The Office

by Sassy

I swear it would be a miracle if for just one week, things could go well in my office. It truly would. This week has been a damn roller coaster. Since our lasagna lunch that Miss Thing did to kiss my ass, things have just gone crazy. She has gone from doing absolutely anything to going out of her way to do things AND beat me to work. I just don't understand. Why the hell can't there be a happy medium???

Let's start with Monday. Oh and let me add that this is supposed to be her early week. I show up to work expecting to see Miss Thing here and no Miss Thing. I laugh because I half expected it and then awaited the excuse that was sure to come on why we weren't graced with her presence. She didn't show up til 9:00 and I don't think worked on anything until at least 10:00. It was really busy in the office on Monday and I was incredibly swamped with a crazy amount of work. I made sure to be social with her, but also let it be known I had a lot to get done on. Well, throughout the day, I noticed that Miss Thing was competing for work. She was literally trying to answer the phone before me...which she really has to try at and also get work from the guys before me. It got to the point that I just stopped trying to answer the phone and absorbed myself with my own thing. I just figured, whatever.

Then Tuesday comes along. She is in one of her moods and is buzzing around and trying to be all important. I noticed her start playing the game of beating me to things, so I just formed a bubble and stayed in it. Well, the guys that we work with know that if they give me work to do, it gets done. There are a lot of guys that just put work in the in basket, but there are the ones that I am close to that will walk their work to me and know it will take no time at all for me to get it done rather than waiting at least an hour that it takes Miss Thing. On one occasion, one of my guys was in here and he went to hand me some work and Miss Thing got out of her chair, walked up to the guy who was right next to me and took the work to do saying that I was too busy and had other stuff that I was working on. I couldn't believe it. Since when do you ever go out of your way to do work!?!??!?! You don't. I let it go. Then at one point while she was down the hall doing who knows what, I had a guy come in that I was helping and then the radio went off. So I was writing down the work for the person on the radio when Miss Thing comes back in. Keep in mind, she has missed 3/4 of the conversation over the radio. I tell the guy I will get his work in and all of a sudden, Miss Thing pipes up repeating to me the small part she heard because she was trying to do the work. I, as calmly and nicely as I could, just let her know that I would do it because she doesn't have all the information. I finished helping the guy at my desk and when he went away, I let her know that she didn't even hear half of what was needed and that is why I was going to do the work. THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, there is a then. Another guy comes in and him and I are chatting and I walk up to him to grab the work to be done and have it IN MY HAND, when Miss Thing rushes up from where she was just sitting there talking to another lady and GRABS the work out of my hand and says, "I will do this, you have done enough today." It took everything in my control to not fucking rip her face off. I just stood there taking deep breaths and then just walked back to my desk. You don't take work out of someones hands. That is just something that you don't do. Not to mention, as I am slammed with a crazy amount of work to do, she didn't bother asking if I needed help and in turn took almost a two hour lunch at her desk and spent most of it on the phone.

Monday and Tuesday were so annoying for me and I kept finding mistakes that she made that I showed them to my boss on Tuesday after Miss Thing had gone home for the day. Wednesday comes and Miss Thing comes to work saying that her uncle that had cancer passed away and so my boss said she was going to wait to talk to her about her mistakes. I thought that was only polite and went about the morning giving Miss Thing space. I expected the day to be quiet...oh how wrong I was. Our student and I were so boiling pissed by 10am it wasn't funny. Miss Thing then went to our boss, told her she was uncomfortable and asked if something was wrong that she didn't know about. So, our boss took that as the opportunity to approach her on her mistakes which only could have come about with me showing them to our boss. And that is when shit really got bad.

As soon as our boss was done explaining to her what she did wrong AGAIN and what needed to happen, Miss Thing piped up asking for another office staff meeting. My blood was fucking boiling. I knew exactly what she wanted to talk about. All she had to do was ask me about it and I would have talked to her about it. I kept working and tried not to talk to her because I knew this time, I wouldn't be able to be nice and I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut. That is when she comes to my desk with the work that our boss had talked to her about and all snotty like asked me if I needed any of it. The first two I told her she could throw away and that I needed the other one to file. It was then that it came spewing out - "Is this what you called the staff meeting for? Cause if it is, then you can just talk to me about it right now." She said it was that and some other things and we started to get into it and a customer walked in. My boss called and told me to pull her into the conference room, so when she was done I did.

I didn't get any nicer. It was in there that I told her how inappropriate it was that she was literally taking work out of my hand and that I didn't appreciate it. I let her know that I felt like she was competing with me and our student and that it was out of line. I said that it annoys us that she goes from not answering the phone to trying to beat us to it, from not doing work and now trying to do everything. I unleashed on her. She apologized and said that she just didn't want us thinking that she wasn't doing her share. I let her know that was all fine, BUT there needs to be a happy medium.

Then the real story came out. It was then that she let me know that she feels left out. That's right, she is 44 and feels left out because I am close to our 19 year old student and our boss. Not only that, but it makes her upset when the guys just bring work to me and not to her. I let her know that in no way is she left out of anything and that if the guys bring me work to do, that is their thing and nothing for her to worry about. I don't mind doing the work and if I need help or can't do it, it will be in the inbox for her to do.

Needless to say, I put everything out on the table and yesterday (even though she was a couple hours late) was a good day. She was more normal and neutral and not competing. Today...she called in.