to be nice to her either. She doesn't deserve that from me. I am not going to defend her when others talk about her. I'm not going to do anything but my job. And that's where it will end hopefully.
I love my job and don't want to do anything to jeopardize it.
Fuck it, I'm going to bake. Today is cookie/brownie day. I promise I would bring some in for them and I aim to keep that promise today...
Stay frosty peeps!
