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21 October 2008

She Shoots, She Scores!

Last Friday I posted about having to set boundaries with the social klutz at work, the one who insists on telling me all about himself even though I am always very obviously busy.

Well, I went through with it, with the expected results. Very politely, I told him I really didn't have time to chat in the mornings due to my heavy workload and deadlines. He got very defensive, snapped that "he didn't know he was bothering me" - um, hello? getacluethanxbai - assumed the whipped puppy expression, and left.

Yesterday (Monday), he avoided me completely, as I suspected he would. He took my boundary-setting as a personal attack. It was anything but - like I said, I was polite, and even thanked him for understanding that this is work, and I NEED TO WORK. I made no accusations, deliberately said nothing that would put him on the defensive, and yet he chose to make it All About Him.

Any normal, social, well-adjusted human being would have apologized and felt at least some remorse for having overstepped his boundaries. But this klutz's motivations were purely selfish; because I'm friendly, he thought that gave him the right to walk all over me. In other words, our interactions had to be strictly on his terms. Arrogant, much? And when I disabused him of that notion, he got ticked off. I am perfectly willing to remain cordial; I just cannot spare the time to let him chew my ear off. But for him, it's all or nothing.

Maybe I'm getting better at reading people as I get older, 'cause I pegged that one.

Unfortunately for him, I have no tolerance for selfish, self-serving, self-absorbed, boundary-ignoring users. He wants to play the "I'm ignoring you" game? Fine by me. All I can say is, good bye, and good riddance.

1 comments:

Nan said...

You go! It always amazes me how many people are like this.

Hugs!