30 Days of Thanks...Day 10

Day 10: I am thankful that tolerance ruled in a very uncomfortable situation.

At my second job, there is this co-worker that I have nicknamed “Dragon.”  I guess one can tell this isn’t a term of endearment.  I deem her this for many reasons. 

One, she doesn’t know how to talk to people, although she is in a position of leadership.  She usually uses finger pointing and eye contact.  When she does use her voice, she acts like she doesn’t know your name, so she just says “hey” or “you”.  The last time she and I worked together on the same shift was many months ago, and I called her out on it.  I told her I’d prefer she use my name and I didn’t appreciate her yelling and pointing at me.  I’m pretty proactive in the sense I don’t need someone on me to tell me what needs to be done.  If the cooler’s low, I stock it.  If we need more stuff to be stocked, I stocked it.  I don’t need to be yelled at.  But she continued to yell and not address me properly, so I behaved in a way that would be considered passive, which was not respond to her unless she addressed me properly and not yell, yet I still continued to do work.

Two, she doesn’t properly do her work but she expects others to follow protocol.  The fresh items are supposed to be dated, yet she doesn’t date them.  Expired product is supposed to be thrown out, yet she’s the main one that doesn’t throw it out.  In fact, she tells others to leave the stuff on there so that the shelf appears full (which makes no sense to me whatsoever…why would you prefer people get sick over expired product than to throw it out to make room for new product?). 

Three, when she gets called out on things she’s supposed to do, she tries to blame the other employees.  I can count on fingers and toes how much I get blamed for things, yet I’m the employee who is there the least. 

Four, when things are getting done, she takes a lot of the credit, even when other employees are the ones who saw it got done.  Also, when her shift is over with, she doesn’t finish what she starts, she just leaves, and she leaves things a big mess.

So this particular day, Dragon and I were scheduled together.  Things could have been a repeat of before, but instead, I did treat it as if she weren’t there—in the sense that I conducted the shift like I normally would.  I spoke to her when necessary, but that was about it.  I got through it.

However, the Dragon was still annoyed because I overheard her telling one of the managers she never wanted to work another Saturday ever again.  Plus, I guess it didn’t help that one of the promotions Dragon set up I knew about but she had no clue.  

How can the employee who’s there the least know the most?  

I didn’t go out of my way to make her look clueless; it was just one of the other managers asked me about it; I knew about it.  She asked Dragon if she knew about it, and she was like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  The manager was like, “How could you not know?  You set it up in the system and were supposed to let the other employees know.  That’s what a lead does.”

Enough said.