Anger Management

Now that a few days have gone by and I haven't checked my work email, I can tell you a little story about how I almost quit my job on Friday. Well, I didn't almost quit, per se, I just wanted to rip a certain person's head off and throw it, well, far away. So she couldn't reach it....and was stumbling around headless...and people yelled because blood was grotesquely spurting from the stupid pillar of superiority that is her neck...you get the idea. Nice metaphor, eh?

In my former job, I had one person (ONE!), named Shaniqua, who could truly get under my skin. She knew what buttons to push and I think she just hated me. There was no basis for it, I never did anything wrong, but she just decided on Day 1 that she wouldn't like me. I tried making nice, killing her with kindness, ignoring her, everything. I even had our supervisor set up a mediation so I could TALK to her and that didn't work. In my 8 years in corporate America, I had ONE person I truly couldn't work with. I think that's pretty good.

Well, enter Headless Wonder. I could take the low road here and tell you all about how she ripped through my very soul on Friday. I could tell you how I honestly communicated my team's progress and she lambasted me with her superiority complex...cutting me off at the knees. I could tell you that I replied with a brief message thanking her for her supreme guidance and accurate data. Nope, I'll take the high road here and just tell you that I had my first blood-boiling experience at St. Fozzie's....on the coat tails of just having completed the administrative budget. The budget wasn't that bad; the Finance people walked me through each line item and showed me how to look up records in the system. However, my brain was full and I knew I had to jet back to SB for a doc appointment. It was not good. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about Headless. Perhaps I'll have an update for you when I check my work email!

So I went to the doctor's office and my blood pressure came back at 130/90 (very high for me) and the nurse was like, "Hon, are you okay?" I didn't tell her how I just got into an intense fight with a lawyer (did I mention that Headless is a lawyer and argues for a living?!), fought crazy traffic out of Chicago (doesn't ANYONE work until 5pm on Fridays?), and took a substantial hit on the brain cells (while I learned the budget piece). She let me calm down and took my bp again at the end of my appointment.

I finally did calm down, but it took several hands of Gin Rummy, about 20 bodyslams, and 10 hours in the pool. Even then, I couldn't channel any kind of peace. I recently bought a book on a whim, one called "CEO Logic." It's basically a CEO-for-Dummies book and I scanned it for an answer to my problem with Headless. I haven't found an answer yet...but if there's anything I learned from my experiences with Shaniqua, it's that I have to let crap like this roll off my back. There is no use letting my blood boil when Headless was probably hoping to royally tick me off. Mission accomplished, but I'm sure not letting her know just how much she irked me!