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06 February 2009

You Can't Fix Stupid

I've been going a little crazy at work this week, all because of my boundaryless, clueless, inept, insecure, hygienically-challenged bitch of a co-worker. We're in the middle of what's been euphemistically called a "knowledge transfer experiment": for three cycles of two weeks at a time, certain members of the department switch desks in order to "shake things up" and see if we as a group learn anything new from having a new set of cube-neighbors. BCIIHB, who previously sat in another room (and thus her crazy was contained), has been sitting kitty-corner from me for the last two weeks. And I'm just about ready to snap.

In addition to butting in to conversations, eavesdropping, prying into things on your desk, making inane comments, and trying to act like she's our manager (she's not), she laughs at the dumbest things...and keeps laughing. She never shuts up. She might as well take a cheese grater to my nerves.

The kicker came yesterday. She thought she found a problem (it wasn't, but she was making it out to be the next sinking of the Titanic), and in the course of trying to locate similar items in my work, I realized that I'd made a mistake. Not a big one, as mistakes go, but something I should have caught. I made some toss-off comment, the self-depricating kind intended to generate empathy, and BCIIHB started laughing like it's the funniest thing in the world. I stared at her a moment, gobsmacked. She laughed harder, and I realized she wasn't laughing with me - she was laughing AT me. I gave her my patented Stare of Death. She kept laughing. At this point, I started to get tunnel vision - not good. The last time that happened (in college), I almost got into a brawl. So I quickly looked away, excused myself, and took off to inform a manager of my error. The fact that I came so close to losing it entirely left me shaken.

Very few people have this effect on me. Yes, I have a temper, but rarely do I let it slip its leash. In venting to my husband last night, he gave me some valuable words to live by: you can't fix stupid. I shouldn't let BCIIHB get to me, because she's just a dumb animal. She is what she is; I cannot change it, I cannot fix it, and therefore I should just let it be.

Truer words were never spoken.

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