Let’s see. Britney is mad at Manny, and Manny is mad right back at her. Jack is fed up with Christina, and Christina pouts to everyone else about how mean Jack is being to her. Manny tells her he agrees with Jack and to cut it out with the whining, at which point she retreats to the powder room to cry. Britney also has a beef with Christina, but won’t take it to management because she claims they have an ethnic bias. Which is total crap, because management is as varied as a mini-UN, plus the store manager is the same ethnicity as Britney. Meanwhile, everyone curses Jessica because she’s always calling off (I’m just acting as if she’s already quit). Nate, from another department, occasionally pops over to give his opinion, as if anyone asked him, and then Christina tells Britney what Nate said just to see her reaction. And poor Lindsay, who often gets called over from yet another department, smiles nervously and says nothing.
So in short, I’m the only one, not counting Lindsay, who doesn’t have a grudge against anyone and whom no one has a grudge against. (At least, I think they don’t. If they do, no one’s told me, and I assume someone would have by now.)
I discovered a way to make this post a lot clearer:
“Let’s see. Britney is mad at Manny, and Manny is mad right back at her. Jack is fed up with Christina, and Christina pouts to everyone else about how mean Jack is being to her. Manny tells her he agrees with Jack and to cut it out with the whining, at which point she retreats to the powder room to cry. Britney also has a beef with Christina, but won’t take it to management because she claims they have an ethnic bias. Which is total crap, because management is as varied as a mini-UN, plus the store manager is the same ethnicity as Britney. Meanwhile, everyone curses Jessica because she’s always calling off (I’m just acting as if she’s already quit). Nate, from another department, occasionally pops over to give his opinion, as if anyone asked him, and then Christina tells Britney what Nate said just to see her reaction. And poor Lindsay, who often gets called over from yet another department, smiles nervously and says nothing.”
It’s so much better when you have a face to go with the name.
I never saw Ghost World; is that an insult, comparing me to that character?
Good call on the Pep Boys, though! Moe has long since moved to another department, and come to think of it, he might have been able to defuse this by now. And yes, all the names for my female co-workers are borrowed from pop tarts, even though Christina is actually in her forties. Nate is so called because he’s a gay wannabe actor, and reminds me quite a bit of Nathan Lane.
As for me, call me Miss Brahms, because I do often feel like the only sane one in a store full of nutcases.
Nope, not an insult. From Wikipedia: “The author describes the story as the examination of ‘the lives of two recent high school graduates from the advantaged perch of a constant and (mostly) undetectable eavesdropper, with the shaky detachment of a scientist who has grown fond of the prize microbes in his petri dish.’”
My husband has the same problems at his job. He works as a Deputy Warden in a prison, and says it’s the employees who are a pain in the ass-- the inmates are fine.
He often grumbles that he feels like he’s back in high school. Employee A is mad at Employee B because Employee C told B what A had said about her. Employee D won’t work with Employee B because she’s friends with Employee C and feels vicariously betrayed because B told A what C had said about her. Employee E intends to sabotage Employee D’s work because she’s friends with A, and has heard that C is now dating A’s ex-boyfriend.
It’s a constant tumult of playground politics-- backbiting, gossip, sabotage and other assorted nastiness including, but not limited to, vicious pranks and constant attempts to make others look bad in the eyes of the management.
We don’t answer our home phone any more because of the endless calls from employees tattling on one another. We’ve actually had employees stop over at our house at 11:30 PM, frantic to report what so-and-so said about so-and-so and wanting to get their side of the story to him first. (They seem to think Hubby will automatically believe whomever gets to him first.)
As Hubby puts it, a good 50% of his workday is devoted to “putting out fires,” and trying to get people to put aside their personal conflicts long enough to get their jobs done.
That sounds like it could be actually dangerous, if the inmates know that what should be a united front keeping order is actually a house of cards. Good on your husband for dealing with it, though.
Nah, not really dangerous. When the shit hits the fan, those petty squabbles melt away. They call it the “grey wall”-- a person may hate someone but if their man-down alarm goes off, they’re tearing down the halls to render assistance.
