The Test Blog for Blogger and Gadgets: KEEPING IT REAL BY FRIZZY LIZZY

Hi dear friends and followers, today we visit Frizzy Lizzy. Take five and have a read.

KEEPING IT REAL BY FRIZZY LIZZY

Like I told you, I had the great pleasure of working with some really nice people most of the time. I had some managers and supervisors who were excellent at what they did and they challenged me to grow in my assignments and treated me like an asset and not a jackass. Except for one man. This guy really stands out.

I recall interviewing with him for my job. I missed interviewing for his by about a month as the organization had two vacancies open. OK, I didn't really mind that at all. I liked the place that I was applying to work at and landing the job was all that I wanted to do.

Right up-front I told this guy that I was as good as he heard that I was. I knew that he had asked around about me and I took full advantage of that. So during the interview I dazzled him with my technical knowledge and abilities and he was sold.

Then I took the lead in the conversation by asking the questions. He was a bit uneasy, but I already had a job so I felt comfortable in playing games with him.

Finally I made it very clear to him that he could trust me because I did not want his job until he was finished with it and gone from the organization. I told that to him more than once because I meant exactly that, and he understood me clearly.

So I get called by his superiors to interview and I get the job. I do my best to not only perform my duties in the procurement and contracts field, but I also keep my eyes and ears open for any news in the world of internal politics. Every organization has them, unfortunately. I kept what I learned to myself and I told my manager because I thought that if I watched his back, he would watch mine.

That was not necessarily the case with this bird.

When there was a conflict between any of the groups that I served and me, he usually took their side. I found this irritating but it didn't really get to me. It just showed me what a gutless chicken-shit he really was.

So I smiled and did my job well until we had a certain staff meeting. We were making our progress reports and discussing our workload, mainly for him to know what was happening and for us to share knowledge among ourselves.

After I finished my report he decided to engage in some particularly acidulous criticism of how I was proceeding and at what rate the work was getting done. I did not like what he was saying and immediately told him so, and refuted his erroneous notions.

The meeting went on and concluded in its usual way and we all went back to our offices.

I was in mine, with the door closed, when he came in. He asked me if I had a few minutes. I always had time for him because of his position in the work group. He told me that we should adjourn to his office to discuss what had happened between him and I during the staff meeting. He then opened the door and waited for me to exit the room with him.

Now I don't know what got into me. Maybe it was because I was taller and larger than him; or maybe it was because I had had enough of his bullshit; or maybe I was just feeling particularly strong that day, but as we approached the common area into which all of the other offices opened, the area in which the office support workers sat, I yelled at him, "I will NOT go to your office to discuss this with you!" I was walking towards him as I was yelling and he was backing-up from me, seemingly in fear of a thrashing! Again, I yelled, "You did what you did in public and we need to settle it in public!" By this time his ass was against the place glass window!

I just turned and walked back to my office knowing that whatever came of it was nothing but bullshit.

From that point on, things between us just went downhill. We did not get along at all. He did his best to make my life miserable but I hung-in and refused to leave.

One day he was in the company of the woman who occupied the office next door to mine. She had missed a project status meeting and the project manager had come to the manager to raise hell about it. I knew that she was in her office, sleeping, but that not being any of my business, I said nothing. Lord knows I wish I had taken a nap more than once!

He flew into her office, slammed the door, and began to pound her desk and went off in a great rage at her. I could hear him through the wall. She was crying.

What did I do? I called building security and they came and forcibly removed him from her office.

He received a written reprimand from upper management and written direction to take classes in sensitivity and anger management.

As for the woman in the next office, she thanked me. We never became great friends. I was in the right place at the right time. And I'm sure that those reprimands did not do that manager much good in his performance review.

That was bittersweet fun, Teresa. Glad I got him in the end. I retired soon after.