A Gift

I've learned that I have a gift.

That gift is that I am an amazing judge of character...because I am able to analyze peoples' mannerisms. I don't know where I got this from - people have just inherently interested me from day one. I can tell all of you which idiosyncrasies you have. I can probably imitate your walks. I can imitate your speech, or how you deliver/pronounce some words. This doesn't come from a malicious approach at all, although some people take it that way. I find these differences endearing. To me, it just means that I understand you better.

Having this gift means that I can also tell when people are lying, or are protecting their ego, etc. I guess I should have been some sort of counselor/psychiatrist/behaviorist, but truthfully, when it comes to strangers, I don't give a shit about why they are upset or depressed. When it comes to people that I care about, it's a completely different story. I look at each person as a challenge. I want to get to know everything about them.

Because I have this proficiency, I assume that people can tell when I am being dishonest too.... so I end up feeling way too guilty...and therefore always tell the truth. Could be my Catholic upbringing too, who knows.

Remember my last boss? Couldn't stand the guy. Well, something has come to bite me in the ass again and my guilt has drawn me back in.

The very, very abbreviated story is this:

I was the Office Manager. Sales rep arrives out of the blue and tries to convince me to change from a large postage machine to a smaller machine, within the same original contract terms. I question him about 6 times - why would he do that? The company would be losing money....he kept telling me to my face that they just want to make their customers happy and that money is secondary. Didn't make sense to me at all, but why look a gift horse in the mouth? I told him that I couldn't find any documentation about our existing contract. He said no problem, he would show up the next day with the new paperwork and would take care of everything. The paper I signed said "original contract terms - 60 months". Turns out, he was a bit of a bastard. He started a new term from the day that I signed that contract. I tried to get this resolved for about 5 months before I left that workplace. Couldn't get anywhere, and my boss, as usual, was skeptical about my level of competence. When I quit, I was so happy to have left that one stupid task behind. It was a major thorn in my side.

So fast forward 8 months. I receive an email from my old boss. Turns out, HE couldn't get anywhere with them either.

Really.

Shocking.

So what did he do? He refused to pay the bill. I'm sure you can guess what happened next. Yes....the postage company threatened to sue the organization. Doy. Doy. And Doy. What a blockhead. And when I say blockhead, I really mean childish moron.

So now, he's been inundating me with emails about giving my side of the story, which I have already given him several times....... which I am sure he still doesn't believe. Why am I telling you this story, you ask? Well, I am so driven by doing the "right thing" that I can't just ignore his emails like I really want to. It's not HIS money that will be lost, it's government funding that should go toward high school sports programs. I also feel that if I held my grudge toward him and carried it out with not resolving this problem, it would start to speak volumes about my honesty level*. I ended up sending him my side of the story which he is giving to their lawyer. I hope they win the suit, only because it started with a crooked sales rep. On one hand, I wish I was better at judging his character, but on the other hand, there was no way for me to know that he was going to cheat me.

I was duped, plain and simple.

If I started to question the intentions of everything that anybody said to me, I'd be quite an embittered, cynical person. Can't let one screw-up ruin it for the rest of the lovely, good-hearted people out there. I've witnessed many people become so jaded that they don't realize all of the goodness around them. They are too busy pointing out the crappy things to notice the anything that is positive.

In the words of my wise, late father:

What do you expect from a pig, but a grunt?

Time to move on. Time to let it go. I'm about 90% there.

*Turns out, staff , executive and volunteers assumed that it was a personality conflict between my old boss and I - he must have told them all that to save face. Can't get upset at it because it was the past, and anyone that means anything to me knows the truth. If I hadn't agreed to help resolve this issue, it would just substantiate his story to the others.