but I need to write about it because it’s just so incredibly dumb that I can’t help but share it.
So yesterday, it was Rememberance Day in Canada. That’s Veteran’s Day to all you Americans. I had the day off and was out and about running errands. My girlfriend asked me to bring her lunch so I did. I stayed a little to visit as well.
While there, one of the other staff who works there came by and proceeded to jump on one of the computers in the office that was already occupied and in use. If this was a library, or another office where everybody works on a computer this wouldn’t be a big deal, but there are two distinctly different groups that work together in this organization. Those who work in the office with a computer (and are authorized to do so), and those who do not (and technically are not authorized). I asked her if she was checking Facebook and she reluctantly said yes.
I mentioned that she probably shouldn’t be doing that on that computer. I didn’t go into the reasons, but they are, in no particular order, because she has not been assigned to use that computer, so it’s not hers to check Facebook on; The computer contains a vast quantity of private customer data so she’s accessing a computer that she is not authorized to access (I think there is a privacy commision issure there); she’s disrupting the person who is supposed to be doing work on that computer and actually preventing her from doing actual work (apparently there was even an empty computer available on the other side of the room). And by surfing the web (Facebook or otherwise) one makes it easier for a system to become compromised online.
Just a few minor little things. I didn’t make a big deal of it beyond mentioning that she probably shouldn’t be doing it.
Apparently she took it as quite the attack. I received a message from her on Facebook this afternoon in my Inbox that goes as follows…
“Hey. I really don’t mean this to be rude cause i’m actually a really nice person and thought you were too. but the comment you made at the <insert business name here> office the other day was really uncalled for. <insert person’s name she was disrupting> is my friend and more than that, she’s a big girl and speak for herself. if she doesn’t want me on her computer, trust me, she’ll speak up. and really, i’m not sure how you think it was any of your business to say anything. you’ve never worked there. and if the comment was for <my girlfriend>’s benefit, then again, she’s a big girl and i know she’ll make any comment she feels necessary. she hasn’t held back in the past.”
She’s free to voice her opinion. I wasn’t even mad about what she said. What I was and still am angry about is the fact that I’m now blocked and cannot respond to her. She appears to have blocked my girlfriend and also the lady she was disrupting as well, effectively cutting off all opportunities for me to reply to her.
I may not be mad about it, but I do have a response to it which you’re now going to have the pleasure of reading through…
The part about having my girlfriend or the other lady speak up? Yeah, as the guy who has to listen to what happens to my girlfriend and other staff people as a result of the bullshit that people like this person pull I would say that I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on in the office - and that pretty much makes it my business. In this case, it’s easier for the people in the office to let her take care of her bullshit and go away then it is to call her on her bullshit and consequently have to deal with her being upset and holding a grudge for the next 2 months… because I’ve heard this sorta shit happens in that office.
The comment wasn’t so much for my girlfriend’s benefit as it was for her boss’s benefit. The guy is pretty much computer illiterate and luckily for her, he wasn’t in the room. In my job, I deal with controlled goods and protected information on a daily basis - like the kind of stuff that if you don’t be really careful with someone’s going to do jailtime. Privacy act stuff is just a no-brainer.
I especially like the part where she implies that she thought I was a good person. I’m pretty sure that’s not the way to win friends and influence people. Making it a personal attack is quite childish and immature. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be childish and immature back to her if given the opportunity, but I was fully prepared to take the moral high-road had she given me the opportunity to respond to her. Besides, I’m pretty sure that by calling me a bad person, she’s being hypocritical anyway.
But she didn’t take the high-road so I won’t either. She’s a psycho hose-beast who needs to get back on her medication and graduate to real life from highschool/the soap opera she lives in. I can see why she was let go later that day (or around that time frame). Oh, yeah, and I’m pretty sure that she eats gerbils.