Crazy Sue yelled at me today, the second day of work, first day of classes. Crazy Sue is an art teacher. Not your stereotypical mellow art teacher, sipping on a bong and going with the flow. How can she be this stressed out already? She apologized (via email) at the end of the day, but it was one of those apologies that reads like I'm sorry that you are so fucking annoying that I was forced to explode a head vein, but you're just so fucking annoying that I can't help it. In all the time I have been working in the "professional" world, I have only experienced being yelled at twice. And both times it was Crazy Sue doing the yelling.
I do not respond well to being yelled at. It makes me feel like a child - in a powerless and unsafe sense - and so my reaction is childish. I want to yell back. I get irrational and angry.
But I can swallow that now. I don't yell anymore, not since I really was a child. After I left that world I promised myself that yelling was over, and it is. No one in my world yells anymore. And neither do I, not ever.
Having arranged my personal world so selectively to exclude yelling, it is especially difficult to tolerate being yelled at, at work. Crazy Sue just yells at everyone so I know I am nothing special to her, but she has no idea what goes on in my head when she yells at me. How I struggle not to come back hissing and spitting like a cat.
What I do instead, what I have done both times, is turn my back on her and walk away.
I am not exactly proud of this reaction either, but it is the only one I can muster that is defensible later.
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7 comments:
I think your reaction shows amazing restraint. I feel as you do about yelling because I was yelled at constantly as a child. It makes my stomach clench to this day. But Crazy Sue should not be allowed to abuse her coworkers, and something must be done about her. Can you and others lodge a complaint to the principal or school board? She will make everyone's work situation hellish, and it will inevitably reflect in the level of teaching the kids receive, to say nothing of ulcers among the teachers. Really, you should not have to tolerate such behavior. Please don't.
Is this the one who told a fellow teacher not to fall in love with her or something like that?
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Thanks Susan, I have this gross feeling that I am supposed to follow up with some sort of adult conversation here, but I don't want to. Technically, the union dictates that I cannot complain to administration, but rather need to go through them. It's a problem because I do not trust the union OR Crazy Sue. So avoidance is my most comfortable option, though not the most productive. More thinking on this.
Dixie, I remember the teacher you're talking about, the one that accused another teacher of being secretly madly in love with her -- and he wasn't. Very strange that. But Crazy Sue is a whole other kind of crazy.
i think you made a good move,,, only suggestion would be to have added a laugh and a shake of the head as you were walking away,,,sometimes i am "hatefull" i suppose,, lol
I think I would have felt better if I had managed a laugh and a head shake. I will aim for that the next time -- which will probably be sooner than later.
Walking away might be safest. I think there is no reason for one adult yelling at another in the workplace, unless they are yelling, "Fire!"
"Why do you demand that no one respect you?!"
That is what I would have thought of saying after I walked away trying to think of what I should have said.
Of course you did right. But then, Glnrose was almost right. Maybe next time, shoot for almost right.
Again, I emphasize that you did right. Walk away and hiss on private, or on your blog. And I'm sorry that you had to suffer this, especially so early in the year.
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