Wednesday, November 27, 2013

I Think I Am Losing My Charm At Work

I woke up at 6am and went and had a piss. I glanced at the clock and was pleased with the time I had left to doze. I love that in the mornings, an hour to drift back to sleep, it is the best hour of the day. I was having excellent dreams, I wanted to get back to them. The sun was gently floating in through the window. Sam snored gently, like he does. I stood momentarily and gazed upon the scene. It is, perhaps, one of the loveliest moments in life. Oh how I wanted that moment to last forever.

The morning came around soon enough though, of course, as it does. Buddy came inside covered in dirt. He’s been rolling around in the garden bed up the back, sunbathing. That garden bed, unfortunately, is basically dirt mixed with the ashes from the fireplace that I empty there, perhaps, once a year. We brushed Buddy’s fur and a cloud of dust rose towards the ceiling, as we sat at the coffee table with out muesli and coffee. It is his new thing, sadly. Sam declared him an emergency shower situation. I could see a shower every second day during summer, if the dirt baths kept up. We’re going to was him tonight, apparently. I can hardly wait. I hoped Sam would forget about it, but that was unlikely.

It was a lovely warm morning. You could feel summer was around the next corner, if not here already.


At lunch time, I’m in the kitchen writing on my laptop. Its good. I get so much of my journal written this way, which I wouldn't get written other wise. Better than reading the newspaper. Well, if I go to lunch at 12.30 and the others go to lunch at 1pm, or 1.30. “It helps make the day go faster,” they say. Oh really, Cathy? (my minor boss) Cathy runs for an hour at lunch time, of course – oh god don’t strike me down for this – Christine goes up the local drive through for her lunch. (yep, she's fat) And I go back at 1.30pm. And they come back an hour later. I get to read the online newspaper for an hour. Two hour lunch time anyone.


I’m losing my charm at work, I can feel it. Cathy is a grumpy try-hard and I am putting up my defences, I can feel it. She’s hard work. She’s not particularly smart, but she makes up for it in dogged tenacity. It could well be a poor education, rather than lack of intelligence. She would never have been treated as the favourite child growing up, maybe she was the middle child. Maybe, she was even not liked by a parent, possibly her mother. (she looks after her mother now with bitter resignation) I think Cathy has a great need to be thought of as worthwhile, as we all do, of course, but her need is greater than most.

I’m sure she is just lovely when everything is going her way, but when it is not, I’m sure she is an unbearable, cranky bitch. (no, she is)


She’s also a drunk, freely admitted. And she and her husband like to think of themselves as food connoisseurs, even if I doubt she would know what connoisseurs meant… with her royal blue shag carpet in Bundoora.


I’m not really liking her. She has very little charm about her, no warmth to speak of, nothing really nice to offer. I think my time here is drawing to a close.

Christine reckons that Cathy is feeling unwell today, but she would never admit it. Christine says Cathy is cranky and probably needs to take a sick day, but she would never, ever do that. 

She has to move forward. She has to be seen as a winner. "So busy."

Christine is lovely. (my colleague)  I’d like to work with her. She is laid back and down to earth and really easy to work with.

The other day, Cathy complained of a dizzy spell when she was chatting from her desk to Christine, at her desk. Cathy had to take a time out and flee the office. I reckon Cathy is wound up pretty tight most of the time.

I was secretly hoping she'd have a brain bleed while she was splashing water on her face in the ladies, hitting the floor like a bag of shit never to get up again. But, I guess, that is a thought I should just keep to myself.

I don’t dislike her, don’t get me wrong, she’s okay, actually, she’s perfectly fine. I just can’t warm to her as a human being. She just simply isn’t my cup of tea. Whenever I meet people who are wound tighter than a cat’s arse hole, I just want to see them unwind like a Catherine Wheel, it is a fault in me, I don’t doubt it. I don’t mean strips of flesh plastered against the ceiling and the walls, like crazy paving chicken fillets, no. I guess I mean the noise of the relief, the actual relief, of getting done over by an entire football team, possibly, minus the football team, for those of you who are squeamish. But the final outcome of that teeth grinding, jaw wobbling occurrence. That is the “unwind” that I mean and that is what we all want to see, surely, in the annoyingly overwound amongst us. Blouse undone, hair ruffled, cigarette in the mouth.
 



Did I just wish her dead? I think I did? But it is me, not her. I just don’t think I have the temperament any longer for long term assignments. I think I get too paranoid and start to think that the employer’s “go off” me, start to dislike me, you always get found out in the end, and it kind of winds down from there. Of course, I have to find someone else to lay the blame on, naturally. 

I am sure it is as a result of being bullied by my old law firm. I’m sure I should have sued them for bullying and got some closure on that whole horrible affair. Then I should have had counselling.
I’ve got to fight against getting my back up against the (imagined) enemy, because even if I do it silently, passive aggressively, I am sure it still affects my attitude, even if it is in a minor way.

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