Have you ever had to work with somebody who is so incredibly stubborn that they need to have things done their way, regardless of whether or not their way actually makes any sense? They have such a need to control the situation that they’d rather go scuba diving with an empty tank than have somebody hand them one filled with oxygen, just because they picked up the empty one first and refuse to admit their mistake?
There’s this woman I work with. For the sake of anonymity, let’s call her Broomhilda Witchy Ass Pants.
BWAP for short. (That’s the sound I hear in my head everytime I visualize myself whacking her repeatedly with a baseball bat.)
BWAP has been a thorn in my side since the day I started working here. She and I are both very strong personalities. And by strong personalities I mean we both pout and throw temper tantrums when we don’t get our way. I imagine if we were in elementary school together one of us would have probably killed the other on the playground. Now, I know this is one of my biggest faults. I get something into my head and I sometimes have a very difficult time admitting that I’m wrong. In my defense, however, I would like to say that I realize this is an issue and I’ve been working on it for the past couple of months. Instead of putting my hands over my ears and tuning the other person out by shrieking “LA BAMBA” at the top of my lungs, I try to listen to the opposite opinion. I then filter everything through my head and make a decision based on all of the facts. To my credit, I find I’m still right about 99% of the time.
Okay, so I haven’t quite “graduated” yet, but I AM working on it.
But Broomhilda Witchy Ass Pants is in a class all her own. She and I are the most senior managers under our boss, who is the director of the department. My boss is about 5 years away from retirement, so obviously that means BWAP and I are fighting for positioning to be her successor. Like two 10 year olds fighting over a Joe Jonas doll.
BWAP constantly has to challenge the way I do things. And I’m starting to think the whole situation is getting a bit ridiculous. Take our conversation from the other day.
BWAP: How do you think we should handle the data entry?
ME: Well, why don’t we have the clericals consolidate all of the information into a spreadsheet by Country, and then we can divide up the Countries to even out the workload.
BWAP: Really? Why would you do it that way?
ME: Because we need to get the information in quickly and it will be easier to deal with that way.
BWAP: Well, I had a another idea. Not necessarily better, but I think you’ll think so.
ME: (I highly doubt it. BWAP BWAP BWAP) Okay.
BWAP: Just listen.
ME: I’m listening.
BWAP: You have that look on your face.
ME: And you have approximately 30 seconds. READY! SET! GO!
BWAP: What if we printed out each individual piece of information onto a separate card, put the cards onto one of those moving ceiling rotators, like they have at dry cleaners, and then the clericals can randomly reach up and take one when they’re ready to enter another piece of information.
ME: Are you kidding? That’s your idea? That’s the most inefficient thing I’ve ever heard. Why don’t we put the information in Braille and have them try to decipher it that way?
BWAP: Do they know how to read Braille?
ME: Why don’t we poke their eyes out and make them LEARN???
BWAP: Seriously. You’re not being serious.
Oh but BWAP, I AM being serious.
This woman is the model of inefficiency. She’s the queen of overtime. If she was put in charge of evacuating the Titanic, the first lifeboat would have been launched about a month after the Titanic landed on the ocean floor. I, on the other hand, am the type of person who is showered, dressed, fed, and at work approxinately 7 minutes after rolling out of bed. If I wore perfume, it would be called “Eau de Efficiency”. I LIVE to par things down to absolute minimalism.
And yet she continues to argue with me about EVERYTHING. I suggest we speed up efficiency by pairing up clericals during busy times. She suggests doling their work out to other departments who have no idea WHAT they should actually be doing. If I suggested the HOV lane, she would suggest we all stop using cars and start using roller skates with square wheels.
I don’t understand this kind of mentality. The kind that says “I may not be right, but god damn it YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BEAT ME!!!” It’s so absolutely childish.
And so I’m doing the only thing I can do. I’m going to put all of her office items in jello and then erase the hard drive of her computer. And then report her to the Department of Homeland Security.
I mean, she needs to be stopped, right?