Air conditioning and florescent lights are a soul killer ... how do people do this full time? Catherine is a sweet work friend who loves to go for walks and she is always on the hunt for the 50% off nut sandwiches they sell at the Garage Cafe. Sounds pretty gross hey, but she loves them!! Today we headed out into the sun for a coffee and a sit in the sun in the downtown square.
She has been someone who has really been a support for me at work while Linda and I had hit a rough patch. I let it go on for quite a few months because the last time I thought something had happened to upset Linda, I brought it up, to talk it through. It was a small misunderstanding, but we got past it, or at least I thought we had gotten past it. But she continued to give me the silent treatment at work, and continue to bark at my co-workers through the day. Finally, after about 3 months of this, I figured she wasn't going to approach me, so last week I sent her an email about how her actions are making me feel at work and that we should sit down and hash it out. So, last Monday (when I was still super sick), I came into work, and we went into the smaller board room to talk. She immediately takes the power chair behind the desk, putting me in front of her (like an employee who was in trouble lol). I found that interesting but I decided not to take the lead ... so she did .. and she rambled on for a very long time!! Explaining to me things in her life at this point and how she is feeling so negative about everything with no light at the end of the tunnel. I had nothing to do with anything, but since I had started mirroring her actions, she felt that I had started to ignore her, so she ignored me back. Yup, welcome back to grade school...and I had a hunch this was what was going to happen, because I couldn't, for the life of me, think what I possibly could have done to offend or hurt her. So, after an hour, we had hashed things out. I was very direct that I never mean anything malicious or negative, but she consistently takes things negatively. I gave a few examples of that I'd experienced with her in the last few months, how she had taken things negatively, when they were meant lovingly .... and said "you are a 1/4 of the energy in this office, and you can't do things like grunt your greetings when someone says hello .... it doesn't add to the atmosphere because we are such a small office" She was very receptive and really didn't realize the effect she was having on the office because she was so wrapped up in her own life .... which was fair .. and I was glad to have such an honest conversation ... human relationships are so complicated, aren't they?
