fuck this job and fuck my life
Nov. 19th, 2013 01:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingToday was the first day of Boss Lady's two-week soujourn down in the wilds of Elmira, leaving me in charge of the smoke shop.
It did not go well.
I have said before that Melodrama and Lemme-Tell-Ya have a long-standing feud, that has simmered at various levels of animosity for years. On good weeks, they merely dislike each other. On bad weeks... I'm not sure exactly how Melodrama affects Lemme-Tell-Ya, since he is an Older White Man Who Doesn't Talk About Emotions (TM), but he can drive her to literal tears of rage and humiliation. Which he did today; she was crying and shaking in the back room for over twenty minutes, mostly so she wouldn't punch him in the face. (He has driven Sweetheart to tears on several occasions as well.)
Both Melodrama and Sweetheart have expressed to me that they would prefer to quit than to continue working with him. Sweetheart remains for financial reasons. Melodrama's motives I'm less sure of. But anyway, while everyone else can and does rub each other the wrong way on occasion, it has been clear for YEARS that firing Lemme-Tell-Ya would, at a stroke, remove 80% of the interpersonal conflicts at the smoke shop.
But Boss Lady hasn't done that. Partly because she knows him socially so it would be awkward, partly because she feels bad for his various life troubles (he has health problems, his live-in girlfriend has serious health problems, his house is kind of a falling-apart money-sink, etc.), and partly because it's very hard to find good employees at the wages Mr. Speakerphone is willing to pay and Lemme-Tell-Ya works full-time so firing him without having an immediate replacement would create an untenable staffing shortage.
Anyway, I found tasks for Melodrama to do that would keep her away from Lemme-Tell-Ya. I told him that, as I previously mentioned, he had become so difficult and unpleasant to work with that TWO coworkers were seriously thinking about quitting and HE was the reason, and that while I knew he was stressed out, bringing that stress to work and dumping it on everyone else was not helping anything. Then I gave him tasks to do that would keep him away from Melodrama.
It worked, more or less, but it was an armed truce at best. And they are scheduled to be at work simultaneously for at least four hours on Tuesday, not to mention more days going forward.
...
Melodrama said she was going to try writing something to Boss Lady, since she was sure if she tried explaining anything verbally she'd just break down again. I don't know what will result from that.
Lemme-Tell-Ya doesn't usually stress me out directly -- or at least not in personality-conflict ways. (He can, of course, stress me out by screwing up specific tasks. Anyone can do that.) Somehow, for some reason, back when I first met him I subconsciously assessed him as, "Oh, he's a twit," and consequently a lot of his bullshit rolls off me as emotionally meaningless noise. Furthermore, he doesn't disrespect me the same way he disrespects Sweetheart and Melodrama, probably because I am a fellow full-time employee, instead of merely having hiring seniority over him like they do, and also because I think he senses that I don't give a shit about him and he therefore cannot bully me. But he can and does stress the everliving FUCK out of me by proxy. In other words, I hate seeing how he affects Sweetheart and Melodrama, and trying to negotiate the resulting clusterfucks is, shall we say, something of a living nightmare.
...
I am really not looking forward to the rest of this week.
(On the bright side, the dentist says my teeth look excellent -- no broken filling surprises this time! So there is that minor note of positivity. Yes. I will try to remember that.)
It did not go well.
I have said before that Melodrama and Lemme-Tell-Ya have a long-standing feud, that has simmered at various levels of animosity for years. On good weeks, they merely dislike each other. On bad weeks... I'm not sure exactly how Melodrama affects Lemme-Tell-Ya, since he is an Older White Man Who Doesn't Talk About Emotions (TM), but he can drive her to literal tears of rage and humiliation. Which he did today; she was crying and shaking in the back room for over twenty minutes, mostly so she wouldn't punch him in the face. (He has driven Sweetheart to tears on several occasions as well.)
Both Melodrama and Sweetheart have expressed to me that they would prefer to quit than to continue working with him. Sweetheart remains for financial reasons. Melodrama's motives I'm less sure of. But anyway, while everyone else can and does rub each other the wrong way on occasion, it has been clear for YEARS that firing Lemme-Tell-Ya would, at a stroke, remove 80% of the interpersonal conflicts at the smoke shop.
But Boss Lady hasn't done that. Partly because she knows him socially so it would be awkward, partly because she feels bad for his various life troubles (he has health problems, his live-in girlfriend has serious health problems, his house is kind of a falling-apart money-sink, etc.), and partly because it's very hard to find good employees at the wages Mr. Speakerphone is willing to pay and Lemme-Tell-Ya works full-time so firing him without having an immediate replacement would create an untenable staffing shortage.
Anyway, I found tasks for Melodrama to do that would keep her away from Lemme-Tell-Ya. I told him that, as I previously mentioned, he had become so difficult and unpleasant to work with that TWO coworkers were seriously thinking about quitting and HE was the reason, and that while I knew he was stressed out, bringing that stress to work and dumping it on everyone else was not helping anything. Then I gave him tasks to do that would keep him away from Melodrama.
It worked, more or less, but it was an armed truce at best. And they are scheduled to be at work simultaneously for at least four hours on Tuesday, not to mention more days going forward.
...
Melodrama said she was going to try writing something to Boss Lady, since she was sure if she tried explaining anything verbally she'd just break down again. I don't know what will result from that.
Lemme-Tell-Ya doesn't usually stress me out directly -- or at least not in personality-conflict ways. (He can, of course, stress me out by screwing up specific tasks. Anyone can do that.) Somehow, for some reason, back when I first met him I subconsciously assessed him as, "Oh, he's a twit," and consequently a lot of his bullshit rolls off me as emotionally meaningless noise. Furthermore, he doesn't disrespect me the same way he disrespects Sweetheart and Melodrama, probably because I am a fellow full-time employee, instead of merely having hiring seniority over him like they do, and also because I think he senses that I don't give a shit about him and he therefore cannot bully me. But he can and does stress the everliving FUCK out of me by proxy. In other words, I hate seeing how he affects Sweetheart and Melodrama, and trying to negotiate the resulting clusterfucks is, shall we say, something of a living nightmare.
...
I am really not looking forward to the rest of this week.
(On the bright side, the dentist says my teeth look excellent -- no broken filling surprises this time! So there is that minor note of positivity. Yes. I will try to remember that.)
