I get along with most people very easily, truly I do, but there is one woman at my work who I can barely stand to be in the same room with.
Why do I hate her? Because she has exactly two topics of conversation. Which are: 1) the vast intellectual superiority of her family and relatives which is proven by her explaining in amazing detail all the myriad ways they are ripping off the system and/or other people and 2) how stupid everyone else in the world who DOESN’T do these things is. The stunts her petty criminal kin have pulled off (at least according to her) rang from stealing money by hurrying to occupy restaurant tables/booths before the waitress can clear them, to intimidating store clerks into giving them ‘refunds’ on items that were way old and frequently not even bought at that store, to claiming not to have received items they bought from EBay and threatening bad feedback, to switching price tags, and on and on. Every sleazy petty way to take advantage of other people you can imagine, she and her crew have probably done.
AND she follows up by making fun of people who won’t do the same. Like how our other coworker who hurt her back while at home was so stupid to not to fake an accident at work.
She started in on this right after she was hired, yes, boasting of her thieving ways to perfect strangers! and continued to do it straight along, despite various attempts by the rest of us to change the subject or get her to shut up or disagree with her. Basically, none of us were willing to confront her loudly and viciously enough to get her to stop. Yeah, we’re a bunch of wimps.
But even worms will turn, if you give them a big enough opportunity. Today at lunch Ms. Fagin started telling everyone there about how they hadn’t reported their mother’s death to Social Security right away, so they could keep collecting her checks AND how they’d talked some masseur into submitting claims that he was still giving her regular massages for her back problem and spliting the money with them.
So I pulled out my notebook and started writing this down. Making no attempt to disguise it. She didn’t even blink as she kept on boasting about how they’d gotten enough ‘extra’ money to buy big screen tvs for both sisters and herself. Called it ‘Mama’s legacy’ to them, and laughed.
So I asked her, “What was your mother’s name again?”
She stared at me, suspicion finally appearing in her nastly little eyes. “What d’ya want to know for?”
“Because it will make it a little easier for the Social Security people when they investigate your fraud.”
Heh. I bet you know how the next twenty minutes went: threats, accusations, pleadings, abuse and so forth. The best part was when she actually said it would be a matter of ‘her word vs. mine.’ Before I could even point out that it would a matter of what the SS and Medicaid records said, three other women piped up with “and my word.” Yay for the worms!
So then she was left with flipflopping rapidly between claims of “I was just making it up” and begging “If you report that I’ll go to jail!”
Guess what? I DON’T CARE. You are a loathesome and stupid person who not only committed crimes but boasted about them to people who aren’t criminals and who don’t like you. She made so much noise a security guard showed up, and ended up escorting her to Personnel, and she wasn’t at her desk for the rest of the day.