well waddaya know….

so: i guess i have a bit of catching up to do. the drama at work i guess stretches all the way back to last summer when i decided not to be friends with kor. i still stand by that decision and feel that it has positivey affected my life. when that happened, i considered cor. and sue to be two of my closest friends.. so of course i vented. i feel like that was acceptable for a few reasons – friends are meant to be there with an open ear; i didn’t gossip at work (to them or anyone else); and i don’t feel it was gossip really… i wasn’t saying "she IS…" i was saying "she DID…" i think i had a few pretty good reasons to be upset, based on her actions etc….  anyways, when i stopped talking to kor, she cut everyone else off… i felt really bad that they were being dragged into this, but it showed what an immature and shoddy person she was. there were a few times when she and some of my work mates went out together, like to the movies or to the bar, and i NEVER EVER "punished" them for that… they’re allowed to choose their friends — i wasn’t insulted or hurt at all. and they knew that… they didn’t hide that they had gone out with her.

so flash forward to a few months later.. i guess it was around x-mas.. a bit before. cor and sue were having some issues. they both have strong personalities so this wasn’t the first time they’ve butt heads.. but it seemed like work issues and homelife issues were being mixed together and that was making every action and word seem very personal. i think there were 2 "final straws": one saturday if was quite busy. sue opened and cor closed. on sue’s time, one of the cash registers broke. instead of dealing with is as it was on her watch and it was only going to get busier as the day progressed, she left it. so cor had to call logicaisse and spent about an hour on the phone being talked through the repair of the cash register. i feel for her — it’s difficult to talk to anyone there because they’re french so they have pretty strong accents, and since we’re beside the fountain in the mall it can make hearing difficult. so understandably cor didn’t do the best work in the store that night. the next day, sue comes in and in front of myself and len, as well as a couple part-times and CUSTOMERS!! bitches about cor’s aisles and talks shit about her. then she takes pictures to show our boss !! wow. couldn’t believe it. even after the situation was explained, she had no change in attitude. that night was our staff x-mas party…cor stopped by work to get the details and asked about sue’s reaction to the messyness of her aisles (she was well aware the she hadn’t done a great job) so i told her "she was upset and took pics." now – knowing that sue is a total asskisser and that our boss favours her over cor, cor decided to skip the staff x-mas party. i can understand why, it would have been awkward knowing that a lot of ppl knew what had gone on that day. way for sue to ruin a celebration. bitch move number 1!

so a week or so later, cor forgot her keys one night and sue lent her set. cor was supposed to drive the keys back to her that evening after work so sue could open the next morning, but cor’s ride fell through so she said she would walk to the mall tomorrow morning and meet sue at 10:30 (when her shift starts, half an hour before the mall opens). now sue is notoriously late ALL THE TIME. pretty much every saturday and sunday mornings at least 20 minutes late… that adds up to a lot of time where she gets paid for doing NOTHING. about $500/ year if you figure it out. which i did! so – cor shows up when sue is supposed to be there and of course.. she’s not! she waits a few mins then puts the keys in till #1 and locks the door behind her. why should cor hang around, unpaid, while sue takes her sweet time and gets paid for it? now sue will have to wait for the other key-holder to get there. technically, she’d have to wait anyways — she isn’t allowed to go into the store and start to open by herself. the rules are that there are always to be 2 or more ppl in the store at a time. anywho, the other keyholder, ghars., was late, as usual. and as a result, they opened late and they almost got a warning. sue was FURIOUS but cor’s defense was that she didn’t do anything wrong.. all she asked sue to do was show up on time and she didn’t. so of course sue told the boss and cor. was reprimanded. sue never forgave cor for that but waaaaaiiiittt just a sec. the very next weekend, len and sue were opening. len got there on time and sue…. was late surprise surprise! she didn’t show up until the last second, they opened late and actually got a warning!  because len was worried about not opening, she texted cor to ask her to come to the mall as a backup, but texted her to cancel once sue showed up late. no one was reprimanded for that. in fact, it was never even mentioned! bitch move number 2!

so basically if we hung out outside of work, it was with one or the other, never both at the same time. cor never ever held any ill feelings towards us for hanging out with sue, but sue on the other hand, started to behave really weirdly when we’d go out with cor. she’d tell ppl that we were "taking her side" and eventually she’d be left behind. very victim-like. suddenly she became quite close with kor (i guess she forgot the way that kor had treated her over the past months). once again, who am i to judge. this is not high-school and we’re allowed to have different friends. it was a non-issue to me. but as len and i kept making plans with cor, sue became more distant, eventually stopping chat outside of work and being generally unfriendly, even at work. so one day at work, a co-worker (part-time) approaches me and says "kirsten — do you hate me? someone **cough cough sue** told me that kor told her a few things about you… " i set the record straight – i do not nor have i ever hated rob. (the part-timer). wanna know what else she said about me? i am a two-face… i act one way at work and to ppl’s faces.. but behind their backs i talk lots of shit. i hate a lot of ppl! i’m a bit of a backstabber…. now — these things don’t really bother me for 2 reasons: 1 – i’m fairly confident and sure of myself.. i know who i am! and 2 – i know that most ppl who know me and see me on a regular basis (like co-workers) know who i am as well… i’m fairly transparent, as in, when i’m happy you can see it… and likewise, even though i try to hide it, when i’m sad you can tell. what really bothers me is that lately i had been confiding a lot in susan about personal issues.. as in almost-nervous-breakdown before x-mas and man troubles etc. knowing that she could so easily talk negatively about me behind my back makes me feel pretty uneasy about what true and personal things she could possibly be mis-construing and sharing with others. esp. kor.

this was it for me — i will say that no matter how much i dislike kor, i haven’t acted MEAN or UNFAIRLY to her at work. i remain professional. what sue was doing was not prof. and that’s why i had to say what i planned to say (see previous entry). so i did it a few days ago and i have to

say… i was so nervous.. i haven’t felt that scared since public speaking competitions in highschool. but i did it. it wasn’t as smooth as i had planned as sue tried to cut me off a few times.. but i made it all the way through and then left for my break (to have a minor post-confrontation heart-attack in private). when i came back — it was like a whole new sue. she was sooooooooooooo nice and normal, and has been ever since. we still don’t talk outside of work but at work, she’s as sweet as sugar. len and i talked about it and we agreed we’re just gonna continue on as we have been  – polite, professional and normal. personally, i think this is a trick. i’m still really wary of sue and i now feel the same way about her that i felt about kor almost a year ago! i can’t trust her now. i think she’s manipulative and conniving. she acts this way to protect herself from feeling hurt or left-out, even before anything has happened. a friend commented that he felt sorry for her because eventually she’ll have alienated so many ppl that she won’t have anyone at all. and for the record, i don’t think her and kor’s friendship will last long either. i mean look what happened to sar?? we all know that kor loves you when she needs you (read: is single) and forgets about you when she doesn’t. so good luck to sue. i only hope that she doesn’t effectively convince anyone she’s a victim, esp. our boss. b/c that could be bad for us all!

so yup, that’s that. it took me so long to get this all out. i wish i could send it to our DM who is getting really frustrated with all the "drama" at work… because underneath the trivial issues there are some really important things going on here : time theft, bullying, favortism and discrimination…

peace