There was this hilarious musical comedy from the 1980s, that I just adore. The film is 9 to 5. It’s about three completely different women who befriend each other and have a crazy, comedic, adventure. Violet (Lily Tomlin) has been working at the company for years, and is better than the president, Mr. Hart, but keeps getting passed over for a promotion. Why? Because she’s a woman.
Doralee (Dolly Parton) is the secretary to the pig Mr. Hart. He likes her and has been trying to seduce her. Doralee is true to her man, but that doesn’t stop him from telling everyone that the two are doing it, and giving her the title of the company slut.
And then there is Judy (Jane Fonda). Her husband just left her for his younger secretary, causing her to be thrown out into the workforce, yet she knows zip.
Poor girl
After a girls night of fantasizing about actually killing their boss, the next day Violet thinks she accidentally poisoned him. The rest is hilarious. You should totally check it out.
Besides being an awesome movie, there is another reason why I’m writing about this. There is a character in the film, Roz, who is super annoying. She is a gossip, she is rude to the girls, she is a tattle-tale, etc. A horrible person. And guess what, I had one.
Yep, at my old job I had my own Roz and she drove me crazy too.
Ugh she was horrible to me around, as she was just so urgph. Infuriating! Her name was Wanda. You see Wanda had a superiority complex, where she had to always be in charge and when she was, she micromanaged you. It was horrible.
So the reason we got off on the wrong foot all started with this one night. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was an usher for a theater. It was part of my school and federally funded which meant that we had to rotate positions, and we were picked randomly to ensure no favoritism. So sometimes you were on the main floor, other times balcony, lead, underling-you pretty much did it all.
So one night I was lead and had four other people under me. One of them was Wanda. And Wanda didn’t like that. She didn’t like being “under” someone as she felt that she knew the area and deserved only the highest positions that the work offered.
It’s like get over yourself. A job’s a job and just do it. Stop trying to put on airs and be this hoity-toity person. She was just so aggravating.
So this particular time, I was checking out one of my other people, when I saw a commotion where Wanda was supposed to be at. When I got there I discovered that she had abandoned her post. You see once the show started no one was allowed in until there was a break in the scene. With Wanda gone, people were coming in and disrupting the patrons trying to focus on the show.
I had no idea where she had gone and now had to fill in for her along with apologizing to everyone who was upset at this. I immediately called to my supervisor and the other leads on the walkie-talkie to find out where she had gone. My supervisor was not happy about this and neither was I.
After another 15-20 mins, someone locates Wanda and she comes up and is pissed. I’m like seriously girl? You screwed up deal with it.
She starts yelling at me for causing all this drama when she had to do something important and help out someone in another area. I was upset with her, but calmly asked her “Why didn’t you tell me where you were going? I am your lead. I need to know where people are at all times because they have a job to do. You can’t just leave.”
I mean seriously.
She got all mad and started yelling at me again about how I made a big deal out of nothing and she had “something important to do” with helping out another person.
I was pissed and wanted to yell at her as she had seriously messed up and was YELLING AT ME!! ME??
But I knew it wasn’t the time. Besides:
So I stopped and told her to go and finish up the night. I then decided the best way to handle this, was to go to my supervisor. I told her what had happened, and since Wanda had already worked herself into a tizzy, the best way to handle it would be to tell everyone that they should let their leads know where they are at all times. My supervisor agreed with me and gave a lecture after the show. Wanda knew this lecture was aimed at her and was pissed. When I arrived in the locker room, she was in there talking to her friends. As soon as they saw me they stopped talking and started whispering.
I mean, I’m not stupid I knew they were talking smack about me. And for what? Doing MY JOB! Like you should have been doing. All I could think was, didn’t we leave all this behind? I mean seriously, we are supposed to be adults in college, not acting like silly high school girls getting worked up over nothing.
After that, the workforce was divided. Me or her. Yep, she had that many issues that she felt she had to justify her actions.
But that wasn’t the end of it. She then tried to make any time we worked together hell. She would watch me constantly and leave me dangling if I needed help. She would also watch to see if I made even the slightest mistake, so she could report it to the supervisor.
Now normally I would have taken this girl out.
I would have given it to her good verbal beatdown.
The only thing was I didn’t want to lose my job. You see I was a poor college student. I had grants, scholarships, loans, and worked two jobs to pay for school. I needed to work as much as I could.
In fact, more than not I just prayed we wouldn’t work on the same night:
And if we did work together, I just held my tongue.
But my last day of work (as I was graduating) she was really grating on my nerves. And I told my friends, you know what I don’t care. If she tries something, I’ll take her down as I don’t have to worry about keeping my job. Wanda must have sensed this, as she wisely stayed far, far from me. I might not have won the battle, but I won the war.
After all, I got the best thing. I was finally rid of Wanda and will never have to come into contact with her again.
At least I hope I won’t have to.
For more views into my every day life, go to The Final Chapter
For more music I love, go to Fandom Love
For more of my fav ’80s films, go to Fanning All Over the Place
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