When behaving badly works in your favor

Regular readers of this blog* know that I work for a thrift store.

This week our corporate office handed down the directive that we are supposed to create a fancy, magazine-worthy holiday table setting and submit pictures to be used to promote the stores.

Oh and if we create the best one we win a prize.

Ok, fine, no problem. Only the boss is a bit high strung, impulsive and indecisive and after myself and another girl working on this for hours on end this past week we still don't even have a table cloth.

This morning I finally lost my patience with the whole thing, handed the boss the stack of 5 more rejected plates (she's rejected 17 different china patterns-- every single set of matching dishes in the store) and told her "you know what, you need to find someone else to help you with this. I'm going to do my job."

Then I walked away and left her standing there.

Later I heard from the other girl that the boss was deeply offended by my doing that.

I don't care.

At this point it just is not worth the stress or aggravation to keep wasting my time with a project that I cannot possibly succeed with.

And I don't feel it is unreasonable to expect my manager to be a mature adult and have reasonable expectations, like understanding that we can't conjure things out of thin air and that what's on the shelf is all we've got to work with.

Besides, it's my bloody camera and I'm under no obligation to volunteer my personal property for use so if she wants pictures she can damn well act like an adult and behave in a civilized manner.

All of which I think she's realized because there was an immediate and dramatic change in her behavior.

And I didn't even have to use a paddle.

~Ms. Betty




*(Do I still have any of those? I know I am not the most frequent poster!)