Lately I've been feeling like a grown up. I'm finally making good money, my clients like and respect me, I'm good at what I do and I know that I'm valued by my superiors. I have a grown up job and I guess in most ways I'm a "professional" (despite the fact that I work at a place where I can wear leggings as pants, my boss offers to pay for a team outing to see Reggie Watts and I can roll in late with no questions asked). There's no looking back for Kelsey.
Last week I was put in my place. Any notion of being an adult at work was stripped away from me; first by my own actions and then immediately after by my supervisor's shaming of me.
We have an office mom. Against her will, our office manager buys the coffee, keeps the kitchen clean and washes the dish rags; you know the deal. When I was hired a couple years ago, I became her number 2. Sure, I don't do the dishes nearly as often as her, but I am definitely the only other person who does. And I am the only person who cleans out the fridge. I try to do much more than my share because she shouldn't have to do it all and because I was raised in a family where we all helped out. I was raised with a kitchen conscience. Unlike all of my colleagues apparently.
So we had a staff lunch meeting and after the meeting ended, we all rushed back to our desks to catch up on our email. The kitchen is on the way so everyone took their dishes in and then what do you know? The dishwasher was clean so every single one of them dropped their dishes in the sink and walked away. I looked at that pile for a few seconds and thought "I'd love to go back to my desk too. In fact, I'm the busiest one of us today... but no, if I do that then Jill will walk in and she'll have to do these fucking dishes." So I did them. I was pissed and I slammed the dishes around just to prove it. But I did them. And as I did, I thought to myself "I'm going to say something bitchy when I walk back there because I'm sick of this." I've made jokes before about how "nobody else does dishes" and my coworkers always laugh uncomfortably or shy away, but nothing ever changes. So as I walk back to my desk, I'm planning my sarcastic statement. It's something along the lines of "thanks for leaving all your dishes for me to do." Sarcastic, simple, straightforward.
But I guess I was more pissed than I realized because my short and sweet jab ended up coming out like this: "Thanks for making me do your dishes again, ASSHOLES" followed by me throwing my notebook on my desk. I regretted it instantly. When it came out, it was supposed to be a typical, sarcastic Kelsey: "thanks assholes" like I'd say to my brother when he's irking me. But you don't talk to your coworkers the way you talk to your loved ones. I felt bad, but it was done and I let it go.
Thirty minutes later, my supervisor asks to see me. We go over some business and before I leave she says "we need to talk about the incident that just happened." To make this long story short, one of my coworkers told on me. Yep, she tattled. Instead of talking to me (even by email or chatting me, which would have been fine with me), she told our boss, making me look like a dick and an uncontrollable child. Ultimately, my supervisor was worried about me — why did I snap like that? Do I need to take a break? Am I too stressed out? It was hard for me to explain that I can just come off bitchy and that I really didn't mean anything by it.
But I was pissed when I said it. And also I did feel bad about calling them assholes. But they were. And they shouldn't get to treat everyone else like their mom. Maybe it wasn't very grown up of me to act that way but it is equally not grown up of them to expect others to take care of them. The least grown up part about this whole ordeal was that I was basically told I needed to apologize when my boss said "I'll let you decide if you need to apologize." Thanks mom. I felt like my sister told on me and I was being punished. "No TV unless you say you're sorry."
So ask me what was the result of me being totally childish and inappropriate at work?
Kitchen schedule.
We had an impromptu staff meeting (where I was essentially forced to apologize to said coworkers in front of everyone because I hadn't yet had the opportunity to say sorry in my own time) and it was decided that it was time for a kitchen clean up schedule. By god, it worked! Success!
Now ask me what I learned from this experience, other than that my coworker is a huge fucking baby?
Apparently it pays to act on your emotions.
I could just be passive aggressive like the rest of them 'til the end of my days, but I hate passive aggression. I believe in saying what you mean — though I typically choose to say it with more tact. So fuck office politics. Be a bitch. Say whatever you want when you want to and you will get results. You don't think those rich execs got rich by being nice right?
No but seriously, what I really learned is that no matter how well you were raised, there will always be people surrounding you who didn't grow up with the same values. There will always be someone who takes advantage of you. And there will always be people who prove to you that you are better than them. So thanks for showing me that, assholes.
