OK, I'm now back at my old department, the one with all the rules, many of which I still don't get. And I know I'm making mistakes. But it hurts, it really does hurt, when one of the women with whom I am on this line with (not The Bitch, and again, she was acting, uh, OK yesterday and Tuesday) snapped at me for putting in the wrong date. I've made that mistake before. She has snapped at me before. But for some reason, when she snapped at me the second time yesterday/Wednesday, I felt blindsided.
And the worst part about it? I didn't make a mistake! Well, it was a mistake. OK, I'll try and back up ... when dates on these forms are wrong, we don't correct them: Instead, we have to note the incorrect date so it'll be sent back to be fixed. What I have to do is, and I'm so glad it rhymes, "key what I see." I forgot to do that today, and the first time this co-worker kind of blew up on me. But the second time? I couldn't help it. There are a myriad of rules on how old a date can be before the software system just won't let you key that, in which case we, uh, have a backup plan, but the date varies depending on the form on which the incorrect date is entered. It's complicated as hell, and that's why this still confuses me.
Well, I could not key this particular date because it was from, like, five years ago. Minutes after I get through the file in which this form was a part of -- one whose date I was not allowed to enter -- this co-worker slams, and I mean slams, that form inbetween us and says, "You've got to key the date you ..." and then she stops. Then she realizes that that date on that form is so old that maybe I couldn't enter it and I had to use another one.
My visceral, internal reaction to what she did still haunts me. I cower in fear whenever someone snaps like that. It's all from childhood. It's all when my parents, or even Grandmother, got mad at me out of the blue. I just wanted to run away in fear. Failing that -- and as an adult there's nowhere literally to run -- I try to reason with them, in a calm voice, and act as if I'm the bigger person in the room. Rarely works, but still, it's my default defense mechanism. Thank Buddha, then, that she was able to stop herself and think. And that's where I interjected, with a voice that wasn't screaming (at least I don't think so) but firm enough to convince myself I was being confident: "You know, I tried it. I tried keying what I see. It just wouldn't let me." And she calmed herself down -- talked about her asking management to change "it," whatever "it" is, but, like other things, apparently, they have not.
(sigh) What bothers me most is that she has helped me. A lot. Hell, she helped me yesterday, too. But it was the blow-up, that about-face from calmness to an eruption of terror, that I can't shake. It felt like a betrayal. Maybe my continuing mistakes was a breaking point for her. So now I can't ever see her the same way again, and I think I have to walk on eggshells when I'm around her from now on.
But hey, I have to look on the bright side: I don't think I'll be making that mistake ever again.
No comments:
Post a Comment