Chapter 59: Unrequited Love

I got to work with TDH last night. I hadn’t done it in so long I almost forgot how much I enjoy it. As expected Twitch told him about me turning in my two weeks notice, so when I walked into the classroom TDH stuck out his finger and said, “You little punk.” I smiled a little because I can’t help but smile when I am looking at him and nodded a little, “Oh I see he told you,” then I looked around the room of seven trainees, our manager, and the new guy (who by the way I met the day before and then he came up and introduced himself to me again and I had to tell him we met, but I was in civilian clothes at the time), and told TDH that we would talk later.
His class was one of the worst ones I’ve been in the lab with (With the exception of Parsley, I don’t know if I ever mentioned her I’ll have to backtrack and find out). It wasn’t TDH it was his trainees. They were annoying the bee gee bees out of me, and they were doing the same to TDH. All I could hope and pray was that the evening class would be better. I kept giving TDH sympathetic looks when I wasn’t laughing too much to even look at him. I suppose I could have helped him a little more in taking control of the group in the lab, but hey, I’m quitting.
We weren’t able to talk during the break because our manager had him working with the new guy the whole time. I was a bit peeved, but I knew I got to work the rest of the night with only TDH and we always have next Tuesday before I officially leave. I started my class, not off to a rough start but it didn’t take long until I located some problem trainees. It all started when they saw that we don’t accept Cashier’s checks and Money Orders. Luckily I had a banker in the room and she explained away why before I even had a chance to, I was really very grateful for that.
During break TDH was talking to me about his résumé and said, “Where’s yours I want to see.” I just gave him a funny look and told him I didn’t have it with me. He asked why not and I told him because first I wasn’t applying for anything within the company so why would I have it with my work stuff, and secondly I didn’t have it in my “little man thing” I said as I pointed to his little briefcase/folder thingy.
Time finally came to go to the lab, and it was organized at first and then all mayhem broke lose. It was like we had two separate classes going on, I was teaching in the front and TDH is the back. At one point he came up to me and quietly said that this class was out of control, he had a smile on his face, and I simply said that I knew. I wasn’t going to try to bring it back to order. He didn’t really seem to mind and it wasn’t an accusation, just an observation. So we continued the way that we did, but I don’t think he or I will make that same mistake again…granted I only teach one more time (today). There was one lady in the class who rubbed us both the wrong way, and she wasn’t doing anything on register. Some people had to pair up, and she did, but then made her partner do everything. So I walked up and asked them if they are switching it up so both got experience and she said something like, “well, I’m not sure if I am going to stick with this.” My initial reaction was relief, “Oh good, then just make this easier on us and quit,” I thought to myself. I also thought, “Regardless, if you want it to still be your choice you need to get your ass on the register and show us that you can actually operate it, or then the decision making isn’t going to involve you anymore, you’ll just fail”. Luckily TDH stepped in and had a chat with her and pretty much tried to talk her into leaving too, but she’s a money sucker I think and was trying to drag training out to the bitter end. Secretly I sat at the front of the room hoping she would fail the test, and wondering if I should fail her for bad attitude irregardless, because she did not give me the respect that I as her trainer deserved and because of that I wanted to show her what kind of power I possessed.
At the end of class TDH was making everyone pack up the fake groceries into the Tupperware containers and he told them that sometimes you can’t fit the salads into the containers and I told everyone that I could do it. Just to be a bit prideful and TDH nodded and said, “Yes, that’s your one strong point.” I frowned and asked if I really only had one strong point.
After class was done and everyone was gone TDH and I talked about this woman and how she rubbed us the wrong way. He finally got to tell me what he was talking to her about (trying to get her to leave) but she said something like, “Well if you guys would just tell me right now” who knows what the hell that means. She’s a quitter; she proved that with her attitude, if she passes on to the store she’s likely to be gone by Christmas. She’s not a long term commitment individual, she’ll make one mistake and someone will point it out and she’ll complain about how hard it is (because this is her third job) to keep it separate from the other job and finally quit, wasting all the company’s training money. She just bugged me. Anyway, so TDH came in with a huge stack of papers and dropped them on a table and said, “Are you ready to begin your administrative work?” He also had two staplers in hand; I consider it our first date, just kidding! I laughed and told him I had some other things to do first (like finish up with the first task of putting everything away from class and doing the paper work for that). Then I asked if we were going to be getting out before 11 tonight. He just laughed, but I was half serious, somehow when we work together it takes forever for us to actually get out of there. I don’t mind, but if it were anyone else I’d be a little bit bugged. So we start walking to the back office and I take a shortcut through one of the rooms that connects the hallways and TDH says something about going through the gas chamber. I was intrigued so I asked him about it. He said that sometimes he liked to bring his trainees through that room and then close the door and say something about welcome to the gas chamber! I laughed a little but then I asked if he’d ever been to the holocaust museum and he said ‘no’ to which I started to tell him how I went there last week and it is super creepy, but my intention was to say that maybe he should so that he’d have a little more compassion for if any of his trainees were Jewish…but I forgot to mention that part and remembered about two hours later while I was talking to Ducky about something completely unrelated. Either way I’m sure bringing up the Holocaust Museum may have sparked something about decorum.
He asked me how many jobs I applied for and I told him only one. He seemed surprised and I said, “I hadn’t really been looking” and he asked where I heard about it and I told him the newspaper and he said, “How did you find a job in the newspaper if you weren’t looking?” and I said, “My mom, she’s never been all too happy with my career choice, so every once in a while she tells me about jobs she sees.”
We finished up our paper work and he was telling me how he applied for another position within the company and how he had gone to our manager to help because out of all the people he lived with he was the one who knew the most about résumés and cover letters and I told him that it wasn’t good to be the smartest person in the house, he had no where to go but down. He laughed, but then went on to tell me that our manager didn’t have a problem with his résumé but fixed up his cover letter. He showed me both and I had to agree that our manager helped that little piece of paper out a lot. I sat there and said, “its good she humbled you, you need to be humbled sometimes.”
He also told me how he had written her a ‘thank you’ note for helping him and he was going to put it on her desk but he said he was afraid to leave it there because she might panic and think it was his two weeks. Before he left to go put it there I told him he should put a post-it note on it saying, “This is not my two weeks notice” he laughed and started to walk away and then he came back laughing and said that he thought he was going to do that. I hope he did, if everyone in the office can just make jokes about me quitting I’d be much happier.
Then it was time to get working on stapling the tests that TDH had made copies of. I started out with one stapler but it didn’t work too well, it would either get stuck and I’d have to fight with it a little or it would put double staples in. TDH said that his was working fine so I grabbed his and gave him mine and started to staple again. That’s when I decided that both staplers sucked and it wouldn’t hurt the company to invest in some good ones. My new stapler jammed and I was opening it to fix it and TDH was opening his to give me staples because he though I ran out. I told him it was just jammed, but sarcastically added that his action was so sweet. At one point he mentioned that the room was really bright that morning, I look around the windowless room and then up at the florescent lights kind of confused and then I said, “Why, because you had a hangover?” He just laughed a little which gave me my answer.
When we were done with that he mentioned that he had to write his store visits e-mail. I asked him if he wanted me to type it for him, which I was sure that he did and that’s why he mentioned it. I told him it would help him to go faster. So we sat down and I signed on to the computer and then started to log him into his e-mail and scooted the keyboard over for him to enter his password, which, I didn’t seem uncomfortable in watching what it was. Then I made a remark about how his password was just slightly different than mine (because he showed me a good way to do the passwords because we always have to change them and run out of ideas) and I said, “I wonder where I go that from? Then we started on the e-mail and he had trouble finding his words at first and I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought this would go faster this way, apparently it’s more than just your typing.” On more than one occasion I mentioned that I should be nicer. I can’t help it; he just brings it out of me. I kept typing exactly what he was saying so when he looked up he just laughed, the e-mail was full of ‘ums’. I quickly erased it and we got started. At one point when he was breaking down his hours by the day he said, “.50 hours on administrative work, mainly e-mail.” To which I mumbled, “That’s believable” and he went into a whole diatribe about how he spells better when he types because his fingers find a rhythm. Then I laughed, “I wasn’t talking about your spelling.” It didn’t take him very long to realize I was calling him a slow typer. Then he defends himself with, “I can type about 45 words per minute,” and I couldn’t help but laugh (I can type between 70-80 words per minute). He got more defensive and said, “On a good day I can type around 50” So he must have felt challenged and told me to give him a sentence to write so I said, “The ubiquitous,” and he cut me off with a, “no! What!? Give me something I can spell!” To which I just shrugged my shoulders, after that I couldn’t think of anything, so I just talked and he typed….very slowly. He finally gave up and said he could type better if he knew what to type. He’s so cute.
We finally finish up and go back to get our stuff and its five after ten. I laughed and said, “Oh ten o’clock that’s not too bad,” but I was being sarcastic. Not that it matters, as I said before I don’t mind working late with him. We start walking out to our cars and we’re just making small talk, then we had to separate because we were parked on opposite ends of the parking lot and when he was far enough away where I couldn’t easily kick him or catch up to kick him he yelled, “You suck!” which wasn’t what I was expecting, maybe a, “have a good night” or a “see you next week”. So I just said thank you and told him that he sucked too. Have I ever mentioned that I’m in love with him?
So my recap for the day, even though the trainees were annoying, I had a really good day at work yesterday.