So here I sit at 4:02 a.m. drinking coffee and thinking I should probably still be asleep...but I'd be waking up in about an hour anyway,so instead of tossing and turning, here I sit.
What a day I had yesterday. I wasn't feeling 100%, but I went in to work and was determined to push through.
Over.whelmed. I think that's the word to use. I dove in right at 6:45 and I don't think I broke the surface until I walked out a little after 4. All the while feeling less and less on top of my game.
I like days like that - I'd rather be busy than sit there and have nothing to do. I came home and was begging for the comfort of my bed. It was like magic - I walked inside my place and found myself in a warm bathtub and could feel the tension from the day start to melt away.
Then I had some time to think.
I got into it with one of my guys yesterday. I've never had any kind of confrontation with any of them except with our head boss. We all have. But I've never had any reason to confront any of them. It was just a lack of communication and a lack of being 100% yesterday that pushed me against the wall and I wasn't going to sit back and take it.
Granted, we joke and cut up with each other and give each other a hard time. But there is a fine line between joking and not. And the line was crossed. It was ridiculous, and call me crazy, but if you are going to say something about me, say it to my face...not my back as you walk away.
I can still hear you. :)
I was making my way through about a million things - one of which was finishing up a summary for our monthly report. I asked 3 different times yesterday for the finishing numbers and stuff, and never got a concrete answer. I know with these guys you have to push and push and push until you get what you want. They call me their "den mother" and that's pretty much what I am. I gather them up and push them forward throughout the day and keep them in line most of the time. And I love what I do.
Anyway, I asked again for the 4th time for the status of the summary. Maybe it was poor timing on my part to request it again immediately after our amazing superintendent meeting...but I ran the safety numbers one more time with Evan, read over the rest of it, and wasn't sure if Billy had rewritten his part. Josh approached my desk and asked me if I had changed the amount regarding the project numbers, and I said, "Dude, I don't know - whatever's on here is what I pulled up, and it looks finished, but I don't know." I hadn't seen the hard copy floating around, so I wasn't able to check the numbers. I saw he had the paper in his hand, and was fixing to ask to see the paper, when he says, "Just *****n close it, I'll print it out." He walked away and muttered a few choice words, "It's not that *****n hard," more muttering, more choice words. Slipped the one word you should never really say to a woman in...uh.oh.
Ridiculous right? Now, generally, I won't get too miffed over such words. I know these guys appreciate me. I know they love me.
But wait a second. I don't stand for disrespect.
No sir. I was up to my eyeballs in crap, literally, and was doing the report for Josh, who normally puts the entire thing together. He was out at the end of last week moving, so I took it on, just like I did last month while he was out.
I was thisclose to popping out of my chair, "Josh, do you have something you need to say to me, cause I suggest you walk right back over here and say it to my face."
But I closed my eyes. Unprofesh, that's what it would have been. And there was no reason to get that angry.
He didn't mean it, right?
Yet somewhere inside, I was boiling. Really?! Here I was doing whatever I could to help, and all I kept thinking was because I didn't get the numbers in there fast enough for Josh, he was getting pissy with me. He'd been in such a funk for the last week, that I'd been walking around on eggshells around him anyway. And at that point, I'd had ENOUGH of his attitude. I know I wasn't on top yesterday either, and I am sure I was short, too, but no more than I've ever been when I need to get stuff done.
Most of the time, we joke about it if one of us is pissy pants. "Someone needs to step outside and come right back in with a different attitude..." - that's what we say, and we will chuckle it off and continue to give each other a hard time. But he was nonstop with the bad attitude, and everyone was noticing it.
Bad timing to say things about me.
He muttered more things as he huffed by to go out to the field, and I just sat there and stared at my computer screen for a few minutes. Evan walked by right after that, "Was he talking about you just then? What did you do?"
"Nothing, dude. And that's just it."
"What crawled up his ass? Seriously?"
Had Josh not walked out, I am sure it would have gotten heated really fast. And over NOTHING, right? Yet somehow I was still burning from him insinuating that I couldn't do something as "simple" as put the numbers in, and he had no reason to call me what he did.
Eating.me.up.
So I went and talked to my boss. Told him that I wasn't an angry person by nature at all, but in certain situations, I'll fight, and I didn't want to fight today. I heard fighting words, and I wasn't about to cause discord between the team, but I wasn't going to stand for the disrespect that I just received.
OK, so maybe I shouldn't have talked to my boss. Maybe I should have gone straight to Josh. But I know that if I would have, it wouldn't have been a pretty thing...he gets very New York when he gets pissed...and I didn't think I had it in me to stay collected. Randall has always told me to come to him if I have any issues with the guys cause he knows they can get downright rude to me. I'm a tough girl, though. I can take a lot. But I'd had enough.
Randall said he couldn't just wave a magic wand and make it all better, and I told him I didn't expect that at all. I told him I understood that it wasn't necessarily a personal attack against me, and that it was other issues coming out, but come on...it was absolutely uncalled for. I cannot stand being disrespected like that.
So after I vented with him, I felt a little better. The other guys left in the office asked if I was okay, and I smiled and nodded and told them no big deal, it would be fine.
I left shortly after that. My phone rang when I got home. Josh. I let it go to voicemail.
"It's Josh. Give me a call back, ok?"
Uh oh. He sounded PISSED.
I waited a few minutes before I called. It could get ugly.
"You wanna tell me what's goin on dude?" I could hear the tension in his voice and my feathers started getting ruffled.
"I don't want to talk to you if you are going to get pissy pants with me, Allison." I was trying to keep it light.
Expletives, pissy-ness, all kinds of crap ensued. Not so light anymore.
After about 10 minutes, we apologized to each other. He was sorry for saying what he said, and I told him I was sorry for going to Randall and not him. I told him I totally understood he was stressed about other things, and I wanted to believe with everything in me that he didn't mean what he said, but nonetheless...
It was totally stupid. Just a culmination of sorts. We admited our wrongs, apologized and moved on.
Ha, when I was talking to him, I was fighting back tears at one point. I love these guys. They are like my brothers. And I realized yesterday that they really have become like family. We spend the majority of our time together - and discord is bound to happen at some point. I can't believe it's taken over a year for our first little tiffle....
So I found myself fighting to stay strong - I'm so super sensitive. Josh goes, "Dude, I thought we'd broken the typical woman out of you...you shouldn't be taking it so personally." He was laughing when he said this, and I laughed too. They've never really seen me get hurt - not by them at least. I think he remembered in that moment that I'm not just one of the guys... He made sure to tell me over and over that he thought I was a badass and he has never once thought I couldn't do my job - "Gorbett, you know that I think you go above and beyond and you are awesome at what you do. I shouldn't have said that, dude."
Isn't it funny how sometimes a few words can tear a person down so fast? It's amazing, really.
AH, great song is on right now. "Angels on the Moon" by Thriving Ivory.
Per.fect.
Evan called me shortly after Josh and I got off the phone to talk about it, make sure I was okay. I'm pretty lucky. I do work with some great guys.
SO.....I'm sitting here with freakin chills. I slept on and off all night last night. This is NOT the week to be under the weather. Me and Airborne have been BFF - I will kick this cold in the tush.
Man, my heart ached last night...after I took a 2 hour nap, I went and took another bath cause I was so cold, and my best friend from home called me. I haven't heard her voice in so long - and something inside of me broke down and I let the tears fall when I heard her. Happy tears though. I ached to be sitting by her side. She knows me inside and out.....and I miss her face.
Ha, I sound so emotional. LOL. I love to bleed it out this way though. :)
Off to tackle the day....
