I’m not sure how to write this particular post. It has elements of the social blog, so I guess I’ll just add an excerpt when needed. The shipping depot job is never short on drama, and on Friday I got to experience it firsthand.
On Tuesdays and Fridays there is a woman I’m forced to work with, Annabel. She’s a fifty-something Puerto Rican from the Bronx. From the minute she first opened her mouth I knew she was a drama queen. She’d talk about people behind their backs and it got on my nerves because I always seem to get stuck with those kinds of people, and they all just “happen” to be women. Anyway, at the shipping depot I keep to myself. I come in, keep to myself, do my job, be respectful to everyone (even the assholes), then go home when the time comes. It would seem that it would be impossible to talk shit about someone like that, right? Well, never underestimate the dormant mind of an idiot.
Excerpt from the Social Blog: “Last Friday I got the feeling that Annabel was talking shit about me when I wasn’t working there. So I downloaded an app on my phone called “Tape-a-Talk”, which records anything that goes on but makes the phone look as if it’s off. I started recording and went to the bathroom. When my shift was over I went to my car and started listening. The second I left, Annabel started complaining that I always go to the bathroom at the same time and that during down time I’m always playing with my phone. At first I laughed at how stupid her complaint was, but then I started to get mad. I began to obsess over the recording and it almost ruined my entire weekend. I started thinking, “Can’t a man come to work, do his job, and mind his business without some asshole bothering him?!” It gave me that headache I get went I feel attacked or angry and I couldn’t shake it. But why?
I didn’t want to do anything violent like I wanted to do with the Occupy Bum, but I really wanted to go off on Annabel. I solved that violence issue already, but I still have that problem of getting mad over something stupid that a stranger says to/about me. Any negative response I give to this situation would be ABSOLUTELY unacceptable, as it would mean that I am at Anabel’s level. I’m supposed to be above this and, as I get better in business, there will be many more people that will talk shit about me. Am I going to be bothered like this every time it happens?! That’s ridiculous!” –End Excerpt
I’m currently conducting two social experiments in the Social Blog that won’t be completed until the end of next week. Once I’m done with those I’ll get to work on this issue, and I have a theory of how to solve this problem. When I was a kid I wanted to see Hellraiser III very bad, but my mom would always tell me no. I begged her constantly until she finally caved and we all went to see it at the Kings Plaza movie theater in Brooklyn. Within 15 minutes I was crying like a baby because it was too scary. I wanted to leave, but my mom said no and that I had to watch it since she already paid for it. When it came on VHS, I went to a friend’s house and watched it. It scared the shit out of me, but not as much. Then I watched it again and again until it didn’t scare me at all, and afterwards I was able to watch almost any movie without being nervous or scared. (Later I realized that it was more because of the sociopath thing that I was able to do this, but it gets too complicated to explain it that way.)
I plan to apply this “Hellraiser Theory” to the situation at the shipping depot. I plan to record everything Annabel says when I leave the room and listen to it over and over again: in the car, at home, at the bank job… everywhere. If I can desensitize myself to not care what she says about me, I can then apply that same feeling to everyone else. If this theory proves true and I finally solve this problem, it would be a HUGE relief for me. I no longer have to pretend that the dumb things people say don’t bother me, but rather be completely above it as if it never happened. Annabel has unknowingly given me a window of opportunity to solve a nagging problem that I think I’ve had since I was a kid. If the Hellraiser theory proves false I have other experiments I can conduct, but it’s good to know that I can take yet another negative situation and turn it into an advantage.
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