Where Things Stand

Just catching you up on a few loose ends: My plea for mediation was for naught, but I am in the process of getting scheduled on the big boss's calendar.

If you recall, a couple of weeks ago at the suggestion of my friend Bill, who is a genius when it comes to personnel issues, I applied for mediation to deal with my #1 problem-maker. I learned up front the this would happen only if she agreed to it. With very little hope, I went ahead and waited and waited and waited. The "dispute resolution" person (Ms. DR) called me today to explain that this other woman had said it wouldn't be necessary because she wouldn't be around much longer. I take that with a grain of salt, because even though she is a few years older than I am, she has been threatening retirement for years but doesn't seem to be motivated to leave. Ms. DR suggested that my boss could sit down with the two of us. My boss had already extricated herself from the situation, preferring not to rock the boat since it involved another division. Ms. DR then suggested the other woman's boss, and I said I had lost my steam to pursue this further.

This morning I found the following response to my request for a meeting from the big boss:

I will have my secretary set something up for the 3 of us to talk.

The third person is of course my boss. As busy as the big boss is, this is about all I could expect, actually a very positive note. I can't wait to have my day in court, which still may turn into an exit interview, depending on how it goes.

Thank you to all of you who gave me such encouraging words about "my great attitude." I must confess that since yesterday, since my inception of the big blowout happy hour, I have been going around the table in every meeting mentally deciding whether or not to invite each person. There are some definite NOs and a lot of MAYBEs. But there are also a lot of YESes. I just love putting the bitches and sons-of-bitches on the NO list, even though they will probably never know they weren't included.

WIN-WINNING still leaves some wiggle room for lashing out. I don't think I would be human if I didn't have those feelings of anger and disgust about the few people who are real jerks.