Monday Mulling

Happy Monday, y’all. Before I get into today’s rant, guess what? I’ve just finished a cover for my latest short story, which will shortly be published on Amazon’s Kindle store. Before I do, however, I want some opinions about the cover. Check them out at my author site and let me know what you think by voting in the poll. You can find it here.

So. Now let’s talk, shall we?

We got a guy at work. Let’s call him J.

J. is one of those guys who’s always trying to be the nice guy. Well, usually trying to be the nice guy. He doesn’t always succeed. J. moved to a cube just outside my office a few weeks before they took my office away from me, and the day he moved, he accused us (some unknown person in our business group) of “stealing” one of his monitors.

But most of the time, he wants to be a nice guy. And he does all right at it. He’s a little weird, but weird in a good way. He chooses the smallest bathroom in the building, for instance, in which to brush his teeth and wash his lunch vessels. There’s a far larger one not far from him, but no; this is the one-staller and the one he’s going to use irrespective of inconveniencing those who need to, you know…use the restroom as a restroom.

Which brings me to what bothers me most about J. He’s a bathroom talker.

He calls out from the stall, with the door closed, to whomever might be the person unlucky enough to require the facilities at the moment. He has no problem chatting away while he, or the other person, are urinating. And he waits for the other person to finish, steps aside so they can wash their hands, and then follows them out of this very small, very public restroom, so he can finish his “thought”.

J. is someone I need to pray for, because I can’t stand him. He bothers me. I do not, repeat, do not, want to have a conversation with him, nor anyone else, in the restroom. I’m there for one, and only one, reason. Okay, maybe two. But neither of those are conversation and socializing.

Seriously, what is broken in someone like J. that the boundary system simply isn’t there? The idea of courtesy? How about the ability to look at someone’s clear and distinct “Leave Me Alone” body language and not see it?

I need to pray for J., not because he needs it, but because I do.

Anyone get to you like that? Anyone out there in the world just set off your hackles, without even trying? or knowing they do? How do you handle it?

Hope y’all had a good weekend.

-jdt-

The Grind of Hypocrisy

Well, Hell Week continues.

One of the things about this event at work is, the food. I’ve gained back every ounce I lost since December and then some, I’m sure. But next week I will diet and exercise my literal a$$ off.

So far, I’ve had one of the team members drag my boss aside and ask if I was ticked off because I was short and brusque with him. He neglected to say he’d been a jerk and tense with everyone the day before. He also touched me and I wanted to be clear in body language and facial expression he should not do it again. It worked. But my boss did ask me – without reprimanding in any way – to make an effort not to be a jacka$$. So I told him I would and I did.

I would normally be surprised this dick had the temerity to try and accuse me of being nasty when he was, but these people are jerks and I don’t know how to like them when I simply…don’t.