And This Is Why I Hate Calling People At Work

Overall, my interactions with people when I need to get on the phone at work have been good and professional.  I get what I want, and I usually don't get any shit.  But then bullshit like what happened yesterday/Tuesday happens, and I'm like, "Ugh."

It was late in the day.  After spending the first half of my day catching up on all the crap I had to leave from work Monday, I finally got through the new work when I saw an e-mail that had been sitting there for a few hours.  A supervisor in the lab wanted me to call a collection site because they received a bag of ... well, I shouldn't say too much, I'll just say that in that bag there were unusual but non-illicit things that the sender might or might not want to be tested.  It wasn't the ten-hour slog that Monday was, but seeing that e-mail was one final frustration I didn't want to deal with as I was winding down my day, but I did have some time and it had been sitting around, so I called.

This was near the end of the workday.  That is the only logical reason I can think of for how the person who picked up reacted to this situation and how I described it.  I laid out what's going on ... well, actually I just retold what was on the e-mail to me.  Anyway, she interrupted me and said, "Stop!  Stop!  Stop!"  The hell?  Don't tell me to stop, woman.  I swear I wasn't yelling at her.  I didn't even raise my voice to her.  But apparently it was the end of the day, and she had to pick up her kids or buy her daily crack from her dealer or something, because she was rudely overwhelmed with me telling her we got a box of crap from her company.  My fucking God, it isn't a big deal, and yet she was screaming at me like it was the end of the world.  Or the end of hers, I don't know.

Anyway, she needed some time away from me and from work and this situation, so she asked if I could call her tomorrow, which of course I could, go get in that meditation session.  In the meantime she demanded pictures of the stuff that came in.  I e-mailed the lab to see if I could get those sent to me before I called her, for which I (smartly or stupidly) arranged to set a time to call back.  Talking to her for as little as possible seems to be the wise way to go, lest she go off on me even after getting a full night's sleep.  Man, all I fucking needed to know from her was what she wants us to do with a fucking bag.  She needs to calm the fuck down, shit. ...