Wayne was speaking about stress management and he presented this idea of seeking a lightning rod. The concept is simple. We all have stress and we can let that stress build so that we cannot function, or we explode, or we just up and quit, OR we can seek someone to help us reduce that stress. Someone we can tell everything to reduce the tension. This person, or so Wayne says, should be outside of the workplace or really outside the circle of influence and this person, this lightning rod, needs to be able to keep their mouth shut.
So I started thinking about that and this blog when it hit me. You are my lightning rod. You are outside of my sphere of influence because you don't even know who, where, what I am. It doesn't matter if you keep your mouth shut, what you say cannot come back to me. I guess its entirely possible that someone may figure out who I am, but the chances are astronomical unless I give some ridiculous hints, or flat out tell you (psst, I am not going to do that).
So lets forget about the niceties and let me vent.
Well I have this coworker. He is a native here. A nice enough guy, but he has some serious issues. One, he is lazy. You cannot make him work for shit. He has this great tendency to start a project and NEVER finish it, but he insists on starting another one, and another one, and, well you get the idea. Second, he is the most proud man I have ever met. He can never admit that he does not know how to do something so he tries to do everything. He has, in just two years, completely destroyed a roof of a large building, ruined a water pump, dismantled and completely screwed up a chainsaw, two lawnmowers, a sander, crashed and totaled a car, and wasted several thousands of dollars from the non-profit where we work. Third, he is a liar, and not a very good one. He has tells.
If you are not offended by Southpark and would like to learn more about tells please check out this video: Pinewood Derby The lesson begins at about 2 minutes, but the entire video is worth a looksy especially for anyone who has ever been involved in scouts.
Back to the story, yesterday, the little guy (he is little, the size of my 9 year old so lets call he Wee-Man) shows up where I was working. He starts asking me about some material that was used. Sounds like no big deal, but what happened is he used material that belongs to our non-profit to build some things for someone in the community in an effort to make a little money. Well, it seems that our boss found out and is a little pissed and wants to be reimbursed for the cost of the materials. What Wee-Man did was tell the boss that while he used a little of the material I used the bulk of it.
So Wee-Man showed up to try and "trick" me into saying that I had used the material. Now here comes the tells. Anytime he lies, which is a lot, he pretends to not remember anything, even stupid things like having lunch together or even what the weather was the day before, then he starts making this movements.
Anyway, he shows up and starts asking me about the material implying that I used it for some sort of personal side project. I walked him around our facility and showed him every place the material had been used, all here on the campus except what he stole from us. Funny thing is he helped me with almost every single project, but when I would say, "We did that together, don' you remember?" he would look at me as if small woodland creatures were crawling out of my ass. A sort of slack jawed, far off gaze, head tilted slight to the side, with an occasional chin rub or back of the neck rub. No answer, just a dumb ass look from a dumb ass guy. I just want to punch the little goober right in the face, but alas, I cannot.
Immediately after this chat I called the boss who was also lied to by this little jackass. Thank God he knew that Wee-Man was blowing smoke up his ass too. Actually, despite our difficulties, the boss and I almost always agree on Wee-Man. Agree that he is an egotistical, pompous, lying, little, little, little man. He is currently on the way out, phew.
Speaking of my boss, Elijah, he is still a douche.
This is where I can vent. No one I work with knows anything about this site, thank God, but my partner Sommer and I both do a little writing about our everyday/professional life. Anyway Elijah commented on something I wrote with a snarky little comment directed at something Sommer wrote, not me. I guess his intention is that I will run home and tell Sommer about it. He probably expects that I will do something to rectify the situation as well.
What a douche.
He doesn't even have the balls to confront one of his charges himself.
Thanks for your time and for listening. I feel so much better.
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