2002-08-16 - 12:15 p.m.
Red, green: Such cheerful colors for such violent emotions.

Well, I'm not seeing red anymore, but I am all green with nausea. Ugh. Not sure which one's worse.

I went to speak with my boss this morning. I saw her once yesterday afternoon, at which point she said she was still too busy to meet, but would come get me in ten minutes after her smoke break. Well, it never happened. I waited some more early today, but when the DSL-order-lady called, I figured the questions might be more urgent and went to her office.

She was being a bit querulous about the subject of my call, as she'd already had a call from the tech, whose conversation seemed to contradict the order-lady's a bit. Naturally, the disagreements in the two viewpoints boiled over onto her attitude with me. *shrug* That I could handle. But that wasn't all.

While I was there, I showed her the list I'd compiled of orders we'd faxed to the DSL company in the past. There were many repeats and price variations. I thought it was a fairly straightforward summary of things, comprised of dates, addresses, and prices, but my boss professed not to understand, then took issue with the prices I had listed on the repeats -- "Where did you get these," and "They said they'd honor the original prices," etc.

Color me surprised. "I got the prices listed there straight from the faxed orders," I said, etc. Oh, but she had more. "See, this is why you were supposed to bring the faxes to me. I don't want any confusion in our meeting next Tuesday," etc.

Confusion?? Argh, where's a handgrenade when you need it ...

Am I not capable of typing the numbers from a fax straight into a spreadsheet reliably? Well, if that's the case, shit, she shouldn't be trusting the purchasing database I set up for her orders, either, or the computer request database, or the ink orders I make ... *pulling at hair*

I was so close to telling her exactly what was going through my mind. But, NO! Can't. Supervisor, remember, not equal; not someone whose hide I can responsibly tear into. So I diverted all those insistent fight impulses by wrapping my arms around my back and digging my fingernails into my left arm.

Nice diversion, that. A little too effective, though; ugh. My body never reacts well to physical harm. Always with the nausea. Good thing I never did go off and do the soldier thing, I'd never survive if I spent the first five minutes after every injury vying to keep my toenails from making an appearance via my digestive tract.

*sigh* I just don't know what to do anymore. No matter what overtures I make, they backfire. Where's the encouragement in that to try harder? Guess I better just deepsix any hopes for a recommendation from here and play up my database manager job on future resumes. "Budget Cuts" looks slightly better as a reason for leaving a place than "Personality Conflicts", which is what I'll have to list for this one.

So, we have a meeting now set for one p.m. so she can compare my stack-o-faxes with my list. I guaran-damn-tee she will find something wrong with it, ask why I didn't do it differently, even though I don't see how she could possibly expect me to have done it in any particular fashion.

Not to mention the whole supposed-to-meet issue, which might have been clear in her head but which she certainly never expressed to me before berating me about not doing it! And which issue she will never believe my side of, as she'll take any mentioning of it on my part as a challenge to her.

God give me strength, I need it.