Mr. Rilch and I have been together for eight years now. He’s always known that I am a very insecure person who wavers between cringing and blustering. I’ve gotten better in those eight years, of course, and I haven’t stopped trying. But lately, it seems like he hears me put myself down when I’m actually trying to reassure myself, and by extension him.
Example: I currently have a crap job doing phone surveys*. I thought I was doing okay the first few days, but today, my supervisors suddenly started berating me. Five times, to be exact. I wasn’t doing this and I wasn’t doing that—stuff that they hadn’t told me to do! The female co-owner is a cooze, talking down to me as if I’m a kindergartner, and using a tone that implies she’s just at the end of her rope with me. The male co-owner looks and acts like the Giant, from Twin Peaks. He criticized me yesterday for walking too loudly. He, on the other hand, translocates silently, always going from one room to the other without attracting attention—until he appears at your elbow, saying, “You should have done [whatever],” in a perfect Carel Struyken impression. He also told me that I don’t get paid for my 15-minute breaks (in an 8-hour day). I think that’s illegal in CA. I’ll find out.
Well, I know that people who hire temps for jobs like this aren’t looking to create a warm, friendly atmosphere, and I also know that I should be proud just to be able to work the phones, when a few years ago, I would never have been able to talk to strangers all day, even with a script. So I ended by saying, “Well, life isn’t fair: if they fire me they fire me—” and before I could add, “I’m not going to turn myself inside out to be the kind of person who’s superfantastic at doing phone surveys,” he blew up and started yelling that he was tired of me getting down on myself, and I had to have a job and bring some money in here, and if I spazzed my way out of this job he was gonna, and, best of all, LIFE ISN’T FAIR! Which is what I’d said! But of course, when he says LIF, he’s giving a pep talk, and when I say it, I’m having a pity party. I’m not! I’m just accepting the fact that life isn’t fair!
Ohmygod, though…I can’t tell you how many times, and how badly, I’ve wanted to bite myself today, at work and at home. But I didn’t. So what does that say about me.
Whew. I did need to vent about work. I’ll let y’all know tomorrow if I do get fired. See, the only real reason it would bother me is that it’s my first gig with this particular temp agency, and I want to make a good impression.
Anyway, after things had calmed down, we were looking at this issue of Gourmet that was all Italian recipes. He was pointing out some pasta stuff he wants to make, and some desserts he’d like me to do. I was perusing the recipes to see what I’d need to do, and I noticed that the cookies called for me to grease tin foil (to put the walnuts on so I could roll the dough in them). I mused aloud, “Greased foil…”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, it says here that I have to grease the tinfoil…I’ll have to be careful, because I know how easily tinfoil rips.”
“Oh, for god’s sake Sandy if you don’t want to do it just say so for crissake nothing’s easy just do what you have to do don’t whine about it you should know what you’re doing by now…”
When the noise subsided, I went on to say, “I was just making a note of the fact that I’ll have to soften the butter a little and spread it slowly. I didn’t say that the editors of Gourmet were out to get me.” So I headed that one off at the pass, but my nerves are still jangling.
I don’t know what I should do. Apparently, I shouldn’t have told him about my work problem, but discussing cookie recipes? 
:mad: I’m finally able to be cut-and-dried about my situation…but he still hears complaining. 
*The funny thing is, the callees don’t bother me at all. This isn’t telemarketing at all. We call people at their place of business, where they accept having to field calls from people they’d rather not hear from, and the script is practically designed not to make people feel cornered, and doesn’t provide them with straight lines. Most people just say, “No, I don’t have time,” and the questions are few and simple enough that I’m not stealing the time of the ones who do answer. Best time is between 4 and 5 local time, because busy people don’t even take their calls then, and the ones who are just sitting there playing Minesweeper are overjoyed to talk to someone.
