Rapscallion
07-22-2006, 04:31 PM
A girl at work, let's call her E, usually works in the chiller doing the checking (incoming goods going on shelves) on a Monday. She didn't realise that the person she had been working with continuously on a Monday was in another department and had been replaced by me. Well, she realised when I pointed this out in passing.
She gave me the strangest look at one point.
Of late, this girl has been grouchy, and both I and another colleague have mentioned that she's been grouchy with us. She jokes and laughs with others, but doesn't seem to have any tolerance for me. I've given her rides home on a number of occasions, and she's polite enough when that happens (the alternative is public transport, which sucks in comparison. She's also polite enough in groups at work, but I've noticed her watching me warily at times, or just staring in passing. I have good enough peripheral vision to see this quite easily.
I have a nasty feeling that I creep her out some way. Truth to tell, this is the girl I talked about last year when my glands went into overdrive about her, but I'm happily over that. I'll admit that I'm more guarded around here than I am with other people as a result of that. I figured the chances were that she'd picked up on some of that and was worried about me.
Anyway, come Monday, she calls in. I assumed she had pulled a sickie for either a genuine reason or to avoid me. Hey, I can live with it, but we had to shuffle people around at the last moment to get the work done.
I resolved to tell the checking coordinator some of the above tale - many elements missing - to suggest to her that maybe she avoids having us in there together on a Monday if possible. Just sort of as a general guide to keeping E happy. So far, so bad, but if I can help us live together, that's fine and easy to do.
If I've been giving off mixed signals, she has as well - one day she was showing me something about packing completely out of the blue, and I related the tale to Ree who agreed with me that it was along the lines of maybe being interested in me. I found out an hour or two later that she had actually shacked up with another chap at work. If I'm confusing her, she's confusing me, so I'm trying to ignore it all.
Let's cut to the end of this week. The rota came out, and I was down for sales on Monday instead of my usual picking routine. Fine - meant I didn't have to approach the picking coordinator about this for a while. On Friday, the picking coordinator came to me and told me that she needed me in the fridge to check orders on Monday - scheduling was all to pot.
I started to explain that it wasn't such a good idea and that I had a feeling that I creeped E out, and maybe that was why she had pulled a sickie. The picking coordinator poo-poo'd the idea, saying it wasn't a sickie, and that I was now down for doing the chilled checking.
Today, I mentioned this to the other guy she's been grouchy with. He agreed that it could have been that she was trying to keep away from me, but he then added that saying that she'd possibly just told personnel that she'd been up to four in the morning with her terminally ill father (cancer) to keep away from me. He genuinely believes she could have done it, but I was trying to crawl into the ground, what with not having known that particular detail. Turns out he's been ill some while, so Monday may not have been deliberate, or it could have been a handy excuse.
What makes it worse is that I had a scare recently (doctors cleared me, so no real worry, folks), and I told her that there may be something seriously wrong with me. She also knows now that I'm cleared of the nasties.
Bugger.
The plan of action for me is not to tell her that the rota changed, since we don't want to be short-handed. I wouldn't want to short-hand us again in the holiday season by tempting another coincidence.
I still feel like a real shit for thinking it was just avoiding me.
Rapscallion
She gave me the strangest look at one point.
Of late, this girl has been grouchy, and both I and another colleague have mentioned that she's been grouchy with us. She jokes and laughs with others, but doesn't seem to have any tolerance for me. I've given her rides home on a number of occasions, and she's polite enough when that happens (the alternative is public transport, which sucks in comparison. She's also polite enough in groups at work, but I've noticed her watching me warily at times, or just staring in passing. I have good enough peripheral vision to see this quite easily.
I have a nasty feeling that I creep her out some way. Truth to tell, this is the girl I talked about last year when my glands went into overdrive about her, but I'm happily over that. I'll admit that I'm more guarded around here than I am with other people as a result of that. I figured the chances were that she'd picked up on some of that and was worried about me.
Anyway, come Monday, she calls in. I assumed she had pulled a sickie for either a genuine reason or to avoid me. Hey, I can live with it, but we had to shuffle people around at the last moment to get the work done.
I resolved to tell the checking coordinator some of the above tale - many elements missing - to suggest to her that maybe she avoids having us in there together on a Monday if possible. Just sort of as a general guide to keeping E happy. So far, so bad, but if I can help us live together, that's fine and easy to do.
If I've been giving off mixed signals, she has as well - one day she was showing me something about packing completely out of the blue, and I related the tale to Ree who agreed with me that it was along the lines of maybe being interested in me. I found out an hour or two later that she had actually shacked up with another chap at work. If I'm confusing her, she's confusing me, so I'm trying to ignore it all.
Let's cut to the end of this week. The rota came out, and I was down for sales on Monday instead of my usual picking routine. Fine - meant I didn't have to approach the picking coordinator about this for a while. On Friday, the picking coordinator came to me and told me that she needed me in the fridge to check orders on Monday - scheduling was all to pot.
I started to explain that it wasn't such a good idea and that I had a feeling that I creeped E out, and maybe that was why she had pulled a sickie. The picking coordinator poo-poo'd the idea, saying it wasn't a sickie, and that I was now down for doing the chilled checking.
Today, I mentioned this to the other guy she's been grouchy with. He agreed that it could have been that she was trying to keep away from me, but he then added that saying that she'd possibly just told personnel that she'd been up to four in the morning with her terminally ill father (cancer) to keep away from me. He genuinely believes she could have done it, but I was trying to crawl into the ground, what with not having known that particular detail. Turns out he's been ill some while, so Monday may not have been deliberate, or it could have been a handy excuse.
What makes it worse is that I had a scare recently (doctors cleared me, so no real worry, folks), and I told her that there may be something seriously wrong with me. She also knows now that I'm cleared of the nasties.
Bugger.
The plan of action for me is not to tell her that the rota changed, since we don't want to be short-handed. I wouldn't want to short-hand us again in the holiday season by tempting another coincidence.
I still feel like a real shit for thinking it was just avoiding me.
Rapscallion