Things that make you go….grrrrrrr
I have a new pet peeve – well, maybe not new, but one that’s been steadily building for the last few weeks. I’m really starting to get pissy with the constant back biting and rudeness I’m finding in every facet of daily life. From stories people are telling me at work about things that happened to them in the course of their day, to things I’ve read online. (Posts between each other on forums and groups.) Does anyone know how to speak nicely to each other anymore? Now, I’m not talking about giving a friend a good-natured hard time because you can and you know you’d both go to the mat for each other in a heartbeat, no questions asked. I’m talking about mean spirited stabs and barbed comments meant to correct, verbally hand slap, or forcefully impose their opinions on others.
Can’t we all just get along.
First of all, I’m an adult. I’ve lived nearly 44 years without having someone give me input I’ve never asked for, and I’ve done reasonably well. I’m an intelligent individual who has formed her own opinions based on experiences. And just to ensure I don’t start doing this to others, I’m going to start prefacing everything I say with….it’s been my experience. God save me from being that which I’ve come to peeve.
I was on the phone the other day with my mother. She had the audacity to tell me I didn’t know anything about politics and history. Me? The History Channel junkie. The one who watches Fox News and regularly discusses such with her husband. – Mom and I just so happened to be talking politics, which was probably not a good thing since she and I don’t agree on anything having to do with government. But it is my honest belief that she doesn’t care to know the other side, or even listen to any commentary that might be negitive, even if it’s the God’s honest truth. Nope, that old woman has to tow the party line, even if it’s been dragged through a cesspool and garbage. But I digress.
If my own mother has no gumption about trampling on my opinion (to which my response was – you better stop this conversation right here, or you’ll lose this debate) what’s to say others will shy away. They won’t. And I’m not talking about politics specifically, it’s just the example I used for the conversation with dear old mom. It’s just the fact of living any more.
The other day a colleague of mine asked my opinion on something that happened to her and what she should do because I have been a shift charge person and still fill in when the occasion warrants it. Well, it seems my colleague had a run-in with someone who works in our ER yelling at her over the phone, telling her she better learn policy and our entire department better figure out what we’re doing. Um, she quoted them chapter and verse from the policy and procedure manual and they still yelled at her. Unbelievable. My response. Write it up. We have firm policies in place at work which considers verbal abuse a terminable offense. And yet….I hear of people crossing the lines with their co-workers all the time. Yes, we work in a high stress job and sometimes you just have to let that frustration out (which is why most people just let it go and don’t write up verbal offenses). But I think if more people did, you’d see a decrease in the escalation of word wars going on there. It’s not a very happy environment to work in.
I was told the other day of a CT Scan tech yelling at an Attending Physician. Ballsy. That’s what that was. Pure ballsy. And I happen to know the physician involved and he’s a very sweet man and just let it roll off his back. He’d never think of turning someone in for that. It made me wonder if the CT tech even knew the guy was a doctor. You’d never hear of him abusing the trauma surgeons in such a manner. It just wouldn’t happen. So, why give a neonatalogist grief?
I don’t know. Maybe the world has been like this for a while and I’ve just really noticed it more since my ear is shot and it really pains me to actually talk, and am listening more. Or reading and not responding if it has to do with a forum. I’d rather not get involved anymore. Or maybe I’m finally worn down from a fight. Whatever the reason, I just want to have one day where everyone actually plays nice with everyone else. And please, no bitching behind someones back I won’t be able to pretend I don’t hear it forever.
-Kate
Ear update: I have an emergency appt. to see the ENT tomorrow. It seems having serrous fluid pouring out of your ruptured eardrum isn’t a good thing.
