Today was certainly “interesting”. I knew the rising tension at work was going to come to a head and today it did. There’s this temp at work who’s really annoying. He’s only 16 and incredibly immature. He overtook us on his moped on the way home from work last night, and today he decided to make fun of P, who wasn’t having any of it. Not being the “boy racer” type, P hadn’t even realised this guy was actually racing us and had been sticking to the speed limit as you do in a built-up area. The temp, Jason is his name, was constantly teasing us and P got really annoyed. After politely asking him to quit going on about it, P told him to go away and that’s when things started getting nasty. Jason told him to piss off, and started distracting the other temp (Adam) that P was trying to work with. Then everyone started talking about performance cars, including the guy (Dale) that I’ve been having trouble with over the last few weeks.
Then Dale started talking to Adam. P lost his temper and told Dale to stop distracting Adam. Dale’s response was “when you start paying my wages I’ll do what you tell me to”. That was it. All hell broke loose. I can’t remember what was said as by this point I was feeling incredibly anxious, but at some point P called Dale an arrogant cunt. “I’m arrogant!” exclaimed Dale, “Don’t start me on that ’cause it’s been building up for weeks!”. The shit had hit the fan. Everybody suddenly knew what we all thought of each other. Then my anger took over and I told Dale that all I wanted to do was get my work done and he told me to “get on with it then”. Everything went quiet and we all turned back to what we were doing.
I was shaking inside and I wanted to burst out crying, but I held back. I tried to concentrate, but after a few moments I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked over to my supervisor, Pat, and asked if I could have a word in private. She took me outside and I burst into tears. I told her that I couldn’t take it anymore and I just couldn’t put up with Dale’s attitude. She was so nice, but I didn’t think the damage could be reversed. She told me she was going to have a word with him.
When she left, I hurried to the toilet and cried some more. Then I tidied myself up and went out to face the music. I was certain Dale was going to be fuming now. As I went through the warehouse and towards the manufacturing dept, I saw him walking towards me. Oh shit! I was so keen to avoid his eyes, that I tripped straight over the forks on a forklift truck. This was all I fucking needed – to be embarrassed in front of the man I desperately needed to maintain a confident image with.
He helped me up and asked if I was alright. Then he asked if he could have a quick word with me. “Yeah, sure” I said politely. I was so terrified of what he was going to say to me that I was utterly amazed when he apologised! He gave me a hug and told me that he had been under a lot of work pressure lately and didn’t realise it was showing through. I was stunned. I apologised back and said that I guess I should have spoken to him when I had an initial problem, rather than wait for it to build up. Then Pat came through and made us all have another hug. Gosh, it was so weird! My emotions were still on a high and I was trying to tell my body to stop wanting to cry!
So then we went back to work and spent the rest of the day being nice to each other. Only time will tell if it lasts though. I hope so, as these last few weeks have been hell for me. Dale was nice to P too for the rest of the day!
So that’s what happened at work today.