open and shut

[pauraque_bk]

I am fairly inured to my boss's incessant aggression -- she has been known to make her other employees cry -- which has been an interesting exercise in ignoring a bully. It's quite hard to take seriously an adult who behaves like a child, but lately she seems to have caught on that I feel that way, complaining that I "don't care" about what she is saying. At any given moment she's probably right. I don't care. I tune it out because it's nonsense.

However. Today she was working at the other store, and called to bother and screw with me so many times that I finally had to call the manager of that store (her superior) and tell him she was doing it and not to let her call me anymore. He said he thought she was "bored". Yes, I'm sure she was. She must have had nothing to do, that she had to entertain herself harassing me until I couldn't take it anymore. After telling her repeatedly that I was in a bad mood, felt sick, it was very hot in the store, and that this was a bad time to mess with me.

I told him all this and he said she wouldn't call me again. She did not.

I left her a note which said something like:

I need you to recognize when I can't take any more aggression. You've known me long enough to tell when I'm not okay. There's no reason to take it so far that [your superior] is getting involved. Normally it rolls off me but everyone has a limit.

In retrospect I can't really see this doing any good. It was probably the admission of weakness that made her twist the knives in the first place. There wasn't any *anger* in it. She was having fun, laughing. I'm not sure I've ever seen that kind of sadism in a grown up.

I probably should quit... but there is actually a terrible fascination to it. There but for the grace of God go I. It makes me hear myself, it makes me lower my voice. I know a lesson when I see it.

For some reason, by some workings of her life, she's built a trap. Everyone else can get out of it. She's the only one who never can.

Comments

[woolf.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how these lessons just show up. I've been experiencing the same sort of thing with my boss -- he over-thinks and micro-manages and baiscally worries himself into paralysis, much like I've been known to do.

I suppose the best you can do is take what you can learn from them and try not to go down the same road.

And mostly that was completely incoherent, I mostly wanted to comment and link you streaming 10-man naxx. Two wings down, they just killed Raszuvious, and I'm never going to get any sleep. :-X

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I work with a small-minded, racist, vindictive, semi-illiterate woman who nonetheless considers herself a pillar of the community and always right. It's quite fascinating to watch her work herself into little corners, but you're right, sometimes it just gets too much.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

For some reason, by some workings of her life, she's built a trap. Everyone else can get out of it. She's the only one who never can.

The sad thing is that she did not enter the world from the womb being a petty, aggressive person. The behavior was learned somewhere. Having known a few grown up bullies, it always makes me wonder who was emulating that kind of behavior for them and who made it seem okay. It's not okay.

She should really be ashamed of herself for pulling such shit. Is she capable of looking at her own behavior? Maybe, maybe not. But you did the right thing. You are amazing.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I can just imagine. There is a place where it's like watching some weird insect spin around itself. But still, there's times where you wish they'd be a little more human and lay off. That's the problem with people like that; they really don't have any grasp on what they really are.

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

Hopefully the knowledge that you're the bigger person by far gets you through some of her batshittery. While it's true that people like that are more sad than intimidating, it doesn't make them any more pleasant to be around.

[pauraque]

I think she does know in a way. She alludes to her attitude. But not really in a sense that she wants to change or thinks she could. Of course she never experiences "normal" interactions, she only sees people interacting with someone incredibly obnoxious, which also changes their behavior.

[pauraque]

oh damn, I went to bed after I posted this. Screenshots are funny though... server restart in 4:00 indeed. After work maybe I'll look at the videos.

[pauraque]

At least I can say I don't think she's racist. I did have a racist manager at one point in the past, he was pretty overtly anti-black (would follow black people around the store and tell everyone he thought they were stealing, and in one case where it so happened that a black person actually did attempt to steal something, he explained how this completely vindicated him and that "this is why there is racism"). At the time I didn't do or say anything, I didn't work for him for very long. I don't know how I would handle it now.

[pauraque]

Well when I first met her it was intimidating. I interpreted her aggression as anger and thought "I must be doing something horribly wrong to get a normal person so angry". When I realized she wasn't normal and used the same tone with everyone in every situation, my concern that I was somehow causing it evaporated.

[bardsmaid.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of my next door neighbor, who left a note in my mailbox the other day berating me for leaving the old toilet and sink from the half bath out along the side of the house for so long (guilty as charged.) He signed his missive 'An Offended Neighbor'. Mind you, this is the man who every week pulls his trash cans out and sets them along the street in front of a strip of my property, and who, in years past, took his dog's droppings and used to put them in the trash can of the lady who lived in my house before me. (He also demanded, last fall, that I cut down a tree in my yard--entirely at my own expense--because he didn't want to rake up the few leaves that fell from it onto his lawn.)

The thing that left me amused rather than annoyed is the fact that he felt the need to hide behind the anonymity of a note, even though it would have been obvious, given some specifics of the content, who had written it. So now I know that he's not just a blowhard (which he is), but ultimately a chicken (probably the possibility of knocking on my door only to come face to face with my son Aaron--who can look rather intimidating--rather than me, had something to do with his decision to use the indirect approach), and I find myself less concerned about him than before. I did move the old toilet and sink; no doubt he thinks he 'made' me, but in reality it was something I should have done long ago. Still, I chuckle to myself at his cowardice.

Hope your situation improves one way or the other (a job where people actually appreciated you would be nice for a change.) Such lessons may not be comfortable in the learning, but at least you recognize one when it comes your way, which is a talent not everyone has.