A near-death experience, you think? No, but if Goodness hadn't have intervened at the exact moment that it did, I would have unwittingly waltzed right into one of my very worst nightmares, and I would have had to go home immediately to wash my pants, take a Xanax, and go straight to bed (curled into a fetal position for 8 to 12 hours, to try to get over it). O__o Thank Goodness that scene was avoided!
And now, on with the story:
It was close to the lunchtime hour today when I made my weekly trek to the stupid grocery store. That fact, combined with it being the beginning of the weekend, and that Easter is also this weekend, made for a very packed grocery store parking lot indeed. As I was driving into the entrance of the parking lot, a vehicle just so happened to catch my eye. (Coincidence? I THINK NOT). It caught my eye because it was the same kind and color of car that my ex-boss used to drive, but I knew it wasn't her car, since it didn't have any stickers on the back of it. I saw the car pull into a parking spot, and just as I was starting to pull my car into the parking spot in the adjacent aisle from the 'ex-boss look-alike car', I saw her get out of it. IT WAS MY EX-BOSS. In that instant, I completely freaked out, went into ABORT! ABORT! mode, almost rammed into the parked car in the space beside where I was attempting to park, threw my car into reverse, and somehow managed to maneuver my way the hell out of that parking lot just as fast as humanly possible. She had looked in my direction, since the crazy maneuvers that I was suddenly doing with my car naturally caught her attention. Literally shaking, I drove quickly to the other grocery store on the other side of town (which I hate), to do my shopping there instead.
I parked my car in a spot at the other grocery store, but before I got out of the car, I sat there for a few moments to try to settle down and compose myself, and I sent my friend Tori (who works at the place that I used to) a text explaining what had just transpired. She responded back LOL'ing, but that's how we roll... :)
Now extremely paranoid that my ex-boss might show up at this grocery store too (if the store she was at didn't have what she was after --after all, she doesn't even live in this town--), I was stopped just inside the door of the store by two schmaltzy guys who attempted to get me to fill out some dopey little hot pink-colored form (something about portraits). I told them no thanks; that my daughter just had spring pictures made at school, and I started to walk away, when they retorted snidely "BUT WHAT ABOUT FAMILY PORTRAITS? Did your daughter's school spring portraits have her parents in it"? And I had had enough, because I was already freaked out, and unintentionally acting as paranoid as a coke addict, with my eyes darting around everywhere, and continually looking behind me to see if my stupid ex-boss was showing up. So I walked away briskly from the schmucky family portrait dudes, saying "no thanks, not this time, no, we only have pictures made of our daughter, kthxbai" and with lightning speed, I made a break for it with my buggy. UHH!!! WHAT PART OF "NO" DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND, THE "N" OR THE "O"?!?!?! CAN'T YOU SEE THAT I'M SEVERELY TRAUMATIZED HERE & I'M TRYING DESPERATELY TO GET AWAY AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE?!?! UHH!!!!!!!!! >:{
So I made my way into the unfamiliar store, worriedly pushing my buggy, constantly and paranoidly looking over my shoulder, and attempting to get ahold of myself enough so that I might be able to find the items that are written on my list. I hate that stupid grocery store because the aisles are so narrow and cramped, and they have numerous obnoxious display stands in all of the aisles that make it virtually impossible for two buggies to pass without bashing into each other. And if there's an employee in the aisle stocking the shelves with their giant trolley-thing stacked high with goods, you can forget about even trying to go up that aisle without a major hassle. Not to mention that their prices are sky-high. Oh, sure, they have some fairly good deals on some things, but they have the prices jacked up really high on other things that you really need, to make up for the difference. Stupid sketchy mind-trick store. But, I would rather have no other choice but to shop at that store for all of eternity than to run into my ex-boss anywhere just once. In fact, I'd rather eat a terd than come face-to-face with that woman ever again as long as I live.
As a side note, I have since determined that I will have to begin doing my grocery shopping at night, during the weekends, in order to avoid such an occurrence with 99.9999999999% certainty of not running into her ever again (even if we are only in the parking lot while still in our respective vehicles). Just that amount of close proximity to her is enough to make me spook and bolt, like a freaked-out horse, dripping with sweat.
But anyway. Back to the crappy grocery store. As I rounded a corner and started heading my buggy down the pet food aisle, there was a man stocking some rawhide dog bones. He had accidentally dropped one on the floor right before I passed by him, and he picked it up, and sheepishly said "sorry". I smiled and told him it was OK, and excused myself past him. Then he accidentally dropped the very same rawhide bone again; but this time, it skittered around on the floor right at my feet, and I jumped over it, yelling out "WOAH, NELLIE!" and laughed. The guy was of course mortified, and apologized profusely, and I just laughed and told him "it's one of those days"! The poor guy was acting about as paranoid as I was for some unknown reason, and he shakily replied "yes, it's been one of those days since Monday"! And he continued to say that he had just got done stocking a bunch of glass stuff, and was just glad that he didn't drop any of it! I replied with "yep, it could always be worse". Then it started getting a little awkward, so I whisked a couple of cans of dog food into my buggy, and hurriedly carried on.
In the next aisle, I was very happy to receive another text from my friend Tori, notifying me that it was safe; that my ex-boss was now back at work, so then I knew that I could continue my shopping in non-paranoid peace. WHEW. I literally breathed a sigh of relief.
I finally got through the checkout line, and ended up spending a lot more than what I would have if I'd been shopping at my usual grocery store, but then again, I did purchase a little more stuff than usual, since Lilly will be at home with me next week, since school will be closed for spring break.
And after checking out, I did manage to make my way past the two schmoes hawking those dopey family portraits on my way out of the store. They had some other lady trapped up in their clutches, waving their silly little hot pink-colored form around in the air for her to fill out, so I slipped my buggy past them undetected. Heh heh heh.
I loaded all my groceries into the back of my car, got in, and who should pull up, but my friend Tori. I got back out of the car, commiserated with her for a few minutes over the whole fiasco, and warned her about the portrait-selling schmuckos located just inside the door. I told her they would try to get her to sign up for one with their little pink form, and she tugged slightly and quickly at her jacket and said "OH NO THEY WON'T"! Man, if I only had half of one of the b@ll$ that girl has...!
So I let her go so I could get my $5,000 BOGO ice cream home before it melted into a puddle. When I got home and put the stupid groceries away, I was still a little shaken over the whole 'almost-running-into-the-ex-boss' incident; so much so, that I distractedly tried to turn on the TV by using the thermostat on the wall. O__o
So I give up. I'm just going to sit here and be a couch potato for the rest of the evening, and try to get over the trauma of what almost happened.
*shudder*
Epilogue/Boss-From-Hell Venting Session:
I suppose I should try to explain why I don't ever want to run into my ex-boss (hereinafter referred to as VG), for those of you who don't know the story.
There are way too many details to go into, but to sum it up, VG is totally clueless about everything, and she doesn't care at all. She thinks she does, but she doesn't. Her people skills are completely nonexistent. The worst thing is, she thinks that her way of thinking is right, and if your way of thinking differs from hers (which any sane person's does), then you are wrong, and you could benefit from some counseling. (Don't worry; VG will conveniently provide you with a handy-dandy Employee Assistance Program pamphlet on your way out the door of her office).
I had worked for the company for probably about 12 or 13 years when VG suddenly out of the blue one day forced me to become her assistant, and proceeded to make my life a living hell for the next few years, while telling me numerous times over the course of those years to just be thankful that I had a job. Any crappy little 'project' or task that came along, (anything from 'Business Continuity Planning' to 'Customer Appreciation/Hot Dog/Tomato Plant Giveaway Day Planning Committee' meetings --and everything else in between--), she shoveled off on me to do. She would try to disguise the crap-work by referring to it as "opportunities", and sometimes she would go so far as to ask me if I wanted the "opportunity", but when I directly asked her "well, do I have a choice?", she would just give her Mona Lisa smile and dryly reply "no".
Once I somehow managed to muster up the courage to shyly reveal to VG that something bothering me at work was hurting my self-esteem (I can't remember what it was now...it wasn't anything major, though), and she looked at me like I was an idiot and insisted to me that 'self-esteem is what your parents give you'.
Another time, VG was insistent that another assistant in the office help me with a really crappy task. I had been corresponding over the e-mail with the girl regarding the task, and the girl blatantly and belligerently refused to help, as I knew she would. Frustrated, and in an attempt to get VG to stop trying to force this particular girl to help me, I (foolishly, I guess) printed out the e-mail correspondence between myself and the girl, where she stated that she would NOT help. I took it to VG, and told her 3 different times during the course of our conversation that it was in STRICT CONFIDENCE, and VG jumped up, snatched the e-mail out of my hand, and immediately marched it right down to the girl and her supervisor to show it to them, and confronted them about it. It quickly turned into a very ugly situation. I wanted the ground to swallow me up. I'm a really sensitive person with severe anxiety issues that I take medication to help with, and when VG did that, it literally caused me to get physically sick. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack, throw up, and pass out, all at the same time. It was a disaster, and caused huge stress and tension between that particular girl and I for a very long time, until she eventually went to work elsewhere. But VG didn't care. She called me at home later that evening and ordered me to "just forget about it".
That's another thing. VG doesn't believe that people can have mental issues such as chemical imbalances that can mess with their head and cause them to feel bad emotionally (or even to the point where the mental issue manifests itself physically); VG just thinks that 'you just need to change your point of view and think positively'.
And one of the worst things VG ever said to me was after my mom died unexpectedly. At that time VG wasn't my boss, but she called me into her office anyway to pretend to be concerned (and to nose into my family's business), since only a few weeks after my mom died, my family became embroiled in a vicious and lengthy legal battle with my mom's oldest sister, who was trying to gain control of my grandmother's estate, and take whatever money and real estate that she could get for herself (even though she is rich, has never had to work a day in her life, has always had an expensive new luxury car, has a huge house complete with swimming pool, and many, many acres of prime real estate). VG had heard through the office grapevine that I was extremely distraught because of these legal problems, and that's why she called me into her office; to find out the details of why I was upset. As I was explaining to VG about the legal troubles, she sighed, interrupted me, frowned, shook her head 'no', and explained to me that I was wrong to be upset; that my aunt who was trying to take everything from us was in the right, and that we should just accept it, let her have everything, and go on. I stopped dead in my tracks, horrified, and eventually went back down to my desk feeling worse than ever, and enraged.
One of VG's favorite sayings is "Perception is Reality". Apparently, since 'nobody can figure out what you do around here', it means that you do nothing. And don't try to argue, because perception is reality. Period. Which gave her all the more reason to dump crap-work onto me. Don't get me wrong. I'm not above doing crap-work in the least. But don't treat me like I'm nothing but a piece of crap too. She even forced me to do the crap-work of other departments not even in the same line as ours, just so her 'pets' wouldn't have to do it, to keep them happy. But if you balked in the least at getting even more of somebody else's crap-work piled into your workflow and becoming your responsibility from there on out (never mind the fact that they're not even in your department, and you don't have a clue how to do the crap), then 'you're not a team player'. And since you 'don't do anything', then you have unlimited room to be able to take on ALL the crap-work anyway. So don't complain and 'just be thankful that you have a job'.
VG even forced me to type up some awful poem she had discovered somewhere entitled "ATTITUDE" one day, and told me to also put a 'pretty little border' around it, which was basically the equivalent of a teacher (VG) punishing a primary-school student (me) by making them write 100 times "I will not (insert 'bad thing' here)". As I was angrily getting it off the printer, VG came up to me and said "and you need to READ it", at which point I was severely pissed, and I replied to her through angrily-clenched teeth something to the effect of "IF YOU MAKE ME READ IT, I'LL GO POSTAL". She walked back to her office.
VG even made me create an "Attitude Wall" by printing out a bunch of stupid inspirational office dreck about having good attitudes and being grateful, and stapling it up in the office where all of the employees would see it all the time. It instantly pissed everyone off, because it made everyone feel like children who were being punished for doing something wrong. Eventually somebody ripped it all down, because it sucked and everybody hated it. See what I mean about VG being clueless about everything, but thinking she's doing something good that everyone will be happy about? UHH!
When you're walking down the aisle or hall, and VG is coming toward you, YOU are the one that must move. She steps aside for no-one. She will literally run into you if you do not step aside for her. She doesn't even acknowledge your presence, or say "sorry", "excuse me", or anything at all...it's as if you're completely invisible to her. And if she walks up to you and tries to engage you in conversation; for example, she might ask you how your weekend was. Then, as you begin to tell her (because she came to you and asked, after all), she will simply walk away after you've only said a few words. She does these things all the time to everybody, no matter who they are (but especially if your status is beneath her). And she never smiles or laughs. That is, unless a higher-up male cracks some amusing professional quip, and other high-up males chuckle, then she might crack her Mona Lisa smile in a rare attempt to be polite (but only toward males). She caters to males; especially ones higher-up than her. Literally caters, too...whenever she would make me have lunch catered in for a meeting that contained a large percentage of males, she would make me order 'hearty, stick-to-your-ribs' kind of food to appease them, like they're cavemen that just happen to be wearing ties or something. What a freak.
One day, one of VG's other employees, when asked about her future aspirations during her performance review, told VG that she might be interested in becoming a manager within the company, and VG immediately shot her down and replied "that's a man's world". And in my own last performance review, I casually mentioned the fact to VG that I'd been with the company for 16 years, and she just did a little stiff-upper-lip sniff, and dryly, quietly, and without care, commented "mmm, I didn't realize you'd been here that long", and immediately changed the subject to how I could do more, and do better.
I had so many different irons in the fire, and I had to stay organized. I couldn't tolerate for my desk to have messy piles of papers and stuff on it for long. So that I could think clearly, I would try to keep my desktop clear of clutter, and only have out just what I needed in order to do what I was doing at the time. The rest of my things I had neatly tucked away in my drawers, file folders, etc. I also didn't have much of a need for piles of papers anyway, because most of what I did was completely paperless, and electronic on the computer in the first place. VG would come out of her office and look suspiciously at my tidy desk. The next time I stepped away to go to the restroom or use the copier, etc. I would come back to my desk to find that she had piled my desk sky-high with some of the papers/binders/folders from her office for me to 'file', since she thought I didn't have anything to do, since my desk was uncluttered. She would even bring giant (two heaping handfuls together at once) piles of paperclips and binder clips and plop them on my desk without saying a word, just to make me 'look busy' because 'management is watching'. And she always expects everyone to read her mind. Not to mention taking complete credit for all of her employees' work, which disgustingly earned her a promotion to Senior Vice President. Believe me, all of her employees were pissed about that when it happened, because they were the ones that did all the hard work, while she got all the glory and a raise, and they got absolutely nothing at all, but more crappy work to do.
VG would give me scrawled, hand-scribbled pages of notes to type up for her into complicated flowcharts, which I hated. I quickly had to learn to interpret her scrawling chicken-scratch, but many times, I would have to embarrassingly and inefficiently drag the papers back into her office repeatedly to ask her what the words were, or what she meant, because I couldn't make out what she had scrawled, crossed out, and put arrows all over the paper about as she changed her mind. Then she would read the whole document to me, using the tip of her pen to follow the words along, and explain to me the utterly confusing flow, as if I was a kindergartner. And it never failed; she would make a ton of more 'tweaks' to the document, and I would end up having to redo it again and again and again. It made me want to claw my eyeballs out.
VG was completely computer illiterate, and constantly yelled at me to come into her office and show her how to do things on her computer, cell phone, and fix her printer. Everyone else in the office got higher walls installed on their cubicles 'for privacy' (a/k/a in an attempt to stop people from socializing with each other), but she refused to let me have high walls on my cubicle in order 'to keep communication open' (a/k/a so she could have me at her every beck and call). She was also even illiterate in the ways of simple office equipment; one day she seriously held up one of those letter-opening gizmos that look like this:
and asked "is this a staple remover"?
One day VG got on to me for taking a bunch of unopened bottled water out of a cooler filled with ice after a meeting, and putting the icy cold bottles back into boxes. I had then placed the boxes of bottled water in a corner of the office to use another time. She claimed that it was very bad to do that with the bottled water because of the 'polymers in the plastic', and forced me to move all of the boxes to the big refrigerator in the kitchen of the building, because 'once it gets chilled, it needs to STAY chilled'. Nothing I ever did, no matter how big or small, was correct or good enough for her. I became paranoid because of it and had to ask advice of many people around the office all the time to help me figure the things out that VG wanted. Nothing was ever easy with her, even when it theoretically should have been.
VG is completely obsessed with food, and had me order catered food for her many, conveniently-timed 'lunch meetings' constantly. And these 'lunch meetings' didn't always consist of simple club sandwiches and potato chips; many times the meals were catered in from fancy restaurants and required chafing dishes and cloth tablecloths. And woe be unto you if you accidentally neglected to also order a dessert. For the love of God, you must ALWAYS provide a dessert with the lunch meal. It got to the point to where I was more of a reluctant waitress and busboy than anything else, and what made it even worse, is that VG (who makes a six-figure-a-year salary) always forced me to pay for all the foodstuffs and party supplies for the department with my own money (I've never even had a credit card, and the company doesn't provide corporate cards to use for business supplies -- it's pay-for-it-yourself-and-get-reimbursed-later). VG's justification for me paying for everything with my own money was that I would be reimbursed by the accounts payable department anyway. Never mind that it usually took them 2 or 3 weeks to reimburse me. Never mind that many of the occasions cost me hundreds of dollars at a time. None of that mattered to VG. It didn't even matter when somebody finally told her that it was even against company policy for her to make her employees foot the bill for things. She didn't care. If she said I had to do it, then I had to do it. Just like everything else, there is no choice.
VG would even make me provide 'monthly treats' (glorified snacks) for our department, complete with decorations and everything, out of my own pocket (until I got reimbursed for it weeks later), and expect me to 'top it' the next time. And after the little 'party', she would incessantly ask me if it was 'well-received' by the employees, and in reality, nobody really gave a crap about any of it, and thought it was stupid, but who in their right mind turns down a free snack? But you couldn't tell that to VG, because she wouldn't believe you anyway. I'd have to run all over town in my own vehicle and go to a whole lot of trouble and jump through flaming hoops to get everything together for the damn 'treat', in addition to everything else I had to do. She never, ever lifted one finger to contribute or help in any way, monetarily or preparation-wise; the only fingers she ever lifted were her fingers to her mouth to greedily gobble up the 'treat' that she forced me to bust my tail on to provide for the department on a monthly basis, as if I didn't already have enough to do. One time we even went so far as to have a chocolate fountain with a wide variety of fruit that I had to go out and buy and cut into pieces (with help from friends, thankfully) and pretzels, etc. I've had to go to all the trouble of going and borrowing a snow-cone maker and trying to track down and buy all the supplies to make snow-cones for everyone, wheeling in a popcorn machine with supplies to pop fresh popcorn for everyone, go out and buy and cut tons of watermelons into slices for people to eat (and then listen to them whine about how their slice 'wasn't sweet'), get breakfast ready for staff meetings, organize huge group lunches (and then hear someone gripe when their slice of pizza wasn't piping hot, see them pitch it into the trash can, and ungratefully march back to their desk), I've had to organize 'Employee Appreciation Weeks' (one of which I remember cost me around $750 --reimbursed to me weeks later--, and VG still wouldn't shut up about how she was sooooo disappointed that I wasn't able to get the life-size stand-up cardboard cutout of George Strait that she demanded, because the Cowboy Store that it was a display at threw it away a few days before). I've had to put together retirement parties from stem to stern (complete with ordering a personalized engraved crystal bowl from Tiffany & Co. as a gift for a useless old hag of a secretary that they laid off -- NOT 'retired', as they told everyone)... *catching my breath*...
(But thankfully, I almost always had Tori, or many other work friends by my side, helping me with all these crappy tasks, because they were the only ones who realized that I couldn't do it alone...to which I am eternally grateful)...I love you guys!...<3
I think that if I'd had a different (better) boss, I would've probably stayed longer at my stupid job. But after all the crap VG put me through, I finally had enough back around the middle of September last year after she told me that she was going to have me take on yet another crap-work task to ease someone else's workflow. That was the last straw that broke this camel's back. Sure, ease everyone else's workflow, but keep dumping garbage on me, and then turn right around and force me to order doughnuts over the phone while you hunker over me and breathe down my neck while I'm doing it, and even go so far as to question the manner in which I placed the order for the doughnuts after I hung up the phone, to beat the band.
So that Friday evening in September, after 16 long and miserable years of working at that stupid place (only staying that long because everyone that didn't work there persuaded me that it had such 'greeeat benefits', pfffsh), something inside me snapped because I finally had enough. So after everyone else had gone home for the weekend, I silently packed up all my personal belongings, completely cleaned out my desk, left without any warning or notice whatsoever, and never looked back.
I felt like I had just escaped from Alcatraz. The only things that were missing were the paper-mache dummy head propped up at my desk, the chiseled-out hole in the wall, and a rubber raft cobbled together out of raincoats.
And that's when I started this blog.
In the weeks after I abruptly quit my job, my friends from work told me that VG fake-wistfully mentioned numerous times, "I tried to tell Deana that she was appreciated..."
Well, APPRECIATE THIS, VG:
VG even went so far as to ask one of her other employees if they thought that she had 'rose-colored glasses', because apparently I wasn't the kind of person that VG thought I was, because after I quit, she had the IT department pull all of my e-mails and she got to see first-hand for herself just how irritated I was with her by reading the venting e-mails that my friends at work and I had sent back and forth to one another. VG was surprised because she had no idea that I had a 'foul mouth'. The notion never occurred to her that it was HER being such a PSYCHO that DROVE ME TO CUSS IN THE FIRST PLACE! There's VG's 'I can't possibly be the problem; it's those people who lack positive attitudes who have the problem' thing again. You just can't win with her! That's why I had no choice but to quit with no notice, because if I had tried to give a typical 2-week notice, I know for sure that VG would have made my life even more of a living hell that would have been impossible for me to survive!
Have you ever heard the phrase "it's not so much the job that you quit, as the boss"? Well, I guess that pretty much applies here.
So now you know you know the full story of why I don't want to see my ex-boss at the grocery store (or really anywhere at all, ever, ever again). :)
The End. WHEW. And we shall speak of this no more.
Happy Easter Weekend, everyone! :D
Hmm...reminds me of someone I used to know...
LOL! ;)
AHHH This story made me cringe! I too have worked with people who are black holes that just ruin everything for everyone. Good news is they are few and far between!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, found this really funny. Thought you might enjoy:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ailbhemalone/25-astonishingly-useless-tips-found-in-womens-magazines
LOL that was so funny!
DeleteIf I had to choose just one that I thought was the very worst, I would probably pick #18. I mean, really? How does that look good or improve anything? LOL!!!