the new hire

The thought of sitting down next to her every day at work is kind of appalling I mean, she’s attractive and all, she doesn’t smell bad, but when the first conversation you have with her involves “looking at that stupid Puerto Rican and black girlfriend all day long” you know it’s not going to end well.

Or begin.

It’s a shame when you’re introduced to someone and you seem to hit it off. Then just a few minutes later, you completely can’t stand said person. But, it’s done. The damage has been done. No turning back.

She bats her eyes and gets what she wants too. I can see where it’s heading. The boss, he’s a bit of a moron. He also is a sexist in an old school kind of way, but with the new school twists. He loves putting almost naked women as his desktop background. He makes crude jokes. He openly spews bile about all the female bosses ahead of him in the chain.

And yet, the new edition bats her eyes and just says “I’m not listening.”

She’s got a plan. And it ain’t going to end well.

Today, she told me I was not a team player. All because she asked this question “Is saying someone is a excellent professional redundant? I mean, doesn’t saying you’re a pro imply you are excellent at what you do?“ And she didn’t like my answer. Which happened to be, “Well, look around here. There are a lot of professionals who aren’t excellent.”

“Do you like anyone’s work?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do.”

“So why aren’t you more of a team player? Boost up people instead of breaking them down?”

“All I did was answer your question. Let me make it easy for you. Just because you are paid to do something, a professional, doesn’t mean you are super, good, great or awesome at it.”

She got up and huffed off.

The boss saw her doing so, jumped up and looked at me with a horrified look on his face. “What’s wrong with her? What did you do?”

I explained. He laughed. But not his normal laugh. Hell, she’s probably already got one in on him.

Oh well. I know I’m negative in the office. It’s impossible not to be when one is surrounded by apathy and awful. But a non-journalist hired for her eyelashes and skinny butt who admits to “not knowing much about journalism…tee-hee,” trying to put on a happy face isn’t going to get on my good side.

I forget about it until a few hours later, when the head copy editor starts to bitch about a photo being shitty. I laugh, add my two cents and instantly “Don’t you like anyone?”

“Yeah, I do. But none of them are here right now,” I think to myself.

“Of course. I like professionals. Excellent ones.”

The other co-worker who I’d say is part of the Terrible Trio of Negativity, the one’s who pet the al-Qaida cat, is also pissed. She gets Fridays and Saturdays off. He wants them off and has worked there almost three years. She comes in, first day, gets those days off.

Then, she asked for four days off in a row. “Can’t I just take time off without getting paid?”

“Yes, technically you can,” the boss says.

She smiles.

He frowns.

I turn to her, “You know, when you do that, however, you’re just making it so someone else has to do your work on top of theirs when you do that?”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought about it that way!” she says.

She got the days off.

My buddy. Not happy.

Funny thing is, after typing this, I’m done. Her? Hopefully too. But I doubt it. Having the retention abilities of a house dog has advantages and disadvantages. This here, is one of the advantageous times. When your girlfriend tells you something important and you forget it 10 minutes later, that’s a disadvantageous time.

But damn it if I can’t remember song lyrics!

Good night.

***

I remember the movie “Salem’s Lot” being a lot more scary when I was a kid. That first time you see the vampire’s face, yeah, it’s still chilling and got my heart racing. But the rest of it? Grade-A turd. And the whole house thing? Man, Mr. King, you really grab a hold of a subject and flog it until post mortem. Guess maybe I may just have some kind of a future in this here writing racket. Yeah…

Or not.

***

The gal at the Food Lion sparked up another conversation with me. She has nice eyes. They’re light blue and big. Very emotive and kind of sad. The rest of her doesn’t come close.

Me saying that makes me mad, sad and glad. Mad for being so damn shallow. Sad that I know it’s true, however. And glad that I’m honest enough with myself to not allow other things to cloud my intentions and motives and such.