Evenscry’s Weblog

Sometimes I fantasize that Red will just give up at work, that she will find something better and quit.
Things went kind of badly at work yesterday.

I was really frustrated, in general, because they scheduled one of the bookfloor people to work in cafe in the morning, and because cafe is far less important than bookfloor, she went off to do her thing while I just hung around in cafe, alone, and bored.
I couldn’t do any heavy-duty cleaning projects, mostly because once you start anything in cafe it’s pretty much guaranteed that a customer will show up and want something involved enough to keep you from said project.

Oh, and the dishwasher broke yesterday.

Now, I had been in the midst of all this utter and complete boolsheet all day when Red walked in and was bombarded by the managers with the news about the dishwasher.

I know that it sucks. I know. Trust me.
Nothing in life can possibly suck as much as Red thinks that something sucks. Honest-to-God.

I know that her life is no fun. I know that she is sick and that she has drama and that she feels like she is completely crapped on at work. I realize this.
I just don’t want to bloody hear about it anymore.
Really.
Really.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been there longer, but the crap that we have to put up with doesn’t strike me as that big a deal. If it bothers you that much, find a different job, a different field. Don’t work with stupid coffee-ordering customers.
Yeah, they suck, but we’re all demanding and bitchy in some capacity in our lives. And once you give them their coffee, for the most part, they leave.

Whatever.

I am good at being sweet and perky and welcoming. It’s part of the job, part of the role, and you know what? I like being that person. If you do it for long enough in a day, you really are that perky, sweet, and happy person. (With an underlying edge of sarcasm. Don’t forget that. I’m not some crazy Kewpie Doll. I promise.)

I just feel like it’s so important to be patient with each other and our circumstances, because honestly, what is the use in being alive if you can’t enjoy it?

I’m just fed up with Red’s constant whining, and her constant talking about herself.
I kind of want to quit, myself, just to get the heck away from her.
And I feel badly, because we’re supposed to be friends, but I can’t freaking take it anymore, you know?

I’m tired of the people who complain in the workplace without having a sense of humor about it.  Igor, Thor, Stasia and the rest of us, we have senses of humor, and that’s what you need to work with the public. We may hate aspects of our jobs, we may be completely unable to deal with certain people with whom we work, but we laugh about it. We make it through with at least half a smile on our faces. (Blow darts, baby, blow darts.)

And I realize that by complaining about Red I’m being kind of hypocritical, but it’s driving me absolutely mad.

I suppose that the upswing is that I’ll have to head out to the Career Services office at UConn in the near future and see what exactly I am qualified to do that does not involve working in a dead-end job at my local Barnes and Noble.
I don’t know that I’m ready to leave my job at the Barnes and Noble, but I have to get the heck away from Red, and soon.

In the meantime, I think that I’ll just have to keep my mouth shut around her. I just don’t want to talk to her right now about anything at all. I don’t care about her effing life or the problems that she has. It’s not all about her, and she seems to think it is.

I finally snapped at her yesterday and told her,
“Don’t get snotty with me!”

She told me that I should look at myself.

Well, maybe I got a little snotty with her, but she was being a freaking whiner, when I was just trying to show her that having a broken dishwasher was not as bad as she thought it was. (I’m running out of fingers with which to count how many times we’ve been without a working dishwasher since I started working at B&N in 2004.)

I only have to deal with her for three hours today, and I’ll keep trying to remind myself of that.

I will be cheerful, I will be cheerful, I will be cheerful.