I swear that I have spent at least four hours today dealing with a series of completely unrelated nasty email exchanges, and I am just FED UP with everyone. Done. Finis.
Let's see: There's been a chain of trying-to-apportion-blame emails going around about a temple-related thing. On it's own, that would only be mildly annoying. But there's also been a particularly ugly and ongoing PTA board dustup at the elementary school--and tonight is a big event that the board put together and we all have to stand together and try to stop girl-on-girl fistfights from breaking out during the telescope-gazing and whole-school viewing of The Cat From Outer Space. (I was really looking forward to this event, too. Now, not so much.) And, of course, I had to throw my two cents into this dustup, after swearing I'd keep quiet. Yeah, I was quiet all right...unless you count an email of approximately 4 bajillion words, during which I think I managed to insult people on both sides of the issue, one of whom is actually one of my favorite parents at the school. But I just couldn't let it go. Just. Couldn't. Good times!
And, finally, there was what seemed to me to be an especially nasty note on one of my supposed 'support' groups for writers in which it was suggested that if we really cared about putting food on our family's tables, we could always go work at McDonalds. I'm certain it was meant as a semi-joke, but...It just hit me the wrong way at the end of a long day, and so before doing what I should have done in the first place--quietly just hit unsubscribe and let it go--I wrote what was probably an inappropriately vehement note to the list. And THEN I hit unsubscribe. And I'm pissed at myself, because I actually HATE people who do that...lob a nasty-bomb into an already contentious conversation, and then scamper away. It's so much more dignified to just remove yourself from the situation. But also so much less satisfying. (Plus, by immediately unsubbing, I'll never know if everyone just thinks I'm an ass or if there were any of those ever-so-gratifying "you said it, sister!" types of responses. I know that one of the ladies from this list actually reads here sometimes, but since she's the one I threw the bomb at, I'm guessing she won't...Oh, hi...[Waves weakly]...Sorry 'bout that. I get a little testy sometimes, and...Oh, never mind.)
Hey, good thing I'm so CALM and CLEAR-HEADED, eh? And that whole standing up for what I believe in is especially effective when I run away afterward. I don't back down...I unsubscribe!
Ech. That's all. Just...ech.
EDITED TO ADD: Yeah. Nevermind that last bit. I've asked Heather to resub me (now who didn't see THAT coming?), and I intend to apologize for flying off the handle like that. Forty-three is way too old to be throwing online temper tantrums. God, I feel like a first-class idiot tonight.
4 comments:
I hear mercury is in retrograde. I know I'm not supposed to really believe in that, but it's much better than saying we're all grumpy.
Come back to the group, please?
It wasn't meant as a joke. It was meant this way:
someone said basically 'i had to sign that contract so I could feed my kids' and I said 'if the contract was that bad and you had to choose between feeding your kids and going hungry.. then go work at McDonalds.'
I work full time and a freelance 'the rest of the time'. So basically... I work at McDonalds. I made that choice because in my city my $1450 rent payment is about what I make in writing income... and I like to eat, too.
So I went out and got another job.
And just so you know, no one has responded on the list so far, no one even knows you have acutally left except me, and, um... all your readers here ;)
Dude, I wanted to leave today and I own the flippin' group. I started it so that there was a place people could speak their mind and the individual I was 'arguing' with is an outspoken person, just like me. I've never asked anyone to leave and I've never kicked anyone out. If you choose to stay off the list then I truly, honestly, wholeheartedly believe that you find the support you need.
Heather
Dude, forty-three is PRECISELY the age to throw temper tantrums. You know how they say that youth is wasted on the young? Well, tantrums are wasted on the toddler.
We "grownups." We have REASONS.
Or so I'd like to think.
I like the way serenity now! has an exclamation point in her name.
SERENITY NOW! RIGHT NOW!
:-) Sorry.
Hi.
I hope that everyone's butts are clear today :).
And that whole "dignified" exit sans nasty-bomb? Don't feel badly that it's not your style!
Oh, Heather. You really should have just let her go. She's waaaay more trouble than she's worth, trust me.
(Dodges and ducks as TC throws things at me).
Do you ever wake up the morning after one of those days and realize it was your own butt that was out of whack the whole time? Usually that's what happens to me ;)
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