Fed Up

I thought, the day I told my stepmother to “Get out of my house and never come back”, was the day I liberated myself. That was the day I stood up and said “I’m an adult, I don’t have to take this shit from other people anymore. I don’t have to take the verbal abuse. I don’t have to be perfect anymore. I don’t have anyone but myself to please.

But no, January 1st 2002 our company split due to us being bought out by AIG. AIG didn’t want the part of our company that were government contractors so those people had to split off and become their own company. At that point I began working with a woman named Jill on getting a telephone directory up and going for the side that split from us. Jill was a thorn in my side at first. She made a lot of demands, she complained a lot about things she could have fixed herself. But Jill and I had an understanding. We both realized the other person was human. Hell, after awhile we even started getting along. She was a nice person, we even shared some common interests and problems, she shared with me about her carpal tunnel surgeries (something I may face in the future), we talked about other things. She was alright. Then on a warm summer Monday in June of 2002 I was sitting at my desk at home, working from home on Jills project when the news came in. Jill had died in a motorcycle accident over the weekend. I was shocked.

A few weeks later I received a phone call from a woman named Michele. She was taking over Jills work and she wanted my input. At first she seemed alright, she came down, we talked, I showed her what was what with the phone directory Jill and I had been working on.

And it begins.

The first straw was when Michele make me COMPLETELY redo everything I had been working on for the past several months with Jill. My time was unimportant to her, the fact that I had spent days and days working on this to get it perfect for Jill didn’t matter. The fact that the project owner had DIED didn’t matter, life goes on. I didn’t grieve because Jill was a close friend or anything, she wasn’t. But I did grieve in a way, a life was lost, a co-worker gone, and now someone is taking over like that co-worker never existed. Within a couple of days all the work Jill had put into the phone directory was wasted time. All the work I put in was wasted time.

After a couple weeks Michele’s true colors started to shine brightly. She started telling me and my boss how we were going to do things, how we were going to have to do this this and this to satisfy her needs. She pushed me so far that I snapped and wrote a nasty, nasty, accusing letter to her boss, which I was reprimanded for. She pushed me so far that I called my boss in tears. Every tiny little mistake was brought out into the limelight as my fault and the thing that pisses me off the most?? Most of the mistakes were Michele’s, but when shoved back into her face she always had an excuse or suddenly it wasn’t so important anymore.

She is my step-mothers parallel. Everything I do is wrong. She can do no wrong. When she makes a mistake it’s hidden and covered up by lies. When I make a mistake e-mails fly around to her boss, my boss, and various other people as well. It’s killing my job satisfaction and it’s really making me miss Jill.

So what brought this up today? I had an e-mail in my inbox this morning addressed to my boss:

“Jo,

Brandi’s been doing a great job, I know there are some things that fall through the cracks, however, this one is over a month old. We’ve had an update since this was submitted. Perhaps she was out ill??”

Michele X. XXXXXX

Business Operations Supervisor

Perhaps I was out ill????? No, you know who’s ill Michele?? YOU ARE. Can you guess who’s fault this mistake was dear reader? Yes, that’s right, it was Michele’s. The change referred to is a man’s extension and it’s been in the directory since March 15th. Exactly on time. You know what Michele doesn’t know how to do? Update her fucking phone directory before making accusations.

It really bothers me that she can’t see her own mistakes. If she’d just do that first we’d get along. I mean shit, I don’t call the help-desk and say “were you guys sick or something, why didn’t you install this program on this guys computer?” That’s not how you handle problems. EVERYONE in this company hates michele, she’s a thorn in everyone’s side. She’s an idiot and I hate people like her. Assess yourself first, then if you discover the problem is someone elses fault, go to that person politely. If it needs to be elevated to that persons supervisor do so quietly and politely, don’t include half the company.

The other thing that pisses me off about her are the fake-polite e-mails. I’m almost positive her boss got onto her for being harsh with me in the past. Now she just makes her accusations in a more polite manner, but she’s still wrong and she’s still making accusations.

*sigh* Too bad she doesn’t ride motorcyles on warm summer afternoons.

And in closing I’d like to say that it snowed. There was in inch of snow in Tolland this morning, less in other parts of CT. Sara was ecstatic, she just couldn’t run or dig fast enough, she was sooooo happy to see the snow! The snow, which irritated me a bit, was made a bit easier to stomach by her antics. Oh, and she didn’t poo at all in her crate last night!!! Have we had a breakthrough with potty training? I sure hope so. I am just so unbelievably proud of her. She’s so smart and so wonderful. We took her to Petsmart and despite an accident on the rug when the manager came up to her and made a fuss over how cute she was, she did great (she stills seems to lose control when she gets really excited, usually at seeing new people). Everyone that saw her was saying what a well behaved puppy she was. She was sitting quiely on the floor while hubby and I discussed which items to buy. I’m so proud of her and I’m so happy we started training her immediatly. She’s has a really strong personality and I think if we hadn’t nipped it early and showed her who the pack leader is we might have had some behavior problems with her. She’s my baby and she makes every day worth living.