Thursday, August 5, 2010

Just Plain Rude, Workplace Drama

As if the life of a working parent isn't stressful enough, there are those days with the added "joys" (I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible) of workplace rudeness.  I'm really not quite sure what makes people think that it's ok to be unethically rude to their co-workers and or employees.  I don't know if any of you have ever had one of those bosses that makes you want to pull your hair right out of your pretty little head, lord knows that I have.  Yet, I drag myself out of bed at an ungodly hour, every morning, and put a bright and shiny smile on my face every day, and get my job done (and done well, I might add) every single day!  Usually, the day goes by fairly ok, and I get to go home to by beautiful family and loose no sleep over my days work.  Usually.

On one of the unusual days recently, I was scolded as if I were a five year old child for a simple and fixable clerical error on a letter I sent out.  I had the joy of listening to the Chair of my department, who while in a position of some power is not my actual boss, yell at me over the phone in the wee hours of the work day.  Talk about a rude awakening.  She kept referencing an email I'd never seen and going on about an error that I had no idea had occurred.  In response to her five minute rant, I kept quiet, reviewed my copies of the letter and responded with a simple "I see the error, I will take care of it right away and notify the recipients."  Three seconds later I was hung up on.  Then a mere two seconds later my bosses phone rings.  Her office is right next to mine, and I'm not quite sure if she's figured out that I can hear all her conversations pretty clearly through our cheap office walls.  Jumping right on the Chair's rant and rave band wagon, she sent me a very short and rude, the apparent theme of the day, email demanding to see the letter and demanding that I apologize to the Chair without even talking to me about the situation first.  She simply assumed.  We all know what happens when you assume...  Apologize for what, no person in their right and sane mind could say considering the Chair was the one yelling at me and speaking to me as if I was an imbecile.  I stood my ground, and explained to my boss that in fact it was the Chair who had been rude, detailing some of the events, and that I refuse to respond to that type of unprofessional treatment.  She left it at that and become rather nice to me shortly after, and I can only hope she realized her wrong doing. My boss reviewed the corrected letter, gave her stamp of approval to send them out, only to find out shortly after that she too had made a mistake with the letters.  I know I shouldn't, but I did take a little joy in seeing that happen to her.  Now it was my job to fix her mess, track down the letters that were already on their way to the post office, and redo them yet again, only to hear her on the phone with the Chair taking credit for fixing the mistake and not giving credit to me where credit was due.  A true follower pretending to be a leader.  As the day went on, not a single apology to me, or acknowledgment of how things should have been handled differently.   A real modern day stand off of good (myself) verses evil (them).  And let me tell you this hard working women takes great pride in her work, and I will not allow myself to forced into submission. 

At the end of the day I drove home blasting a feel good, screw you, kinda song.  It made me feel better.  I opened my door to the sweet sounds of "Mommie, mommie, mommie, your home!"   This is all that's really important, as I'm quickly reminded by my beautiful and energetic little girl.  Those crazy people at work can keep their bad attitudes because I am going to let their negative energy bounce right off of me and right back to them.  This is a huge feat for me considering in the past I would have probably chosen to hand them their self esteem on a silver platter, torn to shreds.  Come on' like y'all don't think about doing that sometimes! 

Lesson of the day:  Be the bigger person and don't let the workplacedrama get the best of you, you'll be a better person for it.  Hold your head high and stand for what you believe to be right. :-)

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