Indignant

An interaction took place today that sparked a few thoughts. Here they are.

Warning: a bit rambly and inconclusive.

Should I just put this warning on all of my entries?

Someone (Woman) came into the studio today and breezed by me to speak to the other person (Man) working with me. This happens a lot. Which doesn't mean it's okay, but also doesn't mean that it bothers me enough to address. It's a bit of an ongoing joke with myself ("Lemme guess, you're here to see [Man]?").

When Woman breezed past me, she clearly was on the verge of bursting with things she'd like to convey to Man. She chose to go on about her job and how her higher-ups (specifically her director) was "not respecting her". And then she went on to say that Director was speaking to her as if she had no idea how to do her job and as if she hadn't gone to college for this and that. Which apparently she had. She then specifically stated that she was being spoken to just like anybody else who worked there. I started to get really irritated, not only because of Woman's pitch / cadence (Woman was not so much conveying as she was whining, and whining is never attractive to me, especially when it's for extended periods of time, without letting the other party say a single word in response. THAT'S disrespectful). And not only because she had fully interrupted a conversation between Man and me that I obviously found more interesting (selfish of me, of course, but still true here). But it was mainly because I started to wonder:

Why is she getting so indignant? This woman is so defensive of her position of knowledge / intellect on her specific subjects (that she went to a special school for) that she has turned desperate to shout it from the rooftops? Regardless of who hears it? Why does everyone matter so much to her in this way? Or maybe it appears that everyone matters so much to her because no one actually means anything to her, and are on the same level as anyone else in her life. (I am reminded of that old bumper sticker from the early 2000's: "I don't discriminate; I hate everyone equally".)

I've gone off the rails. What I mean to say is that this director's understanding of this woman is SO bloody important to her that she is willing to talk to - I'm going to go out on a limb here - anyone about it. And not even in the way that is considered to be a healthy conversation, but in the way that it becomes not a conversation at all and is, in fact, just her barking at a faceless entity with ears. She needs to satisfy that need of having someone hear her, even if only to feel as if she has been heard, and even if the other party is to be completely disrespected by way of being used. A person becomes a tool in this scenario, to the barking party. Something I believe is useless and disgusting.

Now that we've pondered on why she came in and needed so badly to "talk", let's move on to the main motivation for this reaction: I cannot help feeling as though it would be due to her own insecurities. Perhaps bridging into her lack of self-control. I find any time a reaction can be described in the phrase "How dare you!" or better yet; "Do you know who I am?" it is more often than not coming from a place of ignorance / arrogance. Elaboration: When I know that I am good at something and / or have a specific knowledge of something, me knowing it should be good enough. Does it still feel lovely when strangers compliment my abilities? Usually, yes (of course, this would depend on context of compliment, but let's not go there today). But if my boss at my job is speaking to me in the same way s/he speaks to everyone else, and in doing so addresses me as s/he would an underling?

I don't fucking care.

Why do you need such coddling? At your job? Why do you need to be treated differently from everybody else? Isn't that just kind of disrespectful to everyone else? In the way that you are implying you are better / more worthy than they are? This may be my experience in managing speaking here, but s/he probably is addressing me that way because that is how they address everyone else. Which would be an effort for said boss to treat everyone equally so there are no misconceptions; no favoritism. No one saying "Oh, I think s/he hates me", et cetera. Yes, in doing so, this is covering said boss' ass. But! (Butt?) I cannot blame said boss for doing this, as I would be likely to do the same thing. It is actually typically an effort to not hurt anybody's feelings and to be more professional, overall.

Stereotype: I would expect this woman's behavior from a younger (much younger) person. But not from one of at least age 50. And it is at this juncture that I wrestle between the following opposing thoughts:

a) I am not even 30 years old and I think this woman's reaction is odd.
b) I am the exception to some things / ways of thinking.

I do not wish to be under the impression that I am "special", that I am on some other plane of existence, that I am some "higher being". Everyone bloody thinks this about themselves at some point in their lives and if everybody was right in their thought, that would mean everyone was special which, of course, would mean no one was. By definition. Not to mention I do not wish to be arrogant because I feel as though arrogance blinds a person to useful things / thoughts / signs / realities. Arrogance is useless. I want nothing to do with it. Having said that, there must be some exceptions to some rules and lines of thinking and so on, ergo I could, statistically speaking be the exception to something.

I am not saying this woman is crazy for behaving this way, I am not saying I am any better than her, I just thought it was an interesting situation that I actually had time to ponder and react to. The older I get, the more I become an emotional detective. I wonder why I do things that I am doing, and sometimes that pours over into a knee-jerk reaction to what others are doing. Just a flow of thought. I will also say that while I can be completely reasonable about another's gripes, I am likely to not be so cool about my own. For all I know, I could have a "problem" later today that is stunningly similar to this woman's and not even realize it because I will naturally try to rationalize that my "problem" is different and, as such, so much more important / dire. Hopefully this will not result in me using a fellow human in such selfish fashion.

If there was a point to be made here, I guess it would be that being indignant is a reaction. Reactions are (at least) often times emotional. Sometimes we cannot help how we feel. Even decisions we make have been scientifically proven to be ruled by emotion. So I guess it comes down to the old saying that I'm about to butcher:

You can't help how you feel, but you can help how you behave, in kind.

Also, don't be a wiener and use people. It's mean.