going nuts because of nutso

this is one of those days that start out slow and in which most of the people you encounter become your mortal enemies for life for no reason other than the fact that they make their existence known to you.

the word "curmudgeon" is apt. i just love this word. each syllable, when snarled aloud, necessarily embodies total and utter disdain.

that is me today.

nutso called my cell today. yes, on a sunday. at 5 p.m., no less.

of course, i didn't answer. are you kidding me? i usually don't answer even when she calls me on my cell during normal work hours unless i know that i absolutely have to. but today of all days, aw hell no!

so i ignored the call and let it go to voice mail.

i think i kind of already knew why she was calling. i had already gone in to the office yesterday afternoon -- yes, a saturday afternoon -- to get some work done. didn't stay very long because my tasks were rather quickie ones. when i finished up my tasks, i sent them off to nutso via e-mail.

checking my work e-mail late last night, i saw that she had written me during the evening. essentially, she said, "thanks for coming in to work today. i didn't do any work today, but i appreciate your efforts. i'll get my part done tomorrow."

cool. fine. i'm glad she took the day off.

but seriously, could i have today off?

so yes, her phone message to me from today, at 5 p.m., was to see if i would be coming in to work today because she had finished her part, and it was my turn to address some tasks again. "maybe you can try to get to the office by 7 p.m," she said in her voice message.

aw, hell no! you've got to be joking!

so i've totally ignored her. i'll deal with whatever shit i have to do tomorrow. but i will NOT be coming in to the office when it's already well into the evening.

shithead!!

nutso, to me, is the perfect embodiment, if there is such a thing, of nails on a blackboard. just the thought of her, the sight of her, the appearance of her name on my cell phone's caller i.d., the mere mention of her makes me cringe. i seriously cannot take this lady anymore.

nutso!!

and yet there are things about her that i find fascinating.

she is a thin, frail-looking woman, and yet the skin of her cheeks droop and sag.

her nails are cut (bitten) short and look soft, and her cuticles are red from blood and scabby.

she has nervous mannerisms, and her hands flutter hopelessly at her chest when she is anxious.

and of course, her eyes get a manic look whenever she is feeling stressed (which is, like, all the friggin' time), and you can tell that even if she is looking at you directly in your eyes or casting her eyes out desperately in all directions, she is not seeing anything but the chaotic fears that run rampant in her mind.

i am telling you -- lady is nuts! these are not exaggerations. i wish to the heavens i were only exaggerating her attributes and mannerisms. no, this craziness is her, all to a "t." and she should be so lucky if i were only exaggerating. but no, i seriously am not.

luckily, after leaving me that one voice mail, she didn't go freaky on me and start trying to call me multiple times until i picked up. instead, it looks as if she's letting it all go and has only sent me two additional e-mails instead.

*sigh*

even her e-mails annoy me. they annoy the shit out of me. you'd think that the impersonal nature of e-mails would lessen the impact of the annoyance i feel whenever she writes to me. i mean, at least it allows me to interact with her from the safety and distance of my home and not have to engage directly with her.

but no, i'm still bothered. one of her e-mails to me this evening directs me to do what she is supposed to do as a manager. it's not something appropriate to my level. and it just makes me go, "are you fucking kidding me?"

i've actually brought up this issue with her before but in regards to another matter. she had tried to delegate something to me again, this time engaging with really high-level person. i was like, "no. you're the manager. you need to be the one doing that." and she took that well, actually. and actually, there was another episode before even that, in which she had tried to delegate something to me. i hadn't quite learned to be firm with her at that point and had only demurred the task. in accepting my demurred refusal, she phrased it as something like, "since you're not comfortable doing that, i'll just do it myself . . . ." and that had made me mad. it's not a matter of being comfortable or not. it's a matter of her cutting the hell out with this chicken-shit business of hiding behind doors or hiding at home (she's been frickin' working from home most of the past four weeks, which has made things even harder than they needed to be) or hiding behind me, her loaner staff.

lady, stop being a fucking chicken shit, snap out of your crazy delusions, and just grow a pair!

arrgh!!

*breathing heavily from the exertion caused by the fermenting emotions*

it should not be so hard. we are all professionals, are we not? we all have learned to build two demeanors -- one for interacting with others in the workplace and one that we save for only our families and loved ones to see. i'm usually quite good at maintaining the balance. but all this negativity that nutso has been stirring in me is really fucking up my balance. people like her should not be there in the work place. if she has a history of being this crazy, then she should have been out of here a long time ago. it's just that the rest of the people who work at my department are idiots, too. they don't document things, they don't reprimand, they don't nip things in the bud.

she makes almost $ 90,ooo per year. can you believe? and most of that income was earned by her all for doing nothing. absolutely nothing. oh, now, she's got this little project that i've been working with her on completing. but before that? nothing.

can you imagine being able to make almost $ 90,000 a year while doing nothing? what a sweet deal. . . .

:-T

i'm all for the consolidation of st@te dep@rtments for the sake of getting rid of unnecessary entities. i'm all for the laying off of the workforce for the sake of streamlining. but i don't think it should be done all based on the amount of years that one has had in st@te service. there are a lot of great supervisors and managers and other long-term employees of the st@te out there. but there are also a lot of such people who take advantage of the safety and security and benefits of their st@te jobs. those are the ones who have to go.

but that's not the way it works. i know that, if it came to having to lay off me or a long-time employee like nutso, i'd be the one who'd get jacked. frankly, i don't think that's right. i don't say that because i have a vested interest in my job and am being selfish. i say that from an objective standpoint based on who is the more effective and efficient worker.

but hell, maybe that's just me.