Today’s XKCD reminded me of this, in which an obvious apology is mistaken for sympathy. Every single time, and I mean EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I meet a deaf person and don’t immediately realize they’re deaf and don’t face them so they can read my lips, this is what happens.
Archive for ‘August, 2011’
I cannot remember a time in my childhood when I did not hate and fear my father. This consistently baffled him.
In the unlikely event that anyone is actually still reading these, here is an ACTUAL TALE of the BossLady instead of just a bunch of uninteresting backstory. This one is a classic.
So we moved into the new office this week. The phones got set up, furniture was delivered and professionally assembled. I lugged my computer, printer, scanner, and various folders and sundries over and set everything up, hooked up the fax, yadda. A couple of days went by in which a few items had to be straightened out, like the new wireless network courtesy of yours truly, and then we were good to go.
Except, we’ve got bugs.
Little gnats or fruit flies are bugging the crap out of me every single day. They’re the kind that are too small to have any fear of humans, so they’ll fly right up your nose out of sheer curiosity or perversity, I’m not sure which.
BossLady assures me that there weren’t any bugs there before, and we hazarded a guess that maybe they came with the furniture, somehow — another person surmised the same thing, that the bugs were in the boxes and nested briefly when the furniture was assembled, and then started coming out to be a pain in my ass. I suggested spraying with pesticide. This suggestion was brushed off, as the bugs would surely “go away after a while.”
Meanwhile, every day I kill several of them. All day long I’m clapping my hands on them, or swatting them on the desk. It’s really freaking aggravating, particularly because I really hate bugs. Bugs freak me out. I can’t stand having bugs on me. Seriously.
This morning, BossLady brought me some supplies that I had requested — finally — and as I was unpacking them I killed yet another bug. As I did so, I said, “GOD!”
BossLady turned around in mid-stride and said, “Could you not make so much noise?”
I stared.
BossLady went on to berate me for being so loud about my bug-killing, and said that it “adds to the stress.” She was talking to me as if I was a child, and I stared at her, with unveiled open-mouthed disbelief. She knows I hate bugs. She knows about the time I woke up in my lover’s apartment covered with termites and how it pretty much scarred me for life as far as having bugs on me.
I said, “I don’t like bugs.”
She continued, pissily, that she doesn’t want me making “so much noise” about it and demonstrated how she felt by slapping the wall VERY loudly a few times. “How would you like that?” As if my swatting bugs on my desk was anywhere near that loud, which it is not.
I repeated, “I don’t like bugs on me.”
She then pointed out that they are “just little bugs” and there’s no need to make a “big production” about them.
I repeated, “I don’t like bugs on me.”
She advised me, “Don’t share the love.” She was obviously quite pleased with herself for this quip.
I repeated, much more angrily than I have dared allow myself to get with her in the past, “I don’t like bugs on me.”
She breezed out of the office with the following glib remark:
“Florida’s a buggy place, get used to it.”
“THANK you,” I spat, without bothering to conceal my contempt. I said this while she was still in the doorway, before the door closed, so that she would be sure to hear me. (What I wish I’d said: “I don’t like bugs on me, get used to THAT.” But the door would have been closed before I could’ve gotten it out, even if I’d thought of it in time.)
I clenched and unclenched my fist a few times. I gritted my teeth. I walked back towards BossMan’s office, but his door was partially closed, so I didn’t disturb him. He had definitely heard the confrontation, I was sure. I sat down and continued with my work.
A minute later, he emerged and said he would be back. They were both off to lunch. Without looking at him, I quietly said, “I don’t think that was called for.”
BossMan, to his credit, remained calm and put forth a positive attitude, but supported BossLady. He said, “Well, you really don’t have to be so loud.”
I repeated, “I don’t like bugs on me.”
BossMan, with a good-natured yet slightly warning tone, repeated BossLady’s contention that the noise was bothersome and there’s no need to “make a big deal” about the little bugs.
I explained, “I’m not doing it to make a point. Bugs freak me out.”
BossMan made a couple more mildly dismissive remarks and went to lunch. I’m sure he’ll get an earful from BossLady. Meanwhile, I have decided that if and when BossLady shifts her ass to fire me, I will march right over to the main office and try to get myself hired with one of the other agents there, possibly even Ellen. Who BossMan and BossLady despise.
I doubt that BossLady will fire me at this point, since they won’t want me blabbing about their plans to the main office, but as soon as that deal closes, she may go right ahead and replace me. And she is welcome to do so.
Sheesh. “It adds to the stress.” You know what else is stressful?
Having to see your boss in her BATHROBE every morning.
Having to pick up someone else’s used POPSICLE STICKS off your work area all the time.
Having to wipe other people’s COFFEE CUP RINGS off your work area all the time.
Getting YELLED AT because you have the AUDACITY to ask for some FURNITURE so you can have a more COMFORTABLE WORKING ENVIRONMENT.
Having your boss crack all kinds of JOKES about the fact that you were HOMELESS for several months as if that was FUNNY and not a completely HUMILIATING experience.
But I put up with ALL that crap for MONTHS without saying anything, with the exception of the furniture and that was a POLITE request.
“It adds to the stress.” Yeah. #@*&%! YOU, GET USED TO THAT.
Comment: “Hello. And thank you at once for such an amazing web site. I’ll be visiting it on a regular basis.” — Re: Spam and Eggs: Twenty-Sixth Course
Feel free, but I won’t be giving you a platform to hawk your diet pills.
Comment: “Four score and seven mnuteis ago, I read a sweet article. Lol thanks” — Re: Princess Diana
I can’t even bring myself to be snarky to Thesaurus Guy anymore. Seriously, I’ve got like a crush on him or something by now.
Comment: “The genius store claled, they’re running out of you.” — Re: Tales of the BossLady: Passing the Torch
What’s the difference? You’re their all-time best seller! Not that there’s anything wrong with that, yadda yadda yadda.
Comment: “Cretead the greatest articles, you have.” — Re: Mice
When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not, hmm?
Comment: “I actually did some trap surfing and initiate this blog.” — Re: Spam and Eggs: Ninth Course
Apparently “tarp surfing” is a Thing, though it doesn’t have anything to do with trying to sell people seven-year-old copies of Dreamweaver in Russian. Oh well.
Following are scraps of notes that I took over the course of a few weeks back when the beginning of the end of my relationship with BossMan and BossLady was drawing nigh. As I’ve said before, my journals from this time period are often fragmented, hastily-typed interjections rather than coherent narratives. It’s a reflection of the chaos that was going on in the workplace (and, admittedly, in my own mind).
BossMan bought me lunch today. BossMan needs to touch up his mustache dye.
I found this “Florida Assistant” thing in the batch of papers BossMan gave me yesterday. I probably wasn’t supposed to see it. I don’t know. I tried, real casual-like, to tell BossMan about it today, but he just sort of steamrolled over it.
Yesterday BossMan was talking to BossLady on their way out and said something about Pat having left a resume at the new office. And I thought I heard BossLady shush him.
Between that and the printout from “Florida Assistant” and so forth, it’s completely obvious that they’re going to hire someone else and possibly fire me.
I’m dead. I’m dead.
I am dreading going in today. I believe BossMan will be at a meeting, so I won’t have any BossLady buffer when I walk in the door. I just have a bad feeling that she’s going to jump on me about filing everything “wrong.” Screw her.
Just smile and nod. Just say “okay” to everything. Just be patient.
The fact that she spends hours every night rearranging the stuff I’ve done during the day is her problem, not yours. You are still getting paid.
I hate BossLady. I really and truly do.
Anyway, it looks like the move to the new office is finally happening. They may have me come in on Saturday to set up the network, yadda yadda.
BossLady has confided in me that we are almost definitely leaving C21 and going to Realty Executives. Bummer. I liked saying that I was employed by “Century 21″ when asked.
Oh, and we have FINALLY moved into the new office as of yesterday. I moved the computer and printer and all that crap over yesterday morning.
I actually felt pretty good yesterday morning. I was up and at ‘em, exercised, showered, and was in a good mood until I got to the house and BossLady started in with her crap right away about how the computer seems to be getting super hot in its little cabinet at the new office, so I should leave the door open. Yeah, yeah. When I GOT to the new office, she had left a NOTE for me (God I hate when she does that) informing me that I need to keep the cabinet door open to keep the computer from overheating. Everything she does irritates the ever living crap out of me nowadays. So I basically goofed off all day.
Spam and Eggs is a weekly roundup of some of the shills and insults I accumulate here.
Comment: “Still not a comic.” — Re: The Lord of the Rings
I actually like it when somebody on Reddit bothers to leave a snarky comment rather than just being content to downvote. It makes me feel like I was worth their time.
Comment: “Ohh, I get it. You have the ass burgers.” — Re: Preacher’s Wife
Reddit comes through for me again! Apparently I’m a jerk for needling back when my boss, in the workplace, where we work, where he is my boss, who is the boss of me, needles me about my faith.
Comment: “I really enjoyed reading this post therefore i wanted to ask in the event people today realize how to shield themselves versus spam e-mail within the comming year of 2012. You should master how to spam email address to generate money and this approach it is possible to defend your self in opposition to spammy.” — Re: Spam and Eggs: Twenty-Sixth Course
I have a slight sadface that the Spam and Eggs pages are the ones that seem to accumulate the most spam. I used to get a ton of wacky comments over on the LOC BLOCs page. I probably need to start targeting my keywords, or something, on the regular pages. Oh, and no thank you, I respectfully decline your offer to teach me how to spam in order to shield myself from spammy spam spam spam baked beans spam spam and spam.
Comment: “Last one to utliize this is a rotten egg!” — Re: Diamond
Oh, hi Thesaurus Guy. If we’re racing to a useful application for that particular conversation, I’ll give you a head start.
Comment: “You put the lime in the coconut and drink the atrcile up.” — Re: Spam and Eggs: Seventeenth Course
Oh, Thesaurus Guy. Every time I think about letting you go, making a clean break, and moving on with my life, you show up at my door with flowers like these. I wish I knew how to quit you.
My boss and I again. He knows I’m a Christian so he likes to crack on Christianity whenever I’m around. Which is probably illegal in the workplace, but I enjoy pointing out how misinformed he is, so, whatever.
(Sorry for lateness again! Stuff!)