Posts

8/29/06

than yesterday. She retorted with this completely ridiculous email that actually made me laugh at its complete stupidity.

Her email

ah! i was going to erase this message, and i should have. i am so sorry that you actually blame ME for your own unhappiness in this office. wow!

it's like [the former production assistant] is reincarnated in you. and i DID say hello to you-you ignored me in the cafeteria. i have been nothing but civil to you, and you, with your unending moodiness, well, it's hard to figure out what is a good day for you, or a bad one [ed. This IS HILARIOUS. From a woman who is routinely crying at her desk, obviously trying to get people to swarm around her to ask her what's wrong. And then five minutes later is laughing. Woah. Craaaazy] . I don't treat ANYONE like shit [ed. I believe screaming obscenities at people in the office qualifies as treating people like shit. But then I guess I'm just a delicate wilting flower. OH! And she dipped one of the student worker's cups in the toilet. nice.]-and i'll tell you what-i'm glad you wrote this...it confirms what i have felt for a long time from you-i am so sorry you had to stay and answer the phones during the conference-i am so sorry you don't feel a part of the "team" here...but don't you DARE say that i am the cause of the bad "poisonous" atmosphere in this office...it was here long before me, and will be here long after [ed. Uh no. This was actually a nice place to work before you started spiralling out of control.].

so please...save your regurgitated [former production assistant bullshit]. and passive aggressive????? please.

+++++++++

I didn't take the bait though. I just didn't respond. What. Ever.

The former production assistant was a bit annoyed that I didn't bring up obvious things like her borrowing money and never paying it back, the blood she left in the bathroom sink, the time she threw up in the bathroom and didn't bother to clean it up, stealing people's sodas and food out of the fridge, ripping off the bookstore, the time she came into his office obviously high and smelling like urine, calling her five-year-old niece a bitch, etc., etc. Oh yes, she's a lovely, lovely co-worker.

8/28/06

Her email to me:

Subject: past few days

i don't know what the hell i've done to have you walk past me and not even say hi, and i've thought a lot about what it could be. i don't care anymore. i know that you and i would never be friends out of work--i'm an obnoxious embarrassment with no tact to you. that's ok, too. the last few times we've im'd i could tell you really did not want to talk to me and when i went in your office and you told me you were busy, well....

i won't bother you anymore. i've gone through so much pain in this past few months that the last thing i needed was to be totally snubbed by someone i thought was my friend, without any explanation. i don't want one now, or some confrontation.  i wish you luck in whatever you do.

My email to her:

This is the most passive aggressive bullshit I've ever seen. The problem is, XXXXX, you treat people like shit. I am no longer going to be party to this. You act like everyone is out to get you when in fact it's your OWN actions that cause trouble and dissent in this office. You are the sole reason for the poisonous atmosphere in our office. I HATE coming to work now.

I tried to say hello to you last week and you GLARED at me. Screw that. I'm not saying hello or goodbye to you any more if you cannot act toward me with some basic civility.

And you know what? Maybe I've gone through some pain, maybe I have my own problems. You seem to think the world revolves around you and that we should all excuse your inexcusable behavior because of your PERSONAL problems. I don't bring my personal problems into work and I think it's bullshit that you do.

+++++++++++

Ugh. I hate conflict but I really can't take much more of this bullshit. I feel like we've regressed to fourth grade or something.

8/21/06

So my coworker is seriously losing it. She got into three screaming fights with our student worker (who is deaf) and several more with our office manager over complete bullshit. On Friday I think she had several screaming fights first thing in the morning and then suddenly "remembered" she had two doctor's appointments that day and had to leave right away. Okay. Like ANYONE believed that shit.

Today she got into it AGAIN with our office manager. This is getting ridiculous. A few months ago she was caught ON TAPE shoplifting a candy bar and a soda from the University bookstore. ON TAPE. The mind boggles. How much more bad behavior will she be allowed to get away with before somebody (i.e., management) fires her or at least tells her to knock it the hell off?

And she just sent me a bitchy email explaining why she hadn't bothered to get my message off the answering machine last week when I called in sick until after someone asked her if I'd called in. What? She can't do one of the most basic tasks of her job? Jesus H. Christ. I just deleted it. She is now officially dead to me. Stupid cow.

5/27/06

i think something might be going down with the coworker I talked about in the previous entry. There have been closed door meetings, her boss is looking exceedingly grim, and she still hasn't shown up. She's supposed to be here at 8:30. It is now approaching 9:40 and so far no one has heard from her. Unfortunately, this is not an unusual occurrence. It happens pretty much every day but she banks on her boss being gone by 8:30 (he has several other offices on campus).

It amazes me how much she gets away with all the crap she does. She comes in late, stays for maybe 45 minutes and then disappears for an hour and a half. She'll call up one of us and say "oh, i have to go over to the cashier's office. Can you take the phones for 5 minutes? And then 90 minutes later she returns with some wildass excuse as to why she got delayed. (Uh, I kinda believed your lame story the first 4 times because I am gullible and kind of dumb about people. Now, not so much.) And she does this throughout the day to various people. I think she's in the office maybe 3 hours tops. Every damned day.

She won't wear her bridge (or maybe she lost it) for her front teeth so we all have to stare into her gaping maw and get spat on when she talks but yet every other week she has to leave for half a day to go the dentist (on the alternating weeks, she has to be out for doctor's appts. Right.). And she's one of those people who take out their personal problems on everyone in the office. She starts fights with co-workers, especially every damn student worker we've ever had.

I don't know what you have to do to get your ass canned around here. Set the building on fire?

(Actually, you probably have to have a blog where you talk shit about your coworkers. Oops. Good thing I'm actively looking for something else with a little less poisonous atmosphere.)

5/26/06

The one reason I stopped reading Russell Banks novels is that I found them absolutely horrifying. His characters seem to make stupid assumptions and then make dumb decisions that lead to horrible outcomes. That is too much like real life for me--thanks, but I'll stick with horror novels where people die agonizing deaths but everything works out for the best in the end. Well, except for the people who died.

In any case, one of my coworkers seems to have walked straight out of a Banks novel and it's beginning to be unbearable. She's a recovering addict on methadone and seems to embody every fucking sterotype of an addict imaginable. She's hit up everyone in the office for money and not just a dollar or two--it's more like $20 a pop. She's even begged for money from our Federal Express guy. She was finally told to stop after the PA complained to his boss about it. And, of course, she NEVER pays you back. She's paid me back once or twice, usually after we've had a spat about something as some weird passive-aggressive move to make me feel bad. I know, I'm a dumbass for continuing to give her money. And I'm a dumbass for listening to her stories.

Oh god. Her stories. I am now sort of speechless when she tells me stuff because if half of these things every happened to me I WOULD NOT TELL ANYONE. EVER. I would be too ashamed and embarrassed (example: She was arrested for shoplifting a chicken a few months back. Why would you voluntarily tell people you work with about that? Why? And how do you shoplift an entire chicken? Perhaps a Powerbar might've been easier). But she seems to thrive on people feeling sorry for her (well, I suppose that's how she gets money out of people), which is something I really don't understand. Because we all now just think she's crazy. And pathetic.

She IM'ed me yesterday with yet another sad story clearly hoping I would offer her the $20 so she could go get her methadone. We got paid on TUESDAY, how the hell had she run through her money so fast? Well, she has all her stuff in storage (her violent alcoholic boyfriend got them evicted from her apartment; she was  living with her sister until her sister's crackhead ex-husband moved back in and threw her out; she and her boyfriend are now living in their car) and she was behind on paying the storage so she had to give them a buttload of money so they wouldn't auction off her stuff. I expressed my sympathy but didn't offer her any money. I'm done with that. I take care of myself and my cats and I'm also stashing some money for college away for my nieces and nephew. But the bank of Deirdre is now officially closed.

I think she was also counting on someone at the office offering her a place to stay after her sister threw her out. And I think she really expected me to be that person. Oh HELL NO. I try to keep my life as drama-free as possible and there is no way I'm inviting that sort of chaos into my house. I was talking to the PA about it (who told me he was a little worried that I would cave and let her stay with me) and he said "Yeah, can you imagine coming home from work and the boyfriend would be sitting on your couch, watching your tv, swigging back your beer. And then you know stuff would start disappearing. They'd be like 'Oh, the DVD player wasn't working right so we took it to get fixed.' And then you'd never see it again."*

But the thing that has made me the angriest about her is that she didn't get her cat spayed and then deliberately let her outside when she was in heat because, you know, there aren't enough cats in the world. The cat gave birth to five kittens, which she then DECIDED TO KEEP. Arrrgh. Because being homeless and having SIX cats is such a fine idea. I have been begging her to take them to a shelter and she has given away two (because they've been driving around with the cats in the car that they're living in and people at gas stations come up and ask if they can adopt one) and one escaped. But she still has three. In the car. If I see that fucking car on Tuesday parked outside of campus, i think an anonymous call to animal control might just be happening.

*The PA is completely unsympathetic to her plight and shortly after he started working at the Press he yelled at her and told her to stay away from him. He now sends me email periodically with subject lines like "Junkie Update" and "Warning: Junkie on the Move."