This week I was asked to help with a training class at work. The training department wanted to pull a few of us who are out on the floor and who know what we're doing and are good at our job to come in and help answer questions while the trainees are working on all their practice files. I volunteered (at my manager's suggestion). It's been mostly boring, and we all know how much I hate to be bored at work. It's probably the thing I hate most. Besides people who treat roundabouts like four-way stops. Or Dr. Pepper Ten.
Anywho, Monday morning I walked in and decided to sit at one of the desks at the back of the room thus making it easier to see when people raised their hands and needed help. I thought this was a brilliant plan. And it mostly was. Except I chose to sit by one of the two nut jobs in the class without knowing it and was stuck. Because, I mean, come on. How rude would it be to suddenly get up and change seats for no apparant reason after spending all day sitting next to someone? So I just told myself to smile and nod and hope he didn't have a complete mental breakdown and snap on me. I quickly discovered he has the tendancy of getting VERY frustrated VERY quickly when faced with something he doesn't understand. It does no good to try and remind him that this is something new and he's obviously going to have a learning curve. His response, "I didn't even want to be here in the first place! I was volun-TOLD I had to be here after telling my manager three different times I didn't want to do re-eval...*grumble* *grumble* *grumble*..."
Whenever I tried to explain something to him, or try to help him with his file, he would sigh heavily and dramatically, put his head in his hands, and tell me, "Nevermind. You don't understand what I'm asking." At which point I would look at one of the other processors that was there helping and get them to come over and see if THEY could help and understand him. Oiy. Luckily he graduated from training today and won't be coming back! This morning, however, he came in with a doosey (dewsy? dousey?)...a whopper of a tale that just made me want to laugh, but I was afraid to--not knowing what he would do to me as his emotions tend to balance on a VERY tiny wire.
The story was this: last night his roommate's girlfriend (who was sleeping over) had a nightmare and in her half-asleep (and still-intoxicated) stupor picked up her cellphone and called the police. The police showed up and angry dude (that's what I call him) was woken up suddenly from a sound sleep by an officer shining a maglite in his face. (They were checking the house after receiving the call alerting them to a potential crime taking place which was really just a dream. Are you keeping up?) In reflex to being woken up so suddenly, and unexpectedly, angry guy gets out of bed, grabs his three-foot sword that he has leaning up against the wall by his bed, and goes to lunge at the officer.
Yeah. That's right. Angry dude is one of those crazy medieval guys who has swords and knows how to use them. Who saw that one coming??
According to him, his fiance (who I guess was in bed with him?) said something (I don't know what, and I didn't ask), stopping him before he actually DID run the officer through with his sword. So that's good.
I just...
What do you say when someone tells you a story like that and it's something that really happened?! I had no response except in my head I thought, "Angry dude should NOT have access to medieval weaponry. That's just not good for anyone's health and safety."
Two more days (hopefully everyone will be graduated and done with their practice files by Friday) and I can go back to my nice, quiet cubicle where the only people who have swords are the hero's in my audio books--men who SHOULD have swords.
No comments:
Post a Comment