People are terrible, give me fandom instead.

[raisedbymoogles]

So, wrote a couple of things: Latest chapter of Fluffiroth, and a new installment of Robots Resist that I wasn't expecting to happen. I've got a couple more one-shots I want to get out before I go back to Fluffiroth, and maybe another chapter of Love Bites! if the mood strikes.

And also, had some work bullshit happen to me that I'm still chewing over. I'm painfully aware that I have apparently the worst case of resting bitch face/voice in existence, but ever since I moved to the UK it seems like I have problems with it everywhere I go. My first job here I was literally fired for not being happy enough, my second job I had a coworker yell at me out of the blue when I attempted Witty Banter with her, and a couple of weeks ago a coworker started shit with me that I ended up having to get management involved.

So, what happened, from my perspective: I was at the computer, performing a Very Simple Task that I do multiple times a day at the request of Coworker Y. Coworker S rolls up and starts telling me how to do it - not rudely, but being told something I already know is an annoyance-button for me and she was standing close enough to me that I could feel her breath on my neck. I lift a hand and say "I got it," in a completely neutral tone of voice, and return to what I was doing.

I will go to my grave swearing that's all that happened, but - well, if Coworker S agreed I wouldn't be telling this story, would I? ;P Maybe an hour later S catches me between customers and starts saying (this is to the best of my recollection) "I don't know what I've done to offend you, but I don't appreciate you being so rude to me. You need to really think about yourself because you're always so rude and if I had been anyone else I would have knocked your head off." She repeats herself along those lines at least twice, so I had no reason to believe she didn't mean exactly what she said. When I can finally get a word in edgewise I say "I'm sorry if I offended you, but what are you talking about." She does not, in fact, tell me what she's talking about, only repeats herself again. "No, really, what specifically did I do." FINALLY she brings up the Computer Event, making it sound like I'd slapped her hand away and snarled at her. "You cussed me out in front of Coworker Y," is what she said.

(Side note, does 'cussed me out' have a different meaning in the UK than it does in the US? Like, does it mean 'sounded maybe slightly annoyed' instead of 'used actual cuss words'?)

By that time I was red in the face and shaking like I always get with confrontations, so I groveled until she was satisfied and finally left me alone. I held it together towards the end of the day, but when a customer ACTUALLY cussed me out for not smiling (side note: fuck that guy with a rake) I started to break down. Coworker N, summoned by Loud Cursing Customer, came over to see if I was okay, and I told her the thing with S. When I told her what S had said, her eyes got real wide and she said "Take it to the manager."

Wait, really? I'm not just being oversensitive? Well, okay.

So I did, and several days later we had a manager-moderated meeting in which S claimed that She Was Sorry I Felt That Way but the hitting thing was just a figure of speech and she thought everything was settled when I apologized! I told her (in between her trying to interrupt me like four times) that I didn't think us talking about the computer thing was going to be productive since we clearly remember that very differently, but when someone brings up hitting they're at least kinda thinking about hitting, that her implying that she was Such A Good Person for restraining herself from hitting me was not comforting, and that I couldn't trust her anymore. I asked her if she'd ever actually witnessed someone at work hitting someone else because they didn't like their tone. She said no, with a "why would you even ask such a strange question" face. Well, I don't know, why did you bring it up!?

The manager seemed to think this was just a Big Misunderstanding, so no formal discipline happened to S, but I finally managed to drag a real (if insincere) apology out of her eventually. And I made her sit there and listen to what I had to say the way she made me stand there and listen to her tell me what a rude terrible human being I am. ...And I inconvenienced her, which is a balm to my petty soul. But the story she told to her husband/friends/therapist/whatever when she got home was probably something like "I very politely explained to That Girl that she was perhaps less polite than she was intending to be, and so she went crying to a manager and dragged me into an uncomfortable meeting so she could play the victim."

I haven't seen S since then, and I honestly don't know how it's going to go next time we're on shift together. I guess it'll depend on how committed she is to maintaining the fiction that she's a Good Person. I'm planning to go for Distant But Scrupulously Polite, though given she apparently took offense at my neutral voice, who knows how she'll react to that. And that, honestly, is what I keep coming back to. What's the next thing she decides to take offense at? What if she's not the only one? I would love to believe that this is solely a crazy coworker problem, but it keeps fucking happening. People snap at me or go cold, and I don't know what I've done and I can't fix my face or my voice. I just withdraw and stay quiet, but that just seems to make the problem worse. I can't be fluffy and friendly and smiling all the time the way people seem to expect, when just being around people makes me tense, waiting for the next time someone snaps at me out of nowhere.

I do my work and don't inconvenience others more than I can help. I say hello and please and thank you. I keep to myself the rest of the time. Why is that not enough.

...ugh. I want a job where I don't have to talk to anybody, but the only job requirement I meet is 'has a pulse' so I'll be stuck in retail til I die.