I started writing this because I thought it was funny. But it’s not. An artist will tell you that if you really want to see a picture, draw it. I’m sure that a writer would tell you that if you really want to understand a story, write it. Someday I’ll hire someone smart to fix all my verbs and adjectives.
We work in an office that provides customer service, among other things. We engage with the public in person, over the phone, through email and through text. Slug and I are almost exclusively in charge of sending out text campaigns – like, pay your bill, sign up for this, the deadline for this is on this date. That changed when another department – marketing – looked at our texts and decided that they could be improved upon.
I said quietly, almost mouthing the words, and very matter-of-factly, “I’m about to bail.” (Normally, I would never use the word “bail” like that. I was so enraged that I was falling back on SoCal slang.)
Her eyes got really wide and she mouthed back, “I KNOW.”
She started shaking her finger at me and tried to say several things at once until she asked, “Are you leaving now? Do you want to walk out with me?”
Her invitation was so shocking. I was only trying to express some anger – maybe a tad inappropriately. Slug was not a friend and I wasn’t sure if she was even an ally. I just needed to hear myself say the words to someone. I didn’t actually expect any validation. Real, authentic, validation is gold and receiving it from others is rare for me. This was especially shocking coming from Slug because, since the day we started this job, when it was 5 o’clock, she was gone.
“I try to keep my distance from everyone.” Ohhh.
In the early days, for months, and at the end of each workday, I waited a few minutes past 5 before leaving so I could pretend like I cared and was trying to do a good job. Now, taking her lead, I start to close up shop at about 4:56 pm so I can get the hell out of there. At 4:58 pm, I’m standing around, looking at my phone, watching the little red second hand tick towards the 12. But her office door was always closed shut at 5. And she always walked to her car alone. The work clique walks together to their cars. But Slug and I – I guess being the new people – walked alone. I made this observation and just kind of shrugged my shoulders and said, whatever, these are coworkers, not friends.
“I just kind of said to myself that it’ll be OK, because if I leave, they’ll still have you.”
“I was saying that too! They will have you, so it’s fine.”
Slug was quietly applying for other jobs.
There was a new task that the whole office needed to be trained on. I hadn’t learned it yet because I was on vacation for two weeks. When I returned from vacation… Earlier in the day, I announced to the office that I had shuffled customers into breakout rooms on Zoom so that a higher-up could join them and complete this new task. I had two customers, each in a breakout room, and I needed a higher-up or two to join them. The boss jumped into the office chat and asked me, ” .” I think she was trying to tell me that I, too, needed to process this new task. But, also, she was making a sarcastic remark… A moment later, Ricardo came running into my office–apparently, this is the one who had told me that only the higher-ups are supposed to complete the new task.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize that all of us were supposed to be doing the new task. I thought it was just the higher-ups.”
Then he said,
“So-n-so says that sometimes when the boss phrases it like that, she doesn’t mean you or me. What she’s really saying is them. Can you do me a favor and ask her if I’m supposed to do the new task too?”
“Sure, no problem. I can do that.”
One of our coworkers was nice enough to write up the instructions on how to do this new task so that the whole office would know what to do. I responded by saying thank you and that that would be really helpful. About an hour later, this coworker send us the document of instructions. I added to the conversation that, in the future, if all of our training could include a document of instructions, it would be really efficient. I added a smiley face too so that people would know that I wasn’t being passive aggressive, which I wasn’t. We would have something to study rather than asking a coworker to repeat the training 3-5 times. About a month ago, I came up with this ingenious idea – by the fifth time of having my coworker walk me through a new task, I figured out that I could video him with my cellphone and study the video. Smart.
“…”
That was the last straw. I spent the morning thinking about an exit strategy.
A few months ago, a new undefined policy was implemented by the boss. Money was tight and we had to identify the dividing line that separated the customers who would continue to receive services from the customers who would be banished. The staff put a piece of printer paper on a clipboard in the lobby and anyone in the office who had a question about this new policy could write their questions on this piece of paper for the boss. My coworker, Kiddo, next door to my office, had a number of questions on the clipboard. But for some reason, she was intimidated by the boss because she said,
“I don’t want to get yell at by the boss.”
I never heard any yelling in the office.
Kiddo could see on the calendar that I had a one-on-one meeting with the boss that day and,
“Can you do me a favor? Could you take the clipboard to the meeting and get all the questions answered? And can you share the answers with me?”
I agreed to do this because I’m the type who never has any questions to ask.
Well, actually, it depends. I usually have a lot of process questions. But I almost never have any out-of-the-blue type questions.
So, having this huge list of questions to ask the boss would make me look good – I’m thinking about things; I want to do good work; this new policy is verrrry important. Plus, I figured I’d type it all up and share it with the office – I’m a team player. So, yeah,
“I’ll do it.”
Shadowing
“Do anything fun over the weekend?”
“Not really, haha. When I get off work, I’m usually doing more work. I was working all day on Saturday.”
“You have a side gig or something?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, do you nanny?” Do I nanny? Baby-sitting?
“No. I do a type of data collection.”
“Oh, cool. Do you have kids?”
“No… I’m one of those ladies who never saw myself as a mother.”
This is obnoxious. I’d rather sit with one of those chunky wenches than deal with this kid. I had to share with Slug.
“Me either!!”
“I don’t even know what a cute baby looks like.”
“I know!”
When I was a child, I viewed all babies as an evil burden to society – future people who would destroy the environment, increase the development of open land and cause even more loss to endangered species. These were my innocent thoughts as a 10-year-old. My dad was so irate with me because I would openly refer to babies as “insects,” meaning, things that must be squashed from existence.
One time I was riding in a taxi in New York City with the smartest girl in the school. We were heading to the airport to return home. The taxi driver tied to start a friendly conversation, He looked at us through the rearview mirror and asked,
“You have baby?”
I just let out an uncontrollable sound of disgust,
“UGHHHHH…”
I looked over at the smartest girl in the school with my stink eye. She had thrown her head back and laughed while clapping her hands.
Slug shared with me that when she was a child, she would shove kids to the ground because she hated other children. (Her mom would yell at her for that, too.)
“I don’t even want to get married.”
“Oh my gosh, I don’t either.”
“Oh, are you a cat lady?’
“No, I have dogs.”
The thing about people who go to world class schools is they have world class behavior. They’re not deaf to their prejudices and invasive thinking – unless they’re doing it on purpose. In any case, either you didn’t get into Oxford or you’re an idiot.
“Oh, that place is fourth in the state.”
Huh. Fourth in the state.
“Ohh, wooow…”
“You have very neat hand-writing. What did you major in in college?”
Everyone always comments about my hand-writing.
“You can tell about a person’s humanity by looking at their hand-writing.”
“Ah…”
I texted Slug.
“F… I still work here.”
“Same here, homie.”