Tuesday, February 17, 2009

You Can't Win Them All

I was talking to a fellow co-worker today about one of our custodians at work. This lady is just not a happy woman. She walks around with a perpetual frown and I've only noticed her smile and laugh at one or two people. She hates me. No, I'm not exaggerating...she HATES me. I don't know why...I don't know what I did to her. I spent the last two years trying to be nice to her. I thought I would win her over with my kindness. I always went out of my way to say good morning and smile at her...didn't work.

This might bother me more if she didn't seem to hate the majority of teachers at the school. (Oddly enough, she likes one of the coaches. I've asked him what his secret is, but haven't figured out the key to his success yet.) This woman is fairly grouchy to everyone she comes into contact with.

She has a granddaughter that tags along with her a lot while she is at work. I've been super nice to this girl for 3 years now (and she's not the easiest girl to deal with) and it doesn't seem to get me anywhere with her grandmother. In fact, this lady had the nerve to tell me that I had never liked her granddaughter and that I was treating her bad...What? I even gave her granddaughter a Christmas gift one year. Now I'm just avoiding them both because it seems to be the best defense at this point. Anything I say is misconstrued and turned around in her mind. I seriously wonder if she's not "touched in the head" as they used to say in the old days.

There's just no pleasing some people.

I've decided that I should add her to my prayer list. I can only imagine how unhappy she must be all the time to walk around looking and acting the way she does. I also need to pray that I won't feel so negative towards her.

Maybe one day we'll be friends...Then again...You Can't Win Them All!

Do you have someone like this in your life?


4 comments:

Clever Elsie said...

Hi! New to your blog here and wondering if I might add you to my blogroll?

Do you have any idea what might be going on in this woman's life that is making her so unhappy? Obviously it's not personal if she treats everyone else the same way, so something must be going on with her, either some private struggle at home or maybe chronic physical pain or a history of bitter disappointments. Really it could be anything. At some point, though, you have to resign yourself to the fact that this is the way she is. That doesn't mean you can't be pleasant when you see her, but that old adage about leading a horse to water is in effect here; she has to be receptive to the goodwill you're offering.

Anyway, sorry you're going through this! It really is no fun to have a coworker like this! I don't think such people realize how much misery they spread around through their own bad attitudes.

Gifts of Nature said...

@Clever Elsie - Glad to have you here! Please add me, I would love that and will be checking out your blog as well. I have another blog called Princess Elsie Stories (which, sadly, I need to write another story for, but just can't find the time).

I teach at the school and she is the head custodian. I have no idea why she is like this; she's been like this for the last 4 years that I've worked there with her. I spent 3 years smiling and saying "hi", but I've pretty much given up after she yelled at me several weeks ago. Now I'm onto prayer and staying out of her way. Like I said, if she didn't treat almost everyone that way, I'd probably be offended.

Vito and Gina said...

I imagine I would be extremely unhappy if I was a school custodian too. It sounds like a very depressing existence...

Gifts of Nature said...

@Gina - True dat!