Suck it up

There’s no such thing as Blogging from my new job, the Manager is too scary and of course, as Wondy’s luck always goes, I’m sitting right – crash, bang – in front of her. Practically in her lap. But hey, she likes me – she’d Swiss and she must sense the Scandinavian blood coursing through my veins – if being half-Austrian (the better half) can be counted as Scandinavian. In fact, is being Swiss anything like being Scandinavian? A clear definition of those nationalities that fall within the Scandinavian bracket would be most appreciated…

Anyway… so I was going to fill you in on the saga of Monday at ‘little work’, which I will do now. It involves me: Wondy, just an average Joe looking for a break in life, waiting for good fortune to shine down on me. It also involves another woman, let’s call her Selma (after The Simpsons’ Selma - though that is almost too insulting to Selma – use your imagination on this one, it ain’t pretty).

Right, so Wondy and Selma have never worked together really. We’ve never really spoke. We have no cause to even look at each other but Selma has a bad, bad reputation as a two-faced back-stabber, constantly causing trouble within the department.

Selma finds out that Wondy has been ‘promoted’ (ha! This means more responsibility, same money) and she gets a bit loopy about it. Slags Wondy’s lack of experience off behind Wondy’s back. But never to Wondy’s face! (Check me talking in the third party, I’ve gone all Craig David…)

Wondy knows about all this (for she has spies on the inside!) but has the good grace to put it down to bitterness and shrugs it off (hey, I’m too old for games). Wondy makes a conscious decision to stay away from Selma anyway, so as not to get dragged in to the games and the bitching and the stabbing.

So Monday comes and Selma bowls up to Wondy (after her first day in the new department, which was bad enough) and starts asking some questions about pay and overtime rates, etc.
Well! Wondy is very polite in her answers but an alarm bell goes off in her head and she knows not to give too much away to Selma because it’ll be taken away and used against her. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon…

Selma obviously senses this because she snaps "well sorry I spoke". I ignore this. She then comes up behind me (the woman is about 7 foot tall!) and says "I didn’t mean to upset you I was trying to help". I said "You didn’t upset me" and she says: "You could’ve fooled me" and walking away, mutters under her breath "BITCH!". Yes – BITCH!

So I’m all "Excuse me?" and she’s all "You heard" but we couldn’t continue it because we had to go down to meet the new trainees and sort them out for their induction to the company. Together.

I was so angry my first instinct was to burst into tears but I thought no way am I giving that cow the satisfaction. I’m sorry, but the word bitch can be a harsh one when used in context like that and I was so shocked that she’d said it. And meant it.

Things were fine, I didn’t really want to take it further but my Manager did find out and she took it and ran with it. She wants evidence that the woman is a bully. It doesn’t sound like a big deal now really but she’s since spread it around to nearly everyone about how stuck-up I am and I’m completely in shock. At the end of the day it feels like a direct attack on the person I am and I’d never be intentionally rude to someone for no reason. My mother brought me up better than that!

Anyway, it’s done and dusted now. She apologised to me today (though still managed to blame it on me being rude). I hate her I really really do.

But I’ll be the adult shall I?

Agh.