This is a story from when I was young when I first start working part time at this one small bookstore/giftshop.

The lady manager hated my guts simply because she thought I was in a church. It’s weird because I never even mentioned anything about religion. I grew up in a church, but haven’t gone to the church for years at that point, and my view on religion vs non-religion is fairly close to an agnostic than anything…so she based her view of me on assumptions from sources that I have no idea about. But then again, even if I was part of a church, her behavior would still not be justified. Its kind of besides the point, but just a background story to sort of get you the idea about how she draws conclusions without much thought.

I am fairly quiet and fairly easygoing and like to get work done efficiently, and I never had any trouble in other workplaces. While she treated all her other coworkers nicely, telling them jokes, listening to their inputs, and treating them like a friend-she would be incredibly curt, standoffish, and occasionally burst into long angry ridiculously condescending rants throwing in assumptions about my family and personality into the mix. Mind you, I never said anything to purposely make her feel this way (hell, I hardly said anything at all), but it was as if she listened to everything with the intent of twisting it into something to be angry about.

At some point we had paper to wrap some of the ceramic gift products that we sold in the store. The paper was excessively big and hard to use for the products, so another young coworker courteously cut it and folded it into a size that was easier to use. A different older coworker(the manager’s side kick who also liked making big deals out of nothing) made a long note (thinking I was the one who did it) with the gist of it saying, “Don’t cut the paper. We don’t have time to be doing that and it is not necessary. ” Mind you, this store hardly ever had customers, so we have plenty of down time to cut it if one wanted to…

At one point after seeing the note, I mentioned it to the manager when I was alone with her and I made a comment saying, “Is it okay if I cut some of the paper? It’s a bit easier for some of us to use. If some of the other people here don’t want it that way, I can even leave some of it uncut.” I thought my statement was pretty reasonable enough, but she instead went on a angry tirade saying that I don’t try hard enough to comply to what everybody else thinks and my view on the matter is incredibly ridiculous. And she went on and on like a crazy ferocious fire-breathing beast. That is all I can say, because I have never seen anybody get so angry over something so small.

I never mentioned it again, and a few days past and again the other young worker who initially cut the paper did it again for us to use (probably out of boredom with nothing else to do), but this time nobody left a note or seemed to notice.

When it was my shift and I had a customer who bought ceramic items, I wrapped them with the cut paper.

The manager was there at the time and surprisingly made a nice comment by saying, “oh you wrap the items so neatly and quickly!”

And I told her after, “Yes, it’s really easy to wrap it neatly and quickly when the paper is cut.”

She didn’t say anything, but I saw her expression change before walking away.

Yes, it is an INCREDIBLY petty ordeal that didn’t even need to happen in the first place. But man, did it feel good to see her prove my point out of her own mouth after all the ridiculous yelling she did over it.

She kept her temper in check more often after that.