Peevish...Not a Good Look in Everyday Ramblings

Walking home from class Wednesday I came upon this tree in bloom on the PSU campus. It was a bit windy and I was happy when the picture wasn’t a complete blur.

I was anxious about my meeting with Mr. On the Spectrum and Motorcycle man that I had a difficult morning.

Motorcycle Man has a bit of an anxiety disorder and right now it is full flower. He has contacts with certain customers and I asked one of our departments if we should reach out directly or if they wanted to contact them on something we were working on and I copied MM.

The individual at the department wrote back and said she was heading out on vacation and it would be lovely if we addressed it for her. Before I even got an instant message typed to MM he had replied to her and said he would take care of it.

I then retyped my instant message and said thank you for taking it but as I had initiated the contact I would have preferred to initiate the reply as well.

He did not respond but he did disappear for a time afterwards so I think he was in whining to Mr. On the Spectrum. Pissy is the way his behavior towards me has been lately.

About a half hour later I started to have chest pain.

There is something very wrong when a person has to make sure she has her nitroglycerin with her when she is leaving to meet with her boss and closet co-worker.

Mr. On the Spectrum was not in his office when we were scheduled to meet. I asked MM if he knew where he was and if we were still having the meeting. He said he didn’t know anything. He looked frazzled. He was furiously highlighting a report.

I wandered off and saw that Mr. On the Spectrum was meeting with his boss. So I was bad, I admit it; I came back and sat casually on the low file cabinet in “our” office just to annoy MM. Otherwise I would have had to sit out in the reception area which you know… is kinda weird.

A little while later Mr. On the Spectrum showed up and said we looked relaxed and that he was ready to meet with us.

So we proceed to have one of the most bizarre meetings of my work life. They were both talking like everything was totally fine and everything is great and we just have some process issues to discuss. MM was talking way way too loudly, which he does when he gets nervous. He had brought some numbers to share to impress that were gathered in an extraordinarily cumbersome way that was unnecessary and made me kind of sad. He was trying so hard, with his body pitched away from mine.

I started to calm down. Just at the end MM blurted out that he wanted “the” phone number (mine) taken off the invoices so that confirmed that this change was precipitated by his annoyance with me, not Mr. On the Spectrum.

So here we have a privileged man, who has no clue what he is doing, making decisions based on the fact that he annoyed.

Sound like anyone else we might call to mind, say at a national level?

The second episode of chest pain, (technically it is the third because I had one last year), was quite a wake up call. I would be so mad if I had a heart attack in reaction to these assholes and their behavior.

My guess is there is going to be some medical leave in my future.

After a restorative and cheerful class on Wednesday evening I shared a bit of all this with my students when they asked why I had had a bad day. And bless them, they kept making suggestions, have you tried this, you need to do that, could you do… I understand it was coming from a place of affection and concern but it was not what I needed.

I need to be heard. And I need practical assistance about next steps but advice and suggestions make me feel like I am doing something wrong here.

And I assure you, I am not the party that is causing the problem no matter how pissy or loud or peevish or let’s pretend this is not happening one is.

Last updated May 31, 2019