THERAPY...

So something happened this morning that reminded me of an event that happened in our office a few years back. Even though the event is not recent it is still worthy of telling as it will give readers a very clear insight as to the insanity of this office. Oh, yeah, and that THE BOSS never, never learns from their mistakes.

A few years back we had another co-worker here, we will call her Manhater, for lack of a better name. Now this woman is very difficult to describe and I honestly won't waste too much time on her as she is no longer with the company. Suffice it to say she HATED men. Yes, tragically she was abused in many ways throughout many relationships, but she never learned to move on and blamed EVERYONE around her for the problems in her life. EVERYONE. Even people she didn't know. I became a "victim" of this blame.

Not long after we became co-workers she began making little comments about me. Nothing that I gave a CRAP about mind you, but after about 20/day they did begin to get a little annoying. Stupid stuff like I could do nothing wrong because our boss loves me so it didn't matter what I did all day (at this time I actually CARED about my job and did do SOME work), that I was too boisterous to be real, that too many people thought I was cute and that would bite me in the ass. Really just stupid comments that no one who was sane would give a crap about. Then more and more creepy stuff started to happen. She made strange comments about things I would do after work and the such. Things NO ONE in the office would know. This started my weirdness radar going off. By this point she was always yelling at me, telling me I reminded her of a man, telling me I was too loud for my own good, etc. Now for those of you who know me, yes I AM boisterous, and outgoing, and even quite loud sometimes, but I HONESTLY have NEVER been told that I reminded someone of a MAN!!! This (because she hates men so much) along with the creepy feeling I was getting from her prompted me to turn in my notice to quit.

When I gave my boss my notice, he begged of me to stay. I told him I could not take the tension anymore and I really felt it was best to move on. So, he then asked me to give it another try and he would bring in a psychologist to try to work out the group dynamic. Yes, you read that right...A PSYCHOLOGIST!!

In any event, I agree, because honestly WHAT could BE more entertaining?!?!?! So he calls a psychologist and hires her to come into the office. She begins by meeting with the staff one by one. This part was actually a bit fun and got me out of about an hour of work. Then the REAL fun began! She called us all into the conference room as a group! We each had to go around the table and tell her what we liked about our group and disliked. Manhater got to go first. Uh oh....She spoke, yelled and cried for over an hour ALL ABOUT ME!!! It had NOTHING to do with anything I had done to her personally and NOTHING to do with my job performance. She was upset that I was able to live in a nice house, have friends around me all the time, go to school, have a boyfriend (even though I was getting a divorce) and STILL be relatively pretty. She said she felt that God was unfair to her by putting her in close contact with someone like me. She said I was too self confident and outspoken to be a woman and that I was actually more of a MAN in her eyes and she was AFRAID to work with me!! I seriously started busting out laughing by this point. Of course that didn't help. She continued on her tirade, but the entire time I started getting the uneasy feeling that she had been following me after work. She was ranting about the GYM I go to, the RESTAURANT I had eaten at a few nights back, where my KIDS were at the time I was out at the gym and so on. This is when I saw the therapists eyes widen a bit. The therapist then addressed me briefly and asked why I felt it was necessary to inform the office of my private life. I, in complete disbelief, didn't know what to say. If I recall correctly I stuttered "ummmm...I don't". The therapist then confirmed this with the rest of my co-workers who were sitting with dumbstruck looks on their faces.

Finally the therapist turns to Manhater and asks her exactly what she felt needed to happen in order for us to be able to work together. I will never forget her exact words. She said "Nothing. If I can't be like her, then she should not be allowed to be her."

The therapist then made some notes and moved on around our co-workers. All of us had basically nothing to say by this point.

After the meeting, the therapist met with THE BOSS. He then comes out and the therapist says good-bye. THE BOSS then calls me into his office to talk to me. I'm thinking THANK GOD!! He's going to let me quit in PEACE now. Instead he tells me that the therapist has informed him that she truly believes Manhater was a textbook stalker and that she would most likely escalate to violence if we continued working together. He then told me that he was going to fire Manhater and it would be best done if no one was in the office at the time. He then hired a private security guard to accompany him to the office the next morning and no one else was here. He fired her and she took her stuff and went on her merry little way.

This was several years ago and we all still laugh about it and tell others. NO ONE can believe that our office actually needed a THERAPIST to be brought in or that THE BOSS actually did it.

Now, the point of this long background post is this, apparently THE BOSS never learns. We now have a co-worker who is escalating her anger to the point that NONE of us want to be around her. She YELLS at THE BOSS, yells at the worker sitting across from her, yells at clients, yells at the ceiling (seriously) and threatens to quit on an HOURLY basis. It used to be daily, but now it is HOURLY.

We all just wonder how long it will go on before ANOTHER therapist is called in!!