Friday, January 19, 2007

pass the chips.

This week's prompt for Sunday Scribblings is "Fantasy". As most(of the three of you) know, I work in the restaurant business. This pretty much means that for the most part I am surrounded by women. Seems like a good thing you would think and sometimes it is. It is every man's fantasy you would think and at times I had thought so to. As the old saying goes, "women, you can't live with em, can't live without em."

This 'fantasy' comes with a price however which I can sum up pretty well in one word.....

DRAMA!

OMG, the amount of drama that comes up around the work place is quite unbeleivable. On any given day at least one of them is just flat out bitchy. On any given day at least one of them is just super duper sensitive and ready to cry at the drop of a hat. As "BD's law" would have it, the bitchy one of the day(B.O.D) and the sensitive one of the day(S.O.D) will ALWAYS cross paths as often as possible.

Murphy ain't got chit on me......

More often than not there are two or three (B.O.Ds) and two or three (S.O.Ds). I can almost see them when I arrive dividing themselves into teams like some estrogen laced inner city survivor episode.

They have this amazing ability to take the smallest thing and turn it into a huge production.


It starts with someone forgetting to butter the toast.

It starts with someone putting a fork in the slot where the spoons are supposed to go.

It would be okay if it just ended there, but oh no!!!! Three weeks later the fork offender will ask the fork offendee to hand them a spoon and it all starts all over again.

"well if you would put the damned forks where they are supposed to go I could do that!"

Before you know it CNN, Fox news, and CBS vans are sprinkled along the parking lot to cover the latest riots in town.

Before you know it they are showing a picture of waitress "a" being led away in handcuffs. She turns back towards the camera and shouts,

"Well clearly she did that on purpose JUST to get on my nerves and piss me off,,,,,,,,she should have been fired and I wouldn't have had to try and throw a stick of butter at her!"

The reporter would then ask "but ma'am, witnesses say that you stabbed her 18 times in the neck. What do you have to say about these accusations?"

"I was reaching for a spoon, to fling the butter at her you know, and there it was, a fork where the spoon should have been! I just snapped. Serves her right! It's called Karma baby!"

I have more patience than most people. Hell I have a LOT more patience than most people. I can let things go in one ear and out of the other with the very best of them. Occasionally though I have enough. This is where my imagination usually takes over.

I envision Tattoo from that old show fantasy island standing in front of me. There is no plane coming to get me but he still does "da plain da plan" and points to the sky because let's face it, a 40 year old 'short person' doing this will never NOT be funny.

Suddenly I find myself in my office. To the naked eye my 'office' would be better described as a closet. A VERY small closet in fact. It doesn't have any windows.

It doesn't have a view, unless the stacks of paperwork and the wires poking out of the back of the printer constitute 'a view'. To the naked eye my office has a door. A simple door with a lock on it.

To me however, that door is like a force field. To me that lock is a trigger I can push to activate the E.D.S(Estrogen defense system). Any amount of mindless bitchery or whinery causes the E.d.S to immediately shoot out a transportation ray where the offender is whisked away to another world, forced to wear ugly shoes, watch ESPN, and where the toilet seats DON'T go down.

Maxwell smart used to have his "cone of silence". I have my 'cone of testosterone'.

Thankfully, I only need to retreat to my fantasy land occasionally and usually for only 10 minutes or so. Ahhhhh but it is a GREAT 10 minutes!

And people wonder why I spend all day Sunday vegged out in front of the television or in a sports bar watching football.

Hrrrmph!!!!!

Women! Can't live with em...........................Pass the chips.


For more Sunday Scribblings please click here.


BD

21 comments:

mist1 said...

I can't live with women either. Or men for that matter. And actually, I'm pretty sick of this guinea pig too.

Anonymous said...

oh dear... that was either very brave or very stupid. i sure hoped you checked to make sure you had back up before posting that!if mist, chick or any of the other talented and brilliant (note the correct spelling) female readers here just happen to be having a b.o.d. day you could be in for quite an enlightening rebutal. as much as i love you if it comes down to it we girls will stick together and i sure would miss you. meanwhile i'm gonna grab a beer, pop some corn and prepare to enjoy the show. LOL :-) heather

none said...

I dislike women who use "PMS" as an excuse to be a bitch. Get some self control and get over it.

Workplace drama is fairly universal though...and I hate it. I suppose the only way to avoid it is to work for myself in a one person business, but knowing me, I'd be creating drama for myself.

I'm quite the downer today - you'll have to excuse me...it's that time of the month.

Ha ha ha ha.

fringes said...

I love your workplace stories! Are you coming back to my blog? I've seen you everywhere but the fringe. Did I piss you off, too?

briliantdonkey said...

Mist: Probably don't want to go visit guinea pigblog.com,,,,,he has been talking about you too apparently.

Heather:(enter mocking voice here) "note the correct spelling" "note the correct spelling" lol jk. Seriously, Chick and Mist don't scare me. Not as long as I have a 1200 mile or so head start at least. Chick and Mist working together over a long period of time ,,,,,,,,now that could scare me.....

Bella:Good to see you again. Agreed that annoys the hell out of me at times as well. Drama is no doubt universal. I have always said that every restaurant I have ever worked in occasionally runs out of everything at some point. The exception to the rule as they say is drama. I don't think you will ever hear the term "86 drama" uttered in a restaurant. In fact I think most could run a daily special on it.

Fringes: I have been there, mostly lurking as of late though. Mark this date on your calender cause before you know it you are sure to be saying 'dayum now why did I go and get him commenting again, doesn't he EVER shut up?" You won't be the first.

BD

Anonymous said...

"Bitch had it coming!" would make a great day time talk show.

Inconsequential said...

I work in an all male enviroment....they get PMS too...
Well, they act like it most of the time, and seem to take it in turns, hold long grudges over trivial things etc etc...so I guess I relate to this post, but more as a purgatory type thing rather than fantasy...

btw loved the image of the girl being carted off in cuffs :)
(that's a different fantasy I know....)

Anonymous said...

I KNOW you know that the drama that plays out everyday at work is an equal opportunity phenom! Alas, haughty male bartenders, princess servers, pouty teenage boys and girls at the host stand, stressed out male and female managers, anyone on a double who closes--can't work with 'em, can't work without 'em.

Chris said...

I have about 30 employees in my Knoxville office. One is male. Of the remaining women...1/2 are just out of college and 1/2 are 45 or older.

You should just SEE the battles over the thermostats.....


Have a great weekend!
Chris
My Blog

Writer Bug said...

This is funny, though I feel it's my duty to say that men bring their own drama to the workplace, it's just different than women's drama. For instance, the men in my office tend to be much worse "team players" than the women. So difficulties are inherent to all people!

DJPare said...

I used to work in hotels - I feel your pain!
Nice post!
We both had Tattoo in mind...

JHS said...

You think you've got problems? I work with a bunch of LAWYERS. 'Nuff said.

Anonymous said...

oh bd, if it's the chick it wouldn't be a bus now would it? a monster truck maybe..... ya know it's all in good fun though right? ;-)

briliantdonkey said...

Inc,Restaurant gal,Bug:

Agreed men have the same problem. I don't think it is any where nearly on the same level or nearly as often though. Then again, I am more than willing to admit perhaps that is only because I am a man and blind to it.

BD

briliantdonkey said...

Chris: I feel your pain. I only have about 10 split pretty much along the same lines and deal with that very same problem.

DJ: Welcome, good to see you again. I am not sure how fantasy Island couldn't pop into your mind for a second with that prompt. Great job with your post on it.

Janie,,,,in the game of one upmanship I suppose you would have to win with that one. At least until someone comes along that works with all women lawyers I suppose. Just kidding.......sort of.

Heather: Excellent point re:chick and monster trucks. As for 'all in good fun' but of course, no worries.

BD

Unknown said...

This 'cone of testosterone' - is it patented? You could make a fortune and then leave all the miserable BOD's and SOD's to their own devices!

The word verification says - 'hekknob'....very apt, heh!

twilightspider said...

This is hilarious! Although I am a girl and I do (on occasion) have my BOD days, I have to agree with you - chicks just love drama. That's why I do what you do and retreat to sports bars and my own couch!

Michael Thomas said...

I'll take the plunge here and join you in saying females have more drama than the "true" drama queens. I work in construction, so have seen a workplace without women. No gossip, no whining, no tears. Bitching - yeah, goes without saying. But the one sure way to cause calamity in a well oiled machine is to throw three women into the mix. That ensures - Jealousy, Gossip, back stabbing, ganging up, tears, fits, and an instant censor descending on the building, where you can no longer joke about anything lest you offend and subject yourself and your firm (the one that created the problem in the first place) to a lawsuit. I'll absolutely throw down the gloves for any one whose blinders will allow them to say different. >>sidling out back door to go graffiti-proof, egg-proof, bomb proof, chemical attack proof, and fem proof my blog before news of this get out.<<<<<

christine said...

Think of it as bootcamp for when you get married and have 3 daughters. By then,nothing would faze you!

I went from a female-dominated work environment to a male-dominated one and I have to admit, there's a world of difference. I went from too much drama to too much ego.

Men, can't live with 'em,,, hey, gimme back those chips.

gautami tripathy said...

I feel the same way about men! Drama? What Drama?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, to be the estrogenetically challenged one can be a bear. And many men would take much longer than ten minutes to come out of the closet in that situation.