Really? You Actually Believe That?

I am able to do something very strange and weird. It's called 'have a conversation and not necessarily have to make sure the other person agrees with me at all times'. Because I lack the gene responsible for making sure everyone around me agrees with me 100%, I don't usually get into conversations with people simply because of the level of frustration I experience.

While at work, I overheard a snippet of conversation and before I even opened my mouth I knew this would only end in tears. One of my co-workers was having difficulty with her email. For some reason, it wasn't loading and instead of doing the normal troubleshooting suggestion (restart), she decided to fly into the IT guy's office and yell at him. Because clearly, it's his fault. To his credit, he sat there and took the stream of verbal abuse and when it was done, he asked her if she had restarted her computer. That set her off even more, as essentially she feels she shouldn't have to restart; her email should just magically boot up all the time no matter how old and outdated our system is.

She came into my office afterwards, just to bitch and complain. After she vented, I asked her if she knew how old the system was. She didn't and when I told her, her response was, 'So what? It's not my problem the owners can't put more money into upgrading. How are we supposed to do our jobs when we don't have the correct tools?'

Good point. I agreed and said that despite that fact, I thought her anger was misdirected and that if she felt that strongly she should take it up with the boss and not the IT guy. He does the best he can with what he has.

You know when you point out something to someone and you think that they understand because they nod their head and move away without saying anything but then it turns out later that they actually disagree with what you said but didn't want to say because then that would cause a CONFLICT and everyone knows that CONFLICTS cannot be resolved by talking.

I found out a little later on purely by accident that she didn't agree. I walked into her area and she was trashing me to my co-workers. I waited until she was finished and then cleared my throat. When she turned around, I said to her that if she didn't agree with me that was fine but that I would have respected her a lot more had she just told me then. I waited to give her an opportunity to say something and when she didn't, I said that she was probably so quiet right now because her mouth only works when the person she should be talking to is not in the room.

Looking back, I probably should not have said that; however, I am really tired of the amount of backstabbing there is in my office. What do you expect from a group of women though? Solidarity? Friendship? Hell, no. These bitches are all out for one thing: making others look bad so they look good because they cannot do their jobs. Although we are all supposed to be supporting one another, that simply does not happen. It's another case of women being competitive in a situation that does not merit that type of suspicion.

I don't know how many times I have said that I have no desire to repeat the high school experience in my professional life. Unfortunately because I work in an office I am at the mercy of other people. I either need a serious vacation or a change of employment. I realize that similar situations will arise no matter where I work but honestly there has to be something better than this. I am tired of back-stabbing bullshit.