Knot Today

In some respects, I like working weekends. Overall they tend to be dead on the phones, so I frankly putter around online, or read a book, or whatever. But since we’re hemorrhaging personnel lately, it’s a wee bit different. There were in theory three of us there and a couple of people working from home at o’dark thirty this morning, all supposed to be answering the phones. At least one more person was MIA from calling out sick. To the best I could see and hear, I was the only one who actually started picking up the phone at 4am, which is when it started ringing off the hook. I can live with that too, particularly since Friday’s my last day at the current office.

My current/future boss still works there, too. His last day is ALSO Friday. We were discussing in an aside that starting next weekend, it ain’t gonna be pretty at the old roundup where we were still working today. He’s one of two people at the office who knows where I’m actually going from here. In fact, while I’d talked to the second person about jumping ship, my final decision happened because I found out this man’s heading thataway, too. And today, we both kind of shrugged in unison – after we leave, it’s no longer our problem.

Unfortunately he came in a couple of hours after my arrival. Earlier in the day, when I was busy as hell being the only person on the phones, one of our security guards decided it was the perfect time to “witness” to me, a.k.a., proselytize me to his church and religion. Because aside from the fact that I currently WORK SUNDAYS, I’m going to haul my happy butt forty miles from home on his say-so, for a church I’ve never heard of before. He was already on my shit list because on his first day he gave me hell for daring to be there on time to do my job, because there wasn’t a supervisor in the house. Ummm… Yeah. There’s a reason for that. Because I’m the one who always fucking shows up for work, unlike most of the rest of their personnel, including supervisors. (Hint: 24 hours later he was sucking up to me like I was Miss America. The higher-ups know I’m the one who’s there all the time and do my job consistently and well.)

This person is a relatively new security guard. All I’d have to do is complain and he’d probably be an EX security guard. Whatever other faults this company has, they’re big on diversity and non-harassment. You see, this morning Deputy Jethro Bodine stood there for a solid half hour insisting I should beyond any argument go to his church and be healed, because that’s totally gonna happen, and how he was saved six months ago so knows everything about everything, yada yada.

Listen, honey. I know the drill like you can’t possibly imagine. I do. My mama was the biggest church addict on the planet. Nobody was safe around her. She alienated hounded witnessed to everybody she met. My uncle and half my cousins are still Pentecostal Holy Roller preachers. My grandpa was a Pentecostal Holy Roller preacher, and I married the preacher’s son. I’d get dragged to church every service there was, regardless. I only missed a couple of times when I was in the hospital, and I was granted that reprieve only grudgingly. I get it. I even tried telling Pseudo-Deputy as much, thinking it would turn him down a notch. Nope. Settings remained on borderline Jehovah’s Witness, with a Pentecostal Holiness chaser.

I grinned around gritted teeth, debating whether I should cap him right then and there. Even my over-the-top family knows not to use religion to interfere with somebody’s job.

Let’s just say 1) I’m glad Friday’s my last day and 2) if I get the Jethro Guerrilla-Religion schtick again, I’m going to report his ass.

Then when I got home I ran across a desk for sale on one of my FB groups. It wasn’t gorgeous or fancy, but I need A desk in a couple of more weeks when I start working from home. It was cheap and about the right size. My husband fired back it was too cheap and sent me a link to one that cost around $150-ish. So I made the mistake of agreeing that since I needed it for work, I should probably think more long term. I sent him a couple of photos. And caught hell for it.

My spousal unit is generally pretty even tempered, but he was tired and hurting at that point, and so was I. The LAST thing I needed was for him to give me grief. I let it drop, because I saw no point in taking it into a full-blown argument. I’ll just order my own damned desk without telling him. I’m paying for it, anyway, for god’s sake.