going nuts on nutso

i'm on a streak. i've been expressing my feelings of crustiness more and more now.

i might be pms-ing. or this might be me finally turning into more of an assertive adult.

okay, likely it's the former. but we'll have to wait and withhold judgment on it for now until or unless another event arises.

today, what happened was i snapped at a manager.

the crazy, nutso one i was ranting about a couple of posts ago.

she was seriously driving me nuts -- almost as nuts as she. lamenting, crying, complaining, thinking the world was out to get her and that people were talking shit about her behind her back and wanting her to fail.

i was in a meeting with her for most of the day. as soon as she called me on my cell, and then e-mailed me to come and see her, i was groaning internally to myself and dreading it. but i forced myself to go.

it ended up being a three-hour meeting.

i was literally dying the whole time. it was everything i knew it would be, but made worse because i knew the same tired complaints i would be hearing and because of the length of time i ended up being in her office.

i was doing everything i could to hint to her about work i need to do in my own office and about the length of time that was passing by. any sane or rational person would see or hear me and know how much i was suffering. my body language cried out that i wanted to leave. i even told her straight out, as she kept whining about "personal attacks," that i really didn't want to hear this stuff, although i softened my words by making a light comment afterward.

but she didn't get it.

i finally managed to escape left three hours later, when it was well into my lunch hour. the meeting plain wore me out; i was just plumb tuckered. and hungry! i had a tupperware bowl of honey bunches of oats with strawberries in my cube that i had brought from home for my mid-morning break breakfast and which me and my stomach had agonizingly longing for. but it being well past noon, i skipped the cereal forlornly and went straight into the spaghetti i'd brought for lunch.

i was just pissed.

and that was only strike one.

strike two came about when the crazy nut e-mailed a one-page, size 10 font set of instructions for how she wanted me to compose a message to be sent out to a whole host of people. it might have taken her a good hour to compose this e-mail to me. i mean, you could look at it and instantly tell that just writing out those instructions and the verbiage she wanted me to use were painstakingly and carefully thought out and written.

and that made me mad because it was a waste of my time -- there were a list of things during our three-hour meeting that i was to get done, and quite a few of those items were pretty huge and time-consuming endeavors. and not only that, but seriously, the time it took for her to actually compose that e-mail to me and tell me the things she wanted me to say, she could have just easily done her own damn self!

ARRGH! that just GETS me! if she doesn't want to be out of the loop or feel out of place or like the whole world is against her, then she should talk to and communicate with people her own damn self! PUT yourself in the loop! don't remain on the outskirts like a damned chickenshit and have a low-level employee (ahem! me!) do all the stuff that you are supposed to be doing as a high-level manager.

WTF!

i am seriously befuddled and frustrated. i know she makes at least two or three thousand dollars a month more than me. and it's my firm belief that if you make a certain threshold salary, you lose the right to bitch about having hurt feelings and being so damned sensitive. in my book, if i could have a say in how the state bureaucracy should run, people like her would be gone. fired. dunzo. kaput. no need for sensitive loonies to drive other people crazy.

but that's not even strike three.

strike three came about at 6 p.m.

no, i'm not supposed to be there at 6 p.m., since i'm just a rank-and-file employee and i had already done my 8 hours. but i was there.

she called me on my cell, and we talked.

and it was the same.

shit.

again.

i swear, i'm being punished. all the loonies in the world love to talk to me. it's my fault for being so damned nice, but i am. i'm a nice person. but it's the polite and earnest kind of niceness. and for some reason, this translates into tell-me-all-your-lame-problems for those who don't really have any kind of social savvy.

so this nutso was starting it up again. at 6 p.m. when i am just beyond caring. and my nerves high. and my stress level up.

so i snapped at her.

damn me, but i really did.

and i knew that i was being rude -- but i could not stop myself. it was a surreal moment where i totally could have stopped myself -- sorta -- but did not care what i was saying nor what the consequences would be.

and did i mention i worked two days out of my three-day weekend? so yeah, i was super sick of work and the office and her.

so i kinda yelled at her in the phone. i told her i was stressed out as it was, that it was 6 o' clock and that i had worked on the weekend. and i told her that her personalization of issues, while i could empathize, was too much for me and i did not want to hear it.

as soon as i said all that or at least something similar to that, i instantly changed my tone and tried to ease up.

but it was done. i had said my piece.

she actually took it rather well. i am sure she didn't think her little issues were having any affect on me. but seriously, all that negativity -- i just could not stand it. it was fine at first, when i was just getting to know her and didn't think it'd turn into this big and this constant of an issue. but these past few weeks, having every conversation with her have all this negativity and her refusal to understand other people's perspectives and her lack of ability/willingness to de-personalize -- all this just got to me. and i got to a point where i could not deal.

the conversation ended well, though. we talked for maybe 30 minutes more, and it was fine. her voice was more assertive and her tone stronger by the end. she sounded better and stronger, and even if it was just bravado, for my sake, because of my own mental and emotional break-down, i was glad to see that she was capable of resurrecting her sense of professionalism, something i had seen in the beginning when i was first introduced to her but which i had seen nothing of since.

i think she needed to see my little flare up. i don't feel proud of it. in fact, i did and do feel bad about it. but if she and i can get to a place where i don't have to dread seeing her or talking to her, that'll be a much better place than i've been during the past week or so.

and yet a part of me is still kind of feeling good. is that terrible of me? it's just that, regardless of my ranting and raving on this blog, i really don't express that outraged, angry side of me that often in my daily interactions with people. so this display of emphatic impatience/anger/whatever is kind of new for me. in fact, i called dimples right after i got off the phone with nutso and i told her what had just happened. she was in awe and joked that she'd have to circle this date on her calendar and note on it "the day abbagirl stood up for herself." that made me laugh.

my hell.

what a day.

:-T