February 12, 2009

Waterworks

I'm a crier. And it sucks. I just had to sit through a ... conference, I guess, would be the word, with my bosses and pretend that I wasn't crying because I didn't want to be and by all rights, I shouldn't have been.

This 'conference' was about my answer to a question my boss asked me yesterday. Well, I thought he was asking me, apparently he was asking anyone in earshot who might know something about the situation. One of our clients wanted something corrected, and it was something I didn't know anything about. When he asked what was going on, I apparently said something that was too loud, was in a negative tone and was 'counterproductive'. Since he apparently wasn't asking me (though I'm fairly sure he was since I answered the phone when the client called, dealt with it the most, and he was looking directly at me when he asked), perhaps I should have just sat there and said nothing. I'm sure that would have gone over much better.

So today, when he called me in the conference room and told me what we were going to talk about, for some unknown reason, I start to cry. Now, this incident doesn't particularly upset me to the point that I should cry. I'm mad that he thinks what I said was unreasonable and didn't say anything about at the time; I think situations should be dealt with as they come, not left to simmer and change in someones mind until they've decided what happened instead of clearly remembering it. Also, I don't have a clear memory of the incident, whereas if he had said something yesterday, I would have been able to explain or at least know for sure what I said. But I digress, I can't logically see anything about this situation that should make me cry. They didn't put me on probation, I'm in no danger of losing my job, he and my other boss weren't really even mad. I think he was just concerned that at some point my frustration would spill out on a client or another employee who wouldn't be so understanding (and I'll admit that while it might touch another employee, I would never be anything but polite to a client, even if I was pissed). Over-concerned might be a better term than concerned. It bothers me that he thinks I might be rude to a client, but that's not something to cry over. It bothers me that they've never pulled the receptionist for this kind of conversation no matter how unprofessional she is to people on the phone. It bothers me that he could easily have dealt with this whole thing himself if he had picked up the phone when I told him he had a call rather than leaving the client on hold so long that she hung up. Yet none of these things is worth crying over. Please understand that I wasn't bawling. Tears gathered in my eyes and a few ran down my face despite my best attempts to blink them away. Yet I couldn't even speak my peace because my voice trembled too much when I tried, and hearing that made me want to cry more.

I didn't use to be like this. In elementary school, I tumbled down a flight of twelve tile and concrete stairs and never shed a tear. In middle school my heart was broken by the love of my life, Patrick, when he said he didn't like me back and I didn't cry until I was home and in bed for the night. Nobody even thought I was upset. Then I hit high school and ever since then I have had no control over my tear ducts. The slightest thing happens and I tear up. I can hit my foot on the pet gate and I'm crying like a baby. Michael and I are joking around and all of a sudden it's not funny to me anymore and I'm crying like he's told me he wants a divorce. What is wrong with me? I could understand it through my teenage years, with puberty and hormones going crazy, but I'm an adult now, and should be well past that. Molehills should like like molehills, not mountains. And mountains shouldn't look like they're insurmountable. They should just look like a challenge, like it's always been. Or, like it was before, like it would be to the person I think of myself as.

But here we go again, I just saw one of my bosses walk by, and I thought he might say something, so I started to tear up. He didn't stop, and I was able to dismiss it, but damn I wish I could stop this.