Passive-aggressive at its finest, I guess

In My Humble Opinion
1

I posted it here because I don’t consider it Pit-worthy.

I’m a Friends of the Library volunteer, and tomorrow, the lady who runs the bookstore we maintain is having a clearance sale - in short, BOGO for children’s and regularly priced adult things (in short, 2 for 25 or 50 cents) and all other items as marked. She, I, and another woman (#3) came in for a while this afternoon to set up, and I couldn’t believe what she was doing.

First of all, she said she would advertise in the paper. She didn’t. :mad: She didn’t do that last time either, and then wondered why nobody showed up. :smack: “But I put something on the website and put signs up here!” And how many people regularly go either place, and would remember if they saw something that isn’t prominently located?

In the middle of the setup, I hadn’t seen her for a while, and asked #3 where she was. #3 replied that she was checking nonfiction books for dates, and in the end, very few passed her inspection even though we had lots of room to display them. As I left, she was sorting, bagging, and individually pricing educational materials WITH CASSETTE TAPES. :rolleyes:

I kept my mouth shut and decided to leave when the mini-project I was working on was done. Her attitude is why I decided not to cashier tomorrow, and instead will only help with the cleanup, which will probably be significant because we had very few customers. :eek:

She’s always complaining that we don’t have any storage space, and then won’t put items out on display, or overprices them if she does. I don’t get it either.

Otherwise, she’s a lovely woman and I enjoy working with her. I’m sure there are things I do that annoy her just as much.

2

Ref the last sentence: Probably not.

IMO your protagonist is not passive aggressive. She’s simply ineffectual.

IMO ineffectual people are a blight on the planet. They are like the people who stand in the center of a grocery aisle on a Saturday morning oblivious to the traffic jam they’re creating. They’re totally unaware that they’re oblivious and their only product is frustration for everyone they touch.

Color me a heartless selfish shit if you will, but there is no charitable good that’s worth trying to wallow in the wake of deep-seated ineffectuality. Go volunteer someplace else. Ideally someplace where you can be in charge of at least your mostly-autonomous little subsection and operate it effectually.

The world will be better for your change and your blood pressure will be lower. That’s a win-win in my book.

3

I’m with LSLGuy on this one…

Like everyone else I’ve know those people who are almost always ineffectual or unreliable or just a pain in the ass to work with. Some are fixable…now you know she doesn’t get the idea of ads so next time don’t assume she’ll do it right next year…you take it upon yourself to do it if you want this project to work. Some people can be useful with a bit of work. Some people just aren’t worth the trouble. I try to avoid the later whenever possible.

Gahhhh

4

The thing to do with people like that, if feasible, is to give them an unimportant / harmless project which keeps them occupied and out of the way while others do the real work.

5

She’s fine when it comes to ordinary, day to day things. #3 is more the aggressive go-getter, but she isn’t in charge of the project we do; she’s in charge of one at another library branch, and she’s the type who gets things done, because she does them.

I thought of her a while back when I was at a farmer’s market, and one of the food truck vendors complained to another food truck vendor that he wasn’t getting as much business as he expected. He was quite young, probably in his early 20s, and he seemed to think that randomly parking the truck somewhere and then posting on Facebook where he was would conjure up crowds. The other vendors said it doesn’t work that way, and what he needed to do to increase business. I do have to say that whatever he sold smelled good, but I ended up purchasing something else.

She’s very good at what she does, EXCEPT FOR THIS. I will add that her husband is terminally ill, so she does have a lot on her plate, but she was this way before he got sick.

6

I thought it was the OP who was referring to him/herself as passive-aggressive. Keeping your mouth shut but just not showing up for cashiering? I understand there’s nothing you can do about this event, but will there be a debriefing later to understand what went right and wrong, for next time? How many Friends are there?

7

Maybe she doesn’t know better. Maybe she’s just forgetful. This is s volunteer, right, take over the advertising yourself. Just say ’ look you have alot on your plate, I will call the newspaper, community calendar, or radio station etc. for you.’ And see if that helps.

8

She said she told the person who handles those things, and THEY didn’t do it. I hope she’s telling the truth. She can’t do it directly and must run it through someone at the main office; that’s bureaucracy for you.

Anyway, I did help with the cleanup, and while we don’t have a dollar amount, based on what the room looked like today vs. what it looked like yesterday, we did much better than expected. I guess that’s one positive thing.

10

Welcome to the SDMB, Pleet Bai.

11

In my admittedly nasty opinion, there is often a very fine line between “oblivious” and “shit for brains.”

12

Huh. I didn’t know you could use oblivion to mean the same thing as obliviousness. I learned something new today.

I wonder if it’s like comfort versus comfortableness–which have slightly different meanings that greatly overlap. (I would not refer to the comfort of a chair I was selling, but the comfortableness.)

13

The sale brought in about $300. Not bad, for mostly 25 and 50 cent items.

And it beats the $80 we garnered last time. :rolleyes: