June 20, 2010
Rage-Induced Black-Outs: Part II
Thursday, I experienced a rage-induced black-out at the hand's of our unit account. Every department at work has a specific liaison to the accounting department, and ours is Barry. Barry, with his close-set eyes and food-mooching ways. He's basically a ferret.
I say this having only known one actual ferret in my life. Billi's ferret. The one she had when she got her own apartment. The one she thought it was fun to let out of its cage when company was over. The one that wouldn't let me sit down.
Oh, you heard me. I'd sit on the couch, and that little fucker would climb up inside it, up through the cushions, and bite me on the ass. Every! Time!
It didn't bite anyone else one the ass. Just me. It didn't even bit me on any other body part. Just the ass. Clearly, Billi's ferret had some kind of weird fetish. It was a fetish ferret. (What a great band name!)
But when I wasn't sitting down, the ferret was sweet as could be. So I guess it's unfair to Billi's ass-munching ferret to compare it to Barry. Barry is never sweet. If there are ten ways to say something politely, and one way to say it condescendingly, he will find the latter.
Although, I don't believe he's evil at heart. I believe he was raised by wolves and has absolutely zero concept of human social interaction. But I think he'd be surprised to discover that everyone who works with him thinks he is a complete jerk. Not that ignorance of civility is an excuse, but it does make me think twice about deliberately making someone cry.
Anyhoo, part of my job is to do PhD Boss' company expense report. This means matching up receipts to his monthly statement, filling out a form, and designating each charge to the correct budget line. Mind you, there is no published set of directions for this task. There's never been any class or training. And it all has to be done manually, i.e. with paper and pen.
It's ridiculous. So it's no wonder that I always seem to screw up on some minuscule detail. And oh, what pleasure Barry derives from pointing out my mistakes!
He starts by coming over to my desk, plopping down the finished report (with all attached receipts and forms, signed by PhD and Head Boss), and saying, "Well, this was a nice effort, Wenchie."
See what I mean? Ten perfectly civil ways to say that, and he chooses the douche-y one. He then proceeded to take five minutes to explain to me that there was a five dollar charge on PhD's Hyatt bill without a receipt, and that he added a tip to a dinner receipt that'd already had gratuity added to it.
Yes. PhD is in trouble for being generous. And Head Boss is in trouble for allowing it. And I'm in trouble for... oh, I don't know. Not caring?
Barry: So Head Boss needs to see these things and decide what he wants to do about them, since he signed off on the report.
PW: Okay, well, he's coming in at 7:30 tomorrow. You can stop by in--
B: No. Here's what you're going to do.
>:O
WHAT DID HE JUST SAY TO ME?!?!
I have no idea what came after that because I was too busy restraining myself from going all Jerry Springer on his ass. I literally have no idea what he thought I was "going to do."
You see, no one talks to me that way. My parents don't; they never did. Husband certainly doesn't. Even PhD Boss has never told me what I'm going go do.
I've worked my ass off for every tiny crumb of respect I've ever gotten in the business world. And THE HELL I'm going to let some pissant fucking ferret talk to me like I'm some idiot, piece-of-shit rookie!!!
When I came to, Barry was gone, and I'm not even sure how I got home that evening.
When I told Head Boss about it the next morning, he rolled his eyes and said, "Well, I don't want to talk to him. I've already had to report him to H.R. several times."
Awesome. But I'm not letting H.R. do my dirty work for me. Clearly, a mere reporting has no effect on the guy. No, the next time he talks down to me, he's going to get a face-full of Wenchie's scariest speechifying. I put the Brutal in Brutal Honesty. Ferret is a dead man walkin'.
Should've asked me nicely.
Comments
Wow - that guy is a jerk. If I give anyone a talking-to for being a dickwad - I'm hauled in to my bosses office and told I'm being 'inappropriate.'
Of COURSE I'm being inappropriate - does he not KNOW me? But justifiable inappropriateness is okay in my books.
Posted by: Hope at June 21, 2010 10:56 AM
Give him hell, Wenchie. He deserves it. If possible; video the look on his face. I smell something going viral.
-L.
Posted by: Lori at June 22, 2010 01:01 PM
My daughter has 3 ferrets, and one of them is an attacker. She goes right for ya. Before we knew this, my mom was cuddling it all happy faced, letting it crawl all over her... and it wanted to go down the neck of her shirt and she let it, all giggly. It went down the sleeve of her sweater and my mom was giggling up a storm and all of a sudden she SCREAMED "OH MY GOD IT BIT ME! OW!! OW!! Stop it! Get it out!" and she put her free hand on her forehead and started flailing her other ferret infested arm. It excited Clover and she kept biting. My daughter and I were laughing so hard we couldn't concentrate on getting Clover out of my mom's sleeve.
Posted by: Stacey at June 22, 2010 08:16 PM