Crazy Bitch

I don't even remember when this all began. All I remember is that it was well over a year and a half ago...probably even longer since she was pregnant at the time and her daughter is 17 months old - probably around my first few months of Clomid.

In a two part blurry haze, my whole work world was turned inside out. Incident # 1 occurred on the day that Harry Lee's death was announced. Harry Lee was the long running Sheriff of the town I live in. He was loved or hated by many. As for me, I neither loved or hated him...I honestly gave 2 shits about him, but many people were passionate in their love/hate.

It was a WELL known fact that our Security Director HATED him. As a former police officer who worked under this Sheriff, he said on many occasions that he would piss on his grave and dance around it after he died. He had a photo of him upside down in his office. It was a deep down kind of hatred. When I heard the death notice on the radio, said Security Director was at the copy machine outside my office. I hollered out, "Hey Henry, did you hear about Harry Lee?" And Henry replied something that went along the lines of that it was a very happy day for him. We both laughed and went our separate ways. That is incident #1.

Incident # 2 occurred shortly then after. I had an employee with A LOT of drama going on in her life. In a matter of weeks, she miscarried, got pregnant again, had a mother in a coma and a grandmother dying. She would come and talk to me often about the suffering that her grandmother was enduring and how she wished that they would just pull the plug and allow her grandmother to rest. She spoke about her desire to see her grandmother at peace to me at least 5 times.

Her grandmother died and she left a voicemail on my cell phone. Thinking that I was being a good "boss", I called her back to offer my condolences. I got her voicemail. I left a message to the effect of, "I'm so sorry to hear about your grandmother and I'm happy to know that she's finally at peace and no longer in pain." That ends incident # 2.

I'm not sure of the timeline here, but shortly thenafter, perhaps even in the same week, I am informed by Human Resources that my employee has filed a formal complaint against me. The basis of her complaint? Oh it was as vast and as broad and the Mississippi River. I was mean/rude/insensitive/unprofessional blah blah blah.

Two things specifically mentioned in her complaint were that I had "celebrated the death" of a political figure...I think she even complained about me expressing my political views at work because of my celebration of the death of the Sheriff. The other specific complaint that I remember is that in my voicemail to her after her grandmother's death, she twisted my words and claims that I had said that I was happy that her grandmother had died. She even played the voicemail so that it is now recorded and probably sitting in my file for life.

Weeks of hell followed. Though my boss supported me to my face, he sat next to me in total silence while I was YELLED at by our President for not handling this employee better. She spread her sob story across the building and I could feel the glare of 50 people every day wishing for my demise. In the end, neither of us was punished per say, but I was forced to be kind to her and manage her and be her BFF to make her feel all warm and cozy inside. Gag. But...I did it. And since then, we have had not a single problem. We don't like each other, but we work well together and can even chat together without issue.

Fast forward. Things have been quiet. It's been about 6 months since she had a family tragedy...which is a really long time for her since EVERYTHING is always a tragedy and tragedy seems to seek her. Her work product began failing and we all started noticing her on the phone with personal calls all the time. She came to me to let me know...her father was dying.

FUCK!

In the past 6 months her father has been on the brink of death every second. Also for 6 months, the WHOLE building has heard of her hatred for him. A hatred so deep that her plans for his memory was that she was shipping his body off to a University for medical research against his will after he died so that she wouldn't have to pay for a burial. There was no obit in the paper when he finally died either. She would laugh and talk about shipping his ashes via UPS to some brother that he had and "letting him deal with the asshole".

She needed to leave work for half days CONSTANTLY to rush to her dying father's side and handle his affairs and then about 80% of her work time was spent gaining sympathy from everyone she came in contact with - customers, salesmen, janitors - everyone over her poor dying father.

Last Saturday morning, my phone began ringing at 6:00am. My phone rang or tweeted for text messages 10 times in 3 hours from 6:00am - 9:00am. It was her. Her father died and of course the ENTIRE world just HAS to know about it regardless of the time. My husband, who throws newspapers as a second job on Friday nights and had just gotten in bed for the night was so livid with the calls that I had to talk him out of answering and cursing her out.

I chose not to answer. I chose not to return her calls. First, I was exhausted and trying to get some sleep seeing that I am 9 months pregnant here. Second, once I did wake up, I didn't stop until that night since SIL's shower was at my house that day. Third, I was afraid to call her because I KNEW she would let it go to voicemail and then use whatever I said against me later. Fourth, I was fucking pissed off at her rudeness and disrespect of my personal time.

I called her on Monday when I got to work to verify that there were no funeral arrangements (because we send flowers if there are) and she sounded fine and everything was well.

She returned to work Wednesday and has now spend the past 2 days drumming up support for her next formal complaint. According to her, I am insensitive and evil and a horrible human for not calling her to console her this weekend over the death of her father. I've already been told by two Human Resources employees and the head Security whateverthefuckheis guy that not calling her was indeed insensitive of me.

And I know that you may be saying "who gives a fuck"...but well...I have a lot on my mind. First, I will only be at work for 7 more business days and I have shit tons of work to complete and I don't have time for hours of investigations and interrogating and being yelled at. Second, I will be out for 8 weeks, which gives her 2 months to build up her support and convince the world of how victimized she's been by me. Third, annual increases just so happen to be decided AND implemented while I'll be on maternity leave and I'm scared of this issue being first and foremost on my bosses minds and not how I've worked like their bitch for the past nine months to prepare for me being out. Fourth, I'm fucking 9 months pregnant and I'm in so much physical pain that I'm liable to throw a phone at her head. And finally, fifth, I'm already worried about my job and finances and money - I don't think that any woman goes on maternity leave feeling 100% secure with her job and money and all that.

So this is what is consuming my mind. I can't get past it, even though I know I should. Her and I are both off of work until Tuesday, so I know I should at least just let it go until then...but I just can't. I'm freaking worried out of my mind.

No formal complaint has occurred yet, but I just know...I really just know that this isn't over yet and that she will take it as far as she can take it.