Chandler Bing’s line in Friends. He talks about a psycho that moves in, I talk about the bitch that is no longer a problem… What a strange day was Wednesday… And how things can turn around overnight. What goes around comes around.
I’ve mentioned before the problems I had with a woman who was the head of the corporate department. She was a slacker, unbearable, annoying, an embarrassment for the school and I honestly don’t know how she got a job there. She did her job very poorly and somehow got away with that. A couple of months ago I was moved to “her” office. HER office. In her mind, me being there was just a favour, you know? I’m less of an employee and should feel honoured to share the room with Her Majesty.
A series of minor events happened: she invading my space, me trying to get some more space… But yesterday was the last drop. After two weeks without showing up at the school, she made a come back, full of herself, sat at her desk, banged some drawers, answered some phone calls and then turned on the radio… She didn’t ask if I wanted to listen to music — especially the horrendous axe music she was listening to — she didn’t ask if I would mind, she didn’t even bother looking at my direction. She just turned it on as if I didn’t exist. Well, not putting up with shit anymore, bitch…
I politely asked her to turn off the radio and told her to listen to an mp3 player if she wanted to listen to some music. Well, if pissing her off was my goal, mission accomplished… She started yelling at me, saying that she didn’t have an mp3 player and that she didn’t believe I was saying that. She said that I was taking up a lot of her space, that I was inconvenient, that if she had to list all the reasons why she didn’t like me we wouldn’t be able to stay in the same room. Oh, really? Are you sure? Do you really think that? Think about what say, think carefully about what you say before making a mistake.
She didn’t… In fact, she would have a meeting with her boss — my former boss, who hired me almost three years ago — and she informed him via e-mail that she would include sharing the room with me in the agenda. I wasn’t at all scared, she could threaten me all she wanted because my former boss wouldn’t do anything before talking to me. But just in case, I immediately wrote MY boss about the whole situation and the response I got was:
“Don’t worry, this will be over soon. Thanks for letting me know.”
OK. I might be getting a new room. She might move permanently to Moinhos branch. Well, I got the answer in the afternoon.
I was by myself at the office, just doing my stuff, when in comes my former boss followed by her. Wow, I thought, the meeting must have been ugly and they’re now here to talk this through. But then I see her getting her stuff and returning the keys to the office… She had been sacked…
No, I wasn’t because of me. Us having a huge fight was just a coincidence. She was fired for lying to her boss, my former boss, about some stuff that she was supposed to have done. Actually, they didn’t even talk about my situation because, well, sharing the room with me would no longer be a problem…
But I guess it must have been really painful to her having to do that in front of me. I was petrified, actually. They were talking about the current situation of her clients and all I could do was stare at the screen and try to focus on preparing the upcoming Immersion’s schedule. What goes around comes around…
I gotta tell you something, though. I truly feel sorry for her. Even though she’s an incredibly annoying person, and at many times mean to her co-workers, she has a family, a little daughter, people who truly like her. I do hope she’s learned something from all this and I honestly hope she will become, or at least try to become a better person.
Well, time to turn the page now.
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We Feel Fine: “I face frustration and use it to fuel my dedication that I feel myself moving forwards” (3 days ago)
-- Never too many beers -- 