People? Sheesh!

I don't have much of a filter, sometimes it works in my favour, some times it does not. Although, I have to say, rarely does it get me into trouble. Some people love me because of it, and some people like me despite it.

I used to work with a woman who used to say, "I just say it how it is, I am pretty blunt. I don't have a filter, please don't take offence. I can't help it, I was just brought up that way. I can't change, that is just who I am."

"Oh, that's alright," I tell her. "I don't have much of a filter either, I think we'll get along just fine."

She ended up reporting me to HR saying she was offended by things I'd said.



Fucken amateur, I thought.

Of course, I bluffed my way through it with HR, because HR ostensibly does not want to hear about employee's gripes, they want to do lunch and swap baby photos.

I laughed, "She must have misunderstood what I meant." Smile. Quizzical look.

And HR Karen was happy to drop it as soon as she could, she didn't want to do anything about it, let's face. Light and breezy gets you through any discussions with the HR professionals. Ask her about her kid, or that handsome boyfriend you have no idea how she hooked, she is easily distracted.



We never mentioned it again, me and the fucken amateur. She went on claiming to have no filter and, truthfully, I, effectively, had my filter in place, well, when it came to the amateur, well, kind of. I kept it away from offensive for the one who claimed never to offend, deliberately. I just stopped engaging with her, really. I think she and I knew the truth, though, you know, on some level, that she was a fake, and I was what she always claimed to be, although we never spoke of it.



Do I have to say she was a fucken nightmare, Janine, with her dead peroxide blonde hair, her acne pox marked skin, and her black panda eyes. The way she used to grab the men by the nipples and sing/yodel “Tune in Tokyo.” (I always wondered if she had any clue where that came from?) And that’s not mentioning the dirty stories she used to tell. What was it, her husband used to get all excited watching SBS after midnight. "Tittees galore," she used to say. She was quite a piece.

She, of course, thought she knew everything, and yet she knew nothing. She didn’t like me taking away her mantle of “the one with the most experience,” and I can still picture her standing at the Director of Finance’ desk when she was clearly running me down, because she never had the good sense to stop looking at me, with that expression of a 14 year old dibber dobber.


Then, I got a better job and left. Or, I got itchy feet, or I got bored, or I just wanted something different, and I left. I, of course, slated Janine to HR on my way out, when they told me they didn’t want me to leave and was there anything they could do to make me stay?

“Get rid of Janine, she is one of the reasons I am leaving,” I told them. “I just can’t work with her.”

(Truthfully, it was the dead end promotion structure, and the lack of opportunity to advance, but, hell, why let the truth ruin a good story, I've always said that. I was leaving to get away from Janine too, but she wasn’t the main reason)

I heard later, through the grapevine that she got moved sideways, which was, essentially, a demotion. I kind of hope I had something to do with that.