It's my pretty paper now, bitch.

This week I'm still getting settled into my new cubicle, and into a much more peaceful work environment. My recently returned coworker has been refreshingly direct with anyone previously hoodwinked by the Crazy Bitch, explaining that the Crazy Bitch had to go, as she was a cancer in the office. She also makes a point to clarify I'm doing just fine and that she has no problem with me, professionally or personally.

Friday morning I got my second hang-up call, almost certainly from the Crazy Bitch. I'm told when she finally got in touch with my coworker Thursday night, she ranted for quite a while and even made some threats against our boss.

"...and that bitch Katy was at my desk within fifteen minutes after I left!"

My co-worker's reply will ring in my memory for a long time to come:

"It's Katy's desk now."

We received emails warning about "a disgruntled former employee" calling people within the firm trying to obtain proprietary information, and some passwords were changed. I looked over my shoulder a bit last week, but this week memories of the legendary bitchiness are already starting to fade.

Crazy Bitch left behind a few personal effects, including some cutesy polka-dot paper, some fancy paisley paperclips and a box of plain envelopes. I haven't decided what to do with these items...I hear she complained about wanting them back, but she certainly won't be allowed to set foot in the building to retrieve them. I'll probably just throw them away--I don't want any of her crap--but I amused myself today thinking how mad she'd be if she ever saw me using them.

Yeah, I'm vindictive. I'm going to shake off the nastiness leave it behind soon, I promise. But at the moment I'm still riding the high from last week's victory.

Prozac Girl wins!

When I got to work this rainy, gloomy morning, the Crazy Bitch was sitting at her desk--totally silent for once--with a box of her things beside her. As I walked by, she called my name and asked if I knew what was going on and then informed me HR was on the way over to talk with her.

I told her I knew nothing, and then I went to my desk to wait for the drama to unfold. But things remained eerily quiet. I don't know how they did it, but somehow they got her out of there without any kind of disruption in our work area, and shortly thereafter I moved into her cubicle.

(Any suggestions on how to banish cubicle-demons?)

I later learned that more than one of my coworkers had gotten fed up and complained about her. Also, one of them confirmed my suspicions that the Crazy Bitch has been bad-mouthing me all this time, telling people I'm terrible at my job and implying that all I do is make more work for her. I think she's been telling my boss the same thing, but fortunately that's all cleared up now.

I hereby officially retract anything bad I said about my boss, my coworkers and the general "they." I'm starting to see just how much turmoil and confusion the Crazy Bitch was causing, and I think it was doing even more damage than I realized. Our boss was frustrated and certainly had her hands full trying to keep the Crazy Bitch in line and make sense of the lies she was telling. And I think somehow the Bitch had the rest of us thinking maybe each of us was alone in despising her, which affected our relationships with each other--not to mention with our boss.

Anyway, my boss apologized for letting this go on so long and said she's amazed I've done as well as I have. Also, as soon as I've put in the hours required by the temp agency, she's going to hire me permanently.

Hello, health benefits!!!

I feel like I've woken up in the twighlight zone, or maybe that's where I've been all along and now I'm back.

I started this work week back in the file room, where I wrangled thousands of dusty files and tried to fight back the feeling that somehow I'd lost a major battle. I almost quit that day; I actually tried to call my person at the temp agency, but she was out for the day.

Compounding my frustration was the fact that the Crazy Bitch was in a worse mood than ever and was was not speaking to me---or maybe I wasn't speaking to her. Either way, the battle line was drawn. Her nasty, furtive glares didn't bother me nearly as much as the loud, pointed comments to others about how terrible things were while our coworker was on maternity leave. I just kept my head down, and in some ways the file room felt like a safe haven. But I missed my job.

Yesterday I emerged from the file room to help with document processing, which was even worse than filing but allowed me to work at my (new and very crappy) desk. That's what I was doing when one of my coworkers got fed up with the Crazy Bitch and called her on how hateful she was. It was an awesome moment, but I didn't realize at the time it was also a major turning point.

Since then, my boss has suddenly learned how awful this girl is to everyone else and has begun telling me how glad she is that I stuck around as long as I did. "We're not like that," she declared to me passionately, adding that we work together as a team, and that kind of bullying is not going to be tolerated.

I was a little surprised to learn she wasn't aware of the above-mentioned bullying before---I guess I thought any number of other people had cause to bring this to her attention long before I did. But she said she thought it was just a problem between her and the Crazy Bitch and talked about how she'd found herself becoming the kind of boss she doesn't want to be. I think I can understand where she's coming from, because people as manipulative and hateful as the Crazy Bitch can usually convince everyone else they're the crazy ones.

I certainly know the type!

Anyway, long story short: I'm staying on with the firm after this week. I think my boss totally loves me, and she's assured me things will be much better going forward. What this means specifically I can't quite say, but I think the writing is on the wall.

(I wonder if I can work in one more cliche before I finish this post...)

Crazy Bitch called out sick today, and I got to do my old work again. It was nice and peaceful, but I felt like a dog that's been kicked around so long it doesn't know how to do anything but flinch.

Is this what it feels like to be vindicated? I feel more disoriented than relieved or triumphant, but we'll see what the rest of the week brings and how I feel when it's over.

"I've got enough f-bombs for all y'all."

That's what I declared in the car today when my acute minor road rage started to flare up, and then I laughed.

But in all seriousness, I may need to take that mentality to work with me tomorrow.

One more week left on the temp job. The girl I'm filling in for comes back tomorrow, so I'll be doing different work. I don't know what it'll be, and in fact when I get in tomorrow I won't even have a desk or a computer. It should be a fun time.

I was settling in for a lazy nap this afternoon, thinking about how nice it feels to be at home and not busy--and wondering if I'll get to do more napping after this temp job ends--when my phone rang. It was the girl from work that I've been filling in for. Apparently my worst enemy the Crazy Bitch had called to give her a heads up about something I mentioned (completely innocently) to the boss last week. I wasn't trying to get anyone in trouble, just explaining why I did something the way I did.

My boss's ears perked up over something I said, and apparently she thought she smelled a conspiracy. So I went to her office with the piece of paper I'd mentioned and explained it was just a note this girl had made for herself and I was using it at my own discretion. Well, the Crazy Bitch I work with (who only heard a small portion of that discussion) called this other girl to warn her about it, and this girl in turn called me to ask for an explanation. On a fucking Sunday afternoon.

So I explained I'd referenced the note but never claimed she'd told me to use it or tried to blame her for my mistake. She seemed satisfied with my explanation and was very reasonable, but that put a big dent in my relaxing evening. I was not expecting the work bullshit to creep up on me on a Sunday afternoon, and my guard was down.

So I wasn't ready when this girl said "So I hear things haven't been going too well with you and [Crazy Bitch]." I was so caught off guard that I didn't even realize at first who'd most likely told her that (Crazy Bitch herself, obviously), and I said a few candid things that'll probably now be repeated to the Crazy Bitch.

Great. That's just great. I thought I was re-entering the work force, and somehow I ended up in a nightmarish version of high school instead.

It's only one more week, and I know I should detach myself from the whole situation. But even at my wise old age, I'm still surprised and hurt when people talk about me behind my back--especially if they're demonizing me unfairly. If I'm being a demon, fine...I'll be a demon and then I'll apologize for it. But if I'm putting in a genuine effort to do excellent work and I'm treating people with basic respect, I can't stand having evil motives attributed to me.

So this is basically what I've been up to lately: having constant inner dialogues that go in spiraling circles, and trying not to become that which surrounds me. And taking lots of Advil.

I don't know what else to say about this; I'm still in the stage of being pissed off and sickened by how ridiculous these people are! I guess I should let it all settle and then maybe try to write something rational later about how I don't answer to these people and they don't sign my paycheck and it doesn't matter what they think of me because I'll be out of there in a week anyway.

But it does matter, whether I like it or not. It hurts my feelings.

God, I hope I was never that bad.

Next week will be my last week on the current temp job, and I have to admit I won't be entirely sorry when it's over. It'll certainly be the end of an era...or something.

Like most change, it's bittersweet.

On one hand, I really love this job. The legal stuff is interesting, and we're helping people. Granted, I'm not doing a lot myself...just passing on information that 90% of them are glad to receive. They are so grateful, and so gracious, and so kind. My reward is hearing the relief, gratitude and hope in a someone's voice when I say "I have someone who may be able to help you."

Plus, I get to talk to people from all over Oklahoma--both attorneys and civilians. I love the genuine friendliness that feels like home, and I'm delighted by the varying dialects. I love when an attorney takes time to tell me about his little corner of the world, how to pronounce the name of some little town I've never heard of, and what of note (if anything) goes on there. Truth be told, I'm enchanted.

But then there's the work environment...a loony fucking annoying co-worker and management that SUCKS like I didn't think possible. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but I have been repeatedly horrified by some of the things I've learned too late and have been doing wrong all along. And I'm not just talking about minor procedural details (although those are also a problem); I'm talking major things too.

Of course, the boss never takes any responsibility. She just blames my coworkers, who I have to admit have been pretty lousy about following rules and sharing information with me. To an extent she's right to blame them, but at the end of the day they're just a product of her lousy management.

I've been working there about two months, and if I were to add up all the time she's spent talking to me about my job (including the interview!) it probably wouldn't amount to 30 minutes. Which wouldn't be so bad if she had someone competent to train me and answer my questions. Alas, no. The majority of her communication with us consists of a couple of gruff sentences (commands, corrections, etc.) in the subject field of an email. Sometimes, if she's feeling especially generous, she'll include some passive-aggressive comments in the body of the email about how she knows she's told us this before and it better not happen again.

I don't care if it's directed at me or not...it's disheartening and frustrating. There's never any useful follow up or further explanation of how to do things correctly. The woman is straight up bat shit crazy.

Not everyone there is an ogre, of course. There are some super nice people outside my group that I'd love to know better, and I am sorry I'll miss out on working with them more. But I'm not sure putting up with the craziness would be worth it.

I'm ready for it to be over so I can move on.

A Weekend by the Lake

Some pics from a weekend at Grand Lake with Ryan and his mom. Ryan took all of these but the last one...