taking the high road

Shit Bitch

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

In our family, when someone acts shitty for no apparent reason, we have a word for that.

Shit bitch.

Well a pretty shitty thing happened to me today and the person who did it is now, in my opinion, a certified shit bitch..

Two days ago, I spent an evening wrapping 30+ presents for fellow staff at work as well as 8 team leader/manager presents.

For the 30+ presents, I made a Xmas lolly bag. It had chocolate and various other lollies in there. Each gift had a tag with the name of who it was for, and that it was from me.

There is one person at work who I do not have a problem with, but she does not like me. I have no clue as to why. I have only ever worked in her presence three times for an hour each time, and nothing happened during those shifts which explained her anger, bullying behaviour, and nastiness towards me during those shifts. I barely know her, and she barely knows me.

I did raise her behaviour with my manager because it was not ok, we have to work as a team, and it was supposedly “handled” but to be honest on the one shift I worked with her since then her actions towards me had not changed, so rather than complaining about her behaviour I just have avoided being placed on shifts with her up to and including swapping shifts or saying no to shifts when I could easily have worked them.

I could have – and briefly did consider – leaving her out of the gift giving. But my thought is if you do it for one, you do it for all. You don’t leave someone out. It isn’t cool, in my opinion. And I thought how she would have felt to see everyone else with my gifts and not to get one herself – this is not something I would be happy about and I would never do that to anyone else. It is not who I am.

So yesterday I took the stuff to work. Everyone who was not there, I placed the item in their pigeon-hole.

When I arrived today, I found that this person had put their gift into my pigeon hole.

I honestly can’t believe that a grown woman (she is in her late 50’s maybe early 60’s) would act in this childish and immature manner. If she did not want my gift, she could have thrown it in the bin and I would have been none the wiser. But to deliberately reject it in this way.. and make such a big point of it..

I have no words.

I will keep taking the high road on this. BUT.

There is a but. And it coincides with an announcement I have not yet made here on the blog. About 2013, and me, and work, and stuff in general.

I am declaring 2013 the year of *me*

I’m not going to do anything which interferes with my happiness, mental health, wellbeing, fitness, or me in general.

I am going to focus on the things I enjoy, the things I love, the things that keep me healthy and well both mentally and physically.

So in this situation it means, I am going to make some changes at work. And you know what? People might not like that. I have always been flexible and bent over backwards to help out when people were sick or they needed extra hands for whatever reason. For the majority of the time all it has earned me is the occasional good work.

And yet, when they “handled” this problem I was essentially told they are running a business and they cannot make sure that I am never rostered on with this person, and we have to be professional yada yada yada. Which I always was, and this person never has been yet!

Well guess what? This person works a specific regular shift on specific days. Our times on shift would only ever overlap by an hour. To make sure we are not rostered on together *is* something I can do, and it *is* something I will choose to do in 2013 though it will mean being less flexible with my shift times.

Because 2013 is going to be a year in which I do not put myself in positions that cause me angst and rob me of sleep.

I’m saying no to it. ;)

Annoyed Snoskred, bitches, taking the high road, work

The power of positive thought.

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

In various discussions around the interweb lately, I’ve realized that I’m a pretty lucky person. Fairly early on in my life, I have learnt some life lessons which have been useful in helping me get to the place I am now. Many of these lessons are going to stick with me and I can build on them as time goes by.

One lesson I learnt by working in call centres is the power of positive thought. Outbound telemarketing is not an easy job. You have to be able to get yourself into a mental place where you can handle people saying no to you constantly. Rejection on such a massive scale can really get you down. You need inner resources which most people do not have and find difficult to get.

Most important of all, you need to be able to put the past behind you and move on. Not past from years ago, past from the last call you made. When you were told “no” and you hang up the phone, you need to be able to say “The next one will be a yes”. Otherwise you won’t be able to make that call. And when you get a “Yes” you need to celebrate that and build on it. In an average 5 hour outbound calling shift, we would average 20 calls per hour, and only ONE of those would be a yes. That means 19 people said no. If you took it personally it could mess with your head in a major way.

So one of the tools I used constantly were Dream Cards by Leon Nacson. I didn’t use them in the way intended by the author, though. Each day at the start of a shift, I would shuffle the cards, close my eyes and pick one from the middle of the pack. That card would be stuck to my computer screen. The cards contain positive messages and I found that by having the card there, I would find myself reading the card – which is essentially *thinking* the card. Here’s a picture of the cards, so you can see the kinds of positive messages they contain. You’ll need to click the thumbnail for a larger image. :)

dreamcards1

And I found that each day, whatever card I seemed to pick out was exactly what I needed to think that day. I don’t know whether that is destiny or just pure luck. For example – I would pull out “I am free from agitation and tension. Nothing can provoke me.” on a day when the people I spoke to would be trying their best to wind me up. I had that card on my desk on the day a customer told me that wind power was bad for the environment because “it takes the wind out of the air”.

These cards got me through some really hard times. I am so grateful for that. I recommend you get your own set but if you can’t find them or can’t afford it, you can just write down a positive thought and put it on your desk.

When I left call centre work I got out of the habit of using these cards, but a couple of months ago I put them back on my desk and each day I shuffle them and pick one, which sits at the bottom of my computer screen. Next to a piece of paper that has sat on my desktop for many months now – sometimes taking the high road is no fun at all.

We often do not realize we are sabotaging ourselves. The “tapes” in our head play constant negative thoughts. Until you stop to listen to what tape you are playing, you cannot begin to make changes and play a more positive tape.

For more on the power of positive thinking, you may want to read this article – Mind your thoughts.

I also use I Can Do It cards by Louise Hay.

call centre, life lessons, moving forward, negative thought, power of positive thought, taking the high road

Sleepless

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

It’s 1:30am and my mind is wide awake. The other half went to bed quite a while ago now, and I don’t want to go in and read till I’m tired because it will wake him up. Much of this post won’t make a lot of sense. It’s ok, I just need to get it out.

I’ve made many mistakes in my life, but the one that keeps annoying me today is why did I place my faith in other people when I should probably have struck out on my own and created what I wanted to create, especially when those other people suddenly decided they didn’t want me to be involved in things to the same extent I originally was.

Those people let me down and yet, I continue to support them. Those people say nasty things about me when they think nobody else is looking. Well, people are looking and whether you like it or not, they have no good reasons to treat me badly, so they let me know what is said. And I don’t say anything, and I probably should, but I figure for the good of everyone, it’s better just to let them talk and try to show them by my actions that I am not the person they think I am.

I know this – I have done a lot of good things. I don’t talk trash behind peoples backs – if I am going to say something about you I say it to you. Maybe I should have done what everyone was urging me to do – create my own empire, make my own site, do my own thing, but that would have taken the focus away from what is really important, and it would have meant a lot of the work I have put into things would have to have been put into creating the empire, and realistically that would have been a waste of my time and energy.

People think I’m holding grudges, but I don’t. I’ve put the past behind me, well behind me – they are the ones with the chips on their shoulder and no real desire to remove them. I was told to build a bridge, and I did. And let’s face it, someone who said some very nasty things about me, and continues to do so from what I am told, recently I put a fair bit of effort in to doing something nice for them – for the good of the bigger picture.

People ask me why, when I was treated so badly by certain people, I continue to stick around. It’s a good question and one I find myself asking myself today. I have a little piece of paper on my desk. You might have seen it in the doll pictures. Maybe you can’t make out what it says, but it is the answer, and that is why it sits there on my desk, right in front of me, day after day.

desk1

It’s entirely true. What it says is – sometimes taking the high road is no fun at all.

It hasn’t been fun. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t enjoy the way certain people treat me. But the good things that have come from me taking that high road are very worthwhile and one day, maybe, those people who have been so unpleasant will come around and see my actual actions instead of making sh*t up. They’ll look and see and maybe they will eventually think – damn, she did that, even while we were talking crap about her? Even when we kicked her in the teeth, and then kept kicking her in the teeth, over and over till most of her teeth were missing? What would I have done in her shoes? Would I have stuck around? Would I have stuck it out? No f*cking way. I’d have resigned publicly, made a huge fuss, gone off and made my own site, and split the community even further from what it already was.

Right now today, I am truly wondering if this has been worth it, when people won’t let go of the past, and they still seem to think kicking me in the teeth is a great idea. And maybe what I should do is exactly what *they* would have done in my place – resign publicly, cause a huge fuss, go off and make my own site, and split the community. But I can’t do that, not because I can’t go make my own site, I have in house technical support and my own server is finally back online etc, but because I believe the community is split enough already, and further fractures will only do more harm.

It’s time. People need to stop trying to hurt each other, and remember why they are involved in any of this at all.

Today I did go make my own site. It’s actually for all my stuff, because now my server is back online I’ve managed to get things into one place, and some kind of order. It’s got all my scambaiting audios there in one place, well a lot of them anyway. I’m going to get back into doing more of that stuff soon.

mistakes I made, moving forward, moving on, people talking about you, scambaiting, taking the high road