poop beetle: let me train you 2.2005 I trained a new person at work tonight. Nobody warned me I'd be doing this. I showed up at work and the person leaving was talking to a pretty blond woman who was seated in the cubicle and as I waited for first shift to gather her stuff I kept wondering what this other person was doing here (besides talking about football with Carl, who was getting ready to leave) until, well- we finally figured it out.
Several months ago a similar thing happened, a woman showing up at my desk to be trained. This person too had two separate mongo plastic ring binders full of printed training material.
The first person, like tonight's person scooted her chair next to mine and began to tell me all about her life.
As her (their) lives unfolded I began to have serious doubts about whether this job was right for them. I learned my lesson with the first person and mostly kept my mouth shut with this new lady.
An interesting coincidence here is the fact that all three of us are 35.
You're 35?!!! Well so am I!
It's just occurred to me how odd this revelation should be so interesting to us. Kind of like turning 13 (you're 13? Me too!) . . . "Can you believe we got here? Me neither!
Also we all three have small kids.
This "all three business"- that's my thing. First lady never met second lady- I'm just pretending we were all together because if felt as if we were all having the same conversation. While I babbled in fits and spurts about this computer screen that is ungodly impossible, evil to look at and what one is supposed to look at and what's really important and why and what's not so important, but still kind of- but when you work this job on your own and everything goes nuts- here's the beginning of what you can let go and here's where you really have to stay right.
I'm not very good at explaining things- but I will try.
The woman who trained me was a C-U-N-T Okay, okay . . . How bout she was a S-N-O-T-T-Y L-I-T-T-L-E S-H-I-T ?
Really awful. I'd forgotten how awful she was until I was faced with other people who were confused and afraid and then I thought back on how I was too and then also how awful this woman was to me.
This girl who trained me was young. I think the young are less kind. Sorry to say so, but I know I was less kind when I was young- full of absolute certainty of what I would do in any given situation.
She was also a Jehovah's Witness. Which actually predisposed me to like her because my best friend in high school, Beth Rosa- who was a wonderful, funny, honest, brave, fantastic person and should have gone on to become the first woman president of the US- of A- got sucked in by them. -Just about the time she'd gotten a full scholarship to a better than fine State College (by way of acting or scholastics or perhaps it was playing the viola in the greater Triad Youth Orchestra) she got God by way of the J.W.'s and then all she wanted to do was learn Spanish and go hand out Watch Towers in Puerto Rico. And find peace. She was the first person who ever introduced me to this idea. She was 16. "Happiness? . . . What is That? I mean I know what that is, but I'm not interested. I Want To Feel OKAY. Even."
Beth had a sleep disorder. That's what I've decided. She had that thing that River Phoenix had in Gus Van Sant's pretty boy homoerotic thingy- - oh, god I've got to look it up now, don't I?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102494/ My Own Private Idaho I read recently that blogger etiquette requires links. I'm so lazy about facts this sort of forces me to know what I'm talking about OH, and by the way did you know Van Sant also directed "Good Will Hunting?" I did not know that. (just find it through that other link if you don't believe me). Of course he would.
I should have saved Beth. I would have if I didn't have her up on such a pedestal. I just thought she was the bomb and she just always sounded so wise and in control. And when she said in a voice full of breezy annoyance "well, sometimes I have to listen to the radio at night to keep the voices at bay"- I thought, "Well, sure. Who doesn't?" Perfectly natural, perfectly normal.
This other Girly-Q (my trainer) was no Beth Rosa. And I'll tell you- just to set the record straight- I have an interest in Faith- a kind of distant, sometimes snarky and free-wheeling, rebelling against the rebels- I love a good "borne again" story. And I freakin' love the idea of faith- like I like fairy tales and astrology and one's stories of one's ancestors heading out west- maybe they were knot-headed retards, maybe they were heroes- either way they mixed with the natives, etc. blah, blah, bah.
I was full on ready to forgive her and accept her- but I was just way too stressed out and that confused me. I couldn't tell what a normal person should be able to learn and absorb in a given amount of time. And girly sat back with her mouth pursed up, flipping through her watch towers and let my low self esteem and general freak-outedness go wild.
Tonight I remembered that and hated this doofus woman for that. She let me struggle over admitting a child (a hang up in knowing what particular thing should go in what thing) all while a nurse was calling me telling me this kid couldn't get pain meds until I go the right thing in the thing that allowed him to go through the computer system so she could poke her code on the med cart and get this child what he needed.
Fucking horrible.
I don't work with this woman anymore. Lots of things changed and put her far out of my sphere, but before that happened, after I learned the job, I let her know what I thought of her and I made her cry.
Ugly, eh?
But idiot needed to know.
Ohhh, you all thought I was such a nice person, didn't you?
I let a kid writhe in pain for several more minutes than needed . . . a year later and I'm still angry about this.
Okay- so the first woman wanted to leave her husband and our one and only shift involved her telling me lots of extremely good reasons why she should do so, even though if she left him that would mean she would not be able to work in my department.
The second woman sounded at first too bright to be happy with the job she signed up for and eventually- as the evening wore on- too manic (no offense against the manic- I love you lots!)- but I wondered once she got the hang of it if it would be too boring (it's the kind of job that is kind of hard to learn, but once you do is numbingly repetive).
Another coincidence- both women asked me where I was parked and if I would walk with them to the parking lot.
Both were parked a level below mine and I said to each- go down to your car, I'll wait here (on the stairs)- scream loud if anything happens.
