rat-a-tat-tat
Have you ever had someone hate you? It’s quite an awful feeling as I know this firsthand now. Val, mean breakfast queen, thinks I ratted her out.
As you may know from my earlier post about Val, she has not a lady’s temperament. Recently, a very important executive witnessed an episode between Val and her boss, we’ll call him Foghorn and brought it to the attention of a nearby HR/ Administration executive, we’ll call her Elizabeth. The VIE couldn’t believe that an assistant would speak to her boss with such rancor. The rest of us accept it as Val on any given day.
The executive Elizabeth who was tasked with speaking to Val’s boss Foghorn is a very proper and calm person. She and Foghorn had a chat about Val’s negative attitude and the fact that other executives were starting to notice. She mentioned how unfortunate it must be for me and for Lacey, a woman who sits on the other side of Val, to endure the constant tirades and big exasperated sighs whenever work is to be done.
I’m sure Foghorn, a real milquetoast guy who doesn’t seem to notice or care that Val is a seething mess of a grandma, took the news in stride. That evening, he called me into his office after Val had left and asked me what I had been hearing. I told him that we were all aware of Val’s bad attitude and that it was out of concern that we would ever say anything. I told him it didn’t affect my work but that it was hard to sit next to someone so vile and jaded. He listened to what I had to say and then said that he was going to have a talk with Val the next day. “After we talk, the following day is going to be a bad one.” Great.
The next day, as promised, at the end of the business day, Foghorn called Val into his office. I scurried under a bookshelf to avoid whatever possible fallout there might be after Val took out her glock and capped her boss. I wasn’t sure how she would react or how Foghorn would handle the delicate situation of having to tell someone “Hi, so, ah, people think you’re wretched. Fix it.” But, I would soon find out that Val is not one for constructive criticism and Foghorn is an extra-large pussy royale with cheese.
Val was SUPER quiet the day after “the talk.” She barely said anything to anyone let alone Foghorn that morning. When I passed her in the hallway, I said “Hi, Val!” as cheerfully as I could and was met with a very terse, very dagger-filled “Hi.” Odd behavior? No, just a normal day, or so I thought. Then I overheard her tell Lacey that she “can’t talk too loud.” And later as she laughed about something with Foghorn, she said “Oh, wait, I can’t laugh too loud.” Hm. She didn’t say anything to me. Maybe because she thinks I complained about her? No. Couldn’t be.
YES.
How do you know, Katie? How could you be sure? Well, thanks to the fantastic acoustics in my office, I overheard the following tidbits Val shared with her sister during one of their usual sessions…
“…apparently, someone complained that I’m too loud… they’re all a bunch of 20-somethings and I hope they get cancer. I hope they get cancer and can’t take hormones. I don’t want them to die, I just want them to get cancer.”
Might help the gentle reader to know that Val is a survivor of cancer. Yeah. Twisted, right?
Later, Lacey filled me in on what I had missed.
“She said “They’re all a bunch of stupid assholes who don’t do anything all day.””
Now, maybe because I heard Val tell her doctor that during a recent visit, she forgot to pick up her Paxil refill, I understand that she may be moody. But, to wish a disease upon someone… a disease you overcame yourself… don’t you think that’s a little bit excessive? Oh, Foghorn, you let me down.
The conclusion that I’ve come to is that Foghorn didn’t man-up and address Val’s issue which is that her attitude needs some tweaking. I suspect he simply told her that people have complained that she’s too loud and those people are me. Today, when I went over to her cube to ask her a question, she simply turned around in her chair and stared at me when I said “Hey, Val…”
Perhaps I am reading into things. Maybe she just doesn’t like the Chinese. Whatever. This is an office and that she is childish enough to become uncongenial towards me when I ask her a work-related question is beyond my comprehension. Unfortunately, there is no way to ever convey to her that I didn’t rat her out. I was asked a question and I answered it. Whatever annoyance I felt before is tantamount to the uneasiness I feel now, knowing that she sits there all day and thinks malicious thoughts about me when she’s not mopping up another rousing game of Solitaire. She doesn’t minimize it. And what’s worse is that I do have to sit next to her all day… STILL. I’m just trying to go about my day as I did before but now I try to ignore the forcefield of evil that protects her cubicle. I think I may start pinging it with jellybeans to see if it can be penetrated with the innocent sweetness of processed sugar.
Rat-a-tat-tat.
As you may know from my earlier post about Val, she has not a lady’s temperament. Recently, a very important executive witnessed an episode between Val and her boss, we’ll call him Foghorn and brought it to the attention of a nearby HR/ Administration executive, we’ll call her Elizabeth. The VIE couldn’t believe that an assistant would speak to her boss with such rancor. The rest of us accept it as Val on any given day.
The executive Elizabeth who was tasked with speaking to Val’s boss Foghorn is a very proper and calm person. She and Foghorn had a chat about Val’s negative attitude and the fact that other executives were starting to notice. She mentioned how unfortunate it must be for me and for Lacey, a woman who sits on the other side of Val, to endure the constant tirades and big exasperated sighs whenever work is to be done.
I’m sure Foghorn, a real milquetoast guy who doesn’t seem to notice or care that Val is a seething mess of a grandma, took the news in stride. That evening, he called me into his office after Val had left and asked me what I had been hearing. I told him that we were all aware of Val’s bad attitude and that it was out of concern that we would ever say anything. I told him it didn’t affect my work but that it was hard to sit next to someone so vile and jaded. He listened to what I had to say and then said that he was going to have a talk with Val the next day. “After we talk, the following day is going to be a bad one.” Great.
The next day, as promised, at the end of the business day, Foghorn called Val into his office. I scurried under a bookshelf to avoid whatever possible fallout there might be after Val took out her glock and capped her boss. I wasn’t sure how she would react or how Foghorn would handle the delicate situation of having to tell someone “Hi, so, ah, people think you’re wretched. Fix it.” But, I would soon find out that Val is not one for constructive criticism and Foghorn is an extra-large pussy royale with cheese.
Val was SUPER quiet the day after “the talk.” She barely said anything to anyone let alone Foghorn that morning. When I passed her in the hallway, I said “Hi, Val!” as cheerfully as I could and was met with a very terse, very dagger-filled “Hi.” Odd behavior? No, just a normal day, or so I thought. Then I overheard her tell Lacey that she “can’t talk too loud.” And later as she laughed about something with Foghorn, she said “Oh, wait, I can’t laugh too loud.” Hm. She didn’t say anything to me. Maybe because she thinks I complained about her? No. Couldn’t be.
YES.
How do you know, Katie? How could you be sure? Well, thanks to the fantastic acoustics in my office, I overheard the following tidbits Val shared with her sister during one of their usual sessions…
“…apparently, someone complained that I’m too loud… they’re all a bunch of 20-somethings and I hope they get cancer. I hope they get cancer and can’t take hormones. I don’t want them to die, I just want them to get cancer.”
Might help the gentle reader to know that Val is a survivor of cancer. Yeah. Twisted, right?
Later, Lacey filled me in on what I had missed.
“She said “They’re all a bunch of stupid assholes who don’t do anything all day.””
Now, maybe because I heard Val tell her doctor that during a recent visit, she forgot to pick up her Paxil refill, I understand that she may be moody. But, to wish a disease upon someone… a disease you overcame yourself… don’t you think that’s a little bit excessive? Oh, Foghorn, you let me down.
The conclusion that I’ve come to is that Foghorn didn’t man-up and address Val’s issue which is that her attitude needs some tweaking. I suspect he simply told her that people have complained that she’s too loud and those people are me. Today, when I went over to her cube to ask her a question, she simply turned around in her chair and stared at me when I said “Hey, Val…”
Perhaps I am reading into things. Maybe she just doesn’t like the Chinese. Whatever. This is an office and that she is childish enough to become uncongenial towards me when I ask her a work-related question is beyond my comprehension. Unfortunately, there is no way to ever convey to her that I didn’t rat her out. I was asked a question and I answered it. Whatever annoyance I felt before is tantamount to the uneasiness I feel now, knowing that she sits there all day and thinks malicious thoughts about me when she’s not mopping up another rousing game of Solitaire. She doesn’t minimize it. And what’s worse is that I do have to sit next to her all day… STILL. I’m just trying to go about my day as I did before but now I try to ignore the forcefield of evil that protects her cubicle. I think I may start pinging it with jellybeans to see if it can be penetrated with the innocent sweetness of processed sugar.
Rat-a-tat-tat.
posted by Katie at 4:14 PM
4 Comments:
God. My office is so boring.
If you don't mind my asking -- how come it bothers you that much? It's entertaining reading for me, but it seems like this genuinely bothers you. The woman is obviously imbalanced, and possibly full blown nuts.
If a normal person treats you that way, screw em. They're being irrational and immature. But this lady doesn't even need those caveats. She's crazy. Hell, the way you describe it, the Paxil doesn't make her normal. It brings her down so that she's borderline functional.
When I was a camp counselor, a chemically imbalanced kid during one session got it in his head that I had dicked him over (something about shortchanging him when I was giving out desserts) and he made it his mission to remind me how much he hated me for the rest of the week.
Annoying? Yes.
Genuninely hurtful or troublesome? Not really.
Consider the source. If the Dalai Lama tells me that I'm a jerk, I might go home and re-evaluate things. If some kid on a steady diet of lithium attacks my character, I'm not going to necessarily take his word for it.
She's crazy. Crazy people can be smart. They can be good-looking. They can be talented. They can be sufficient and even excellent in many ways. But crazy people are almost universally deficient in perspective. She has no perspective that goes beyond her clouded, furious reality. This is why she can wish cancer on you, even though she had it once herself.
Maybe when we all die and go to heaven, you'll meeet Val again in her purest soul form and you can really get to know her. For the time being, tho, it sounds like you're pretty much just interacting with a part of her brain that exudes too much of one chemical and not enough of the other...
...and writing about it. God, keep writing about this. This is some funny shit.
you know what really cracks an evil force field?
hello kitty.
and remind me to tell you about the libi debacle.
oh, and i'm back online.
Hello kitty is the U.N. of all things evil.
Oh and Dave, I will post an update soon on the whole Val situation. Blah.
I'm sorry....did you say her name is Warren hahahahahahahaha. What a said woman. I will add her to my prayer list. To wish cancer on you is unbelievable, Trifling and sad. She really needs help. She should by her some hello kitty stickers. Word
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