the rudeness of some

people never ceases to amaze me...

and you are of course wondering what got me on this little soapbox...and since there's absolutely no chance that the person who was rude to me will read this, i feel i can divulge a little...

sooo this is someone i have worked with (on and off) for about 4 years - she and i used to be part of the same broader team, although i was always hierarchically, one level up from her...she is someone who i find cold and rude and have never managed to form any sort of bond with - even when she did my job (i went away for 5 weeks last year) and we spent a large amount of time prior to me going (by way of a handover), i never managed to penetrate her cool exterior - despite my efforts...see i'm kinda a relationship person - i'm much more interested in hearing about what makes someone tick and their 'life outside of work' than i am of just talking about the spreadsheet that's due next week (of course that is my old life...)...

now i know there are people out there who just don't like me! and she's one of them, and i'm perfectly ok with that - i am not everyone's cup of tea, just like everyone is not my cup of tea - however i do try hard to be courteous and respectful and show a modicum of human decency towards people, even those i don't like! sure i won't be warm and mushy with them, but my intention is not to be rude!

sooo she is now (and this is weird) the same level as me (not coz she was promoted, but i took a step back to make a career change) and happens to be the finance person supporting the business i support from an HR perspective....small world hey!

so we have been doing a piece of work and our input was to be sent to finance to consolidate and so when i sent my input to her i copied in (via email - isn't everything in corporate life done by email these days??) the business people who had actually given me the data...so i have tuesday off, i get back to work on wed morning to find she has emailed me the questions she has (some of which are frankly things she could have worked out for herself if her head wasn't so far up her arse...)....doesn't sound so bad right!

so the issue i have is this - the files she sends me are so big they crash the computer i'm working on, i am in meetings from 9am til 3pm that day and she wants the info back by 3pm...kinda impossible, so as i walk past her desk i do what i think is the courteous thing to do and tell her that i'm in meetings until 3pm, that we don't want to miss her deadine, and would she mind just forwarding the emails she has sent me to the same people i copied as they will be the ones providing the answers...

she glares at me, and says 'i don't have time to do that, i'll just zip the files and you can email them'...

no 'thanks for giving me an update, appreciate you trying to get this done even though you'll be in meetings for 6 hours straight'...

seriously, how fucking hard is it to resend 2 emails to a few people???

actually as i've gotten older i've realised a couple of things! that most people's rudeness is usually nothing to do with the person they are being rude to, and that i have managed to develop some empathy for people who are rude, as i'm sure the reason they do it is they are so unhappy in themselves and so dissatisfied with life, the only way they get any glimmer of pleasure in their sad miserable lives is to be rude to someone else, so momentarily someone else feels bad and they look better...how so many people get through life without understanding this most basic of concepts is beyond me...