young and pretty

There is a young gal who works in my department who I'll refer to here as "Lisa". Lisa is about twenty-two years old and has a four year old daughter. She lives with her boyfriend (not the "baby daddy"). Lisa is very cute and I've always thought that she is the spitting image of a young Rachael Ray. I've even told her that and she says lots of people tell her the same.

Lisa works on day shift so I don't really work with her for a whole shift. The most I've been around her is for maybe thirty minutes on days when she is scheduled to work until four p.m. but for the most part she gets off work when I arrive for my shift at 3:30.

When she first started working at the hospital a couple years ago, my first impression was favorable. I thought she was cute and spunky and friendly. She had another part-time job working nights as a bartender.
At that time she still lived with her parents who took care of her daughter while she worked. After a few months of working at the hospital Lisa didn't smile so much anymore or seem as gung-ho about working there and I attributed it to working days and then getting off at the hospital but then going right to work at the bar in the evening. I thought it was probably catching up with her and she was getting burned out. When I'd come in to work, I would say hello to her and she started just ignoring me or seeming to be off in her own little world. I thought, oh well. I guessed she was tired and ready to book out of there. She quit her bartending job and I thought maybe her attitude would improve.

After a while I discovered from the office scuttlebutt that Lisa was annoying the hell out of just about every single other co-worker there. She was even annoying one of the housekeeping gals who would come and empty our trash. Since I work on the night shift, I am mostly out of the loop regarding "office gossip" until it has already become old news. I am fine with that anyway. I could care less about most of it unless it affects me and my job. Thankfully we don't really have any nitpicking on night shift.

As time went on the day shift office gossip was reaching the night shift.
There was a long list growing of Lisa's transgressions. "They" said she was a braggart. Constantly bragging about her beauty. Bragging about shopping and how her parents would buy her anything she wanted. How she had become bossy towards other co-workers. Then she did something and got on the "bad side" of our supervisor. Once you get on the bad side of "Atilla" you might as well throw in the towel. That's another story for another day. Lisa wasn't the most patient with some of our older regular patients, I heard some say. She was nice to their face but she'd roll her eyes and make snarky comments after they'd leave.

Lisa openly stated that she hated working there. One day after I had arrived for work she told me that herself. She told me that the other girls were "mean to her". When I would arrive for work each day, most of the time I would only see her back as she was hurrying out the back hall to go home. She wasn't supposed to leave until I got there for my shift. Several times though, apparently she would be standing near the switchboard operator looking out the big windows of the lobby and if she saw my car pull into the front parking lot, she would clock out right then and rush out the back hallway to go to the back parking lot where she parked. I would come in and clock in and there would be a patient already sitting at my desk waiting to be waited on. Not good. Lisa should have taken care of the patient and then left.

About a year after Lisa started working there, we got another new employee, "Tori". Tori is in her late 30's, married with a grown son and one still in grade school. Tori is very funny and down-to-earth. Everybody loves her including me. She has a "don't take no crap from anybody" type of personality. She is very good with the patients and does good work. Only about a month after Tori had been working there, you could tell that Lisa didn't care much for Tori. One day Lisa had the nerve to tell another co-worker (who she knew liked Tori very much) that she suspected that Tori was a drug user. Her reasoning was that when Tori would leave to go home at lunch, when she would come back she said Tori was all "hyper"...hinting that she probably had gone home and taken something to get a buzz. Lisa's boyfriend lived next door to Tori and her family and Lisa claimed that Tori would be out in her back yard at late hours. Geez, Tori is a smoker and she smokes outside. Anyway, the gal who Lisa told this untruth to just listened but was angry about her spreading such a thing. The next day when she saw Tori she told her what Lisa had said about her. Yes, the shit hit the fan then.

Tori knew she couldn't have a knock down drag out fight at work with Lisa but she said enough around Lisa to get her point across that she knew what Lisa had said. When Lisa isn't around Tori never refers to Lisa as Lisa. She calls her "Princess" or "Precious". Our supervisor even calls her Precious now.

Last week another woman who works there had a bad problem with sciatica in her leg. She is about 68 or 69 years old and had just moved to a new house so the moving process probably didn't help any. So she missed about four days of work. On those days the supervisor asked one of the day gals to work overtime just until 5 or 6 p.m. and for the rest of the night it would only be me working by myself. I'm used to working from 8:30 p.m. to midnight by myself anyway because that is what time the other woman leaves.

Well, I found out firsthand what a brat Lisa can be. After the supervisor and other day shift employees had left, it was just me and Lisa there. Lisa was working overtime until 6 for the other woman who was off sick.
As I was sitting at the front desk, Lisa stood there and started talking about how mean everybody was to her. She said, "I hate everybody who works here". She held out her hand and with her index finger on her other hand she pointedly tapped on each of her fingers each person's name of who she hated and embellished on why. "I don't like P, I can't stand J, I don't like S, I don't like M, S drives me insane, I don't like Tori..." When she said something especially nasty about my friend and co-worker "Sherri" my mouth dropped open in disbelief. Lisa saw my face and said "oh you don't know...she is such a bitch and she has said so many mean things to me". First of all I don't believe it. Sherri is one of calmest and most laid back people I know. Sherri has worked there for 25 years and she is a wonderful employee and person. I was feeling shocked that Lisa was saying all of this to me and when she started going off about Sherri and everyone, I told her "wow...so where is my name on this long list of people you hate?" Lisa said, "oh actually you are probably the only one I like....but you know there are some things about you that I don't like either!" Hmmph!

I told her by all means don't hold back...what is bugging you about me?
She said she gets mad that I don't come to work and clock in until right at 3:30 on the dot or a couple minutes before. We are allowed to clock in 7 minutes before or 7 minutes after at the latest before we are docked. She thinks I should be there 7 minutes before so she can leave to go home. I already knew that bothered her so I said, "and?" Then she changed the subject from what bothered her about me by saying that all the other gals were always talking about me too. She said "'they' say you don't do 'jack shit' on your shift and that you are always messing around with your check book". I was thinking in my head, "wtf?" First of all I don't believe that for one second. They used to have two gals work the night shift and a long time ago when one got sick and I worked the whole shift by myself and realized I kinda liked it and yeah it was hectic sometimes but the hectic moments were brief and I could handle it...I told the boss that I had no problem working the shift by myself. So they ended up just having someone work with me until 8:30 after dinner break. Heck, I think I'm saving the hospital money by not having another worker there the whole shift. I'm doing work of two people and when I don't have patients to wait on, I always have the switchboard to answer and I have paperwork from day shift that I have to take care of along with lots of other duties. A person knows within themselves if they are a good worker or if they are sluffing off. I know I am a good worker.

There has always been this sort of attitude about day shift versus night shift. I remember when I worked on days, I would hear people talk like they thought night shift didn't really do much. It is just an entirely different atmosphere on nights. On nights the head honchos are gone and the atmosphere is more laid back. After 6 p.m. we don't have anymore walk ins for regular labwork and after 8 p.m. we don't have anymore patients coming in for MRI's or radiology. The emergency room is always busy though and we do have lots of in patient admissions through the er sometimes. I have to register all those out patients, in patients and er patients.

I am perplexed as to where the check book reference came from. Many times when I clock out, I will then sit there at my front desk and look over my check book and do some figures with it because I intend to go to the grocery store after I leave. The only person that would see me "messing around with my check book" would be one of the er nurses. Who cares? Maybe they think I'm still not clocked out and am staying overtime to mess with my check book. It is laughable. *rolls eyes*

After Lisa told me that, I got quiet and had a confused look on my face. Lisa asked me, "are you mad at me?" I told her "my feelings are a little bit hurt but I'm confused about what is the big deal if I mess with my check book? That makes no sense!" She started stuttering and sputtering and then went back to how everyone on day shift was so mean to her. Then she said something that took the cake. She was talking about Sherri and the other women and her take on why they are "so mean". She said, "she is just mad because she is getting old and saggy" and "they are jealous of me because I am young and pretty." Inside my head I was thinking "conceited little shit, aren't ya?" I wondered at the nerve that she was saying this to me too...since I am 48 friggin years old! I told her that her "old and saggy" days were coming too. I thought "young and pretty doesn't last forever, kiddo". At that moment I was mad at myself for the times in the past when I told Lisa she looked like Rachael Ray or complimenting her on her cute little outfit. Oh well, I have never had a problem appreciating and complimenting another woman when she looks nice. When they get a big head about it is when it bugs me. Back in my "young and pretty" days when I was 19 and working in a candy factory with several older women I would have never said something so insulting. I guess that is needless to say but I just can't get over the nerve of that girl.

Have you ever met someone when first meeting them who you think to yourself they are not really very attractive or are even dare you think it...ugly? After you get to know them and see how beautiful they are inside and they have a good attitude about life and a sense of humor or whatever it it is...they become more and more attractive on the outside too? Then you have the opposite situation where someone is beautiful on the outside but they are arrogant, mean-spirited, harbor cruel intentions, or have a jealous heart. Their inner ugliness takes over and they just don't look so "pretty" anymore. That's how I feel about Lisa now. It is kind of ironic that every day since that night when Lisa had diarrhea of the mouth....when I come in to work she makes a point of saying "Hi Cindi!" in a sing-songy cheery voice. I say hi back but I am not going to kiss ass. Young and pretty. Hmmph.

Update: Well, she isn't so cheery with me anymore. See next post. Oy.