last week, i sent out what to me was just a simple and harmless e-mail. guess what, the reply i got was just so totally unexpected! the recipient went ballistic on something off-tangent. whoa! what line of thought was he following here? what dictionary has he been consulting? what on earth did he read between the lines? there was nothing between the lines! the sentences were straightforward; the words, at least to me, were simple.
anyway, i was pretty happy that time, nothing could really dampen my joy, so i sent out a solicitous reply. i even apologized if my e-mail did not come across the way i intended it to.
well, following morning, i see a reply to my reply which seemed to me a step toward steering the topic to what i originally was discussing. hmmm... so maybe the guy re-read my e-mail and sort of realized he earlier went seething at something i did not raise at all? with some bit of stretching, he tried to pull together a response that wouldn't be as off-kilter as his previous e-mail.
but then BIG mistake. he went on to say that next time i should put myself in his shoes. whaaaaaaaat????!!!! i've been doing that for the longest time!!! i've been bending over backward, rolling over forward, practically falling all over myself trying to accommodate his short-term, missing-the-forest-for-the-trees-way. bending the rules, if ever, is supposed to be just a contingency measure, right? well, to this guy, it is a going-in position. aaarrrgggghhhh!!!
i've given him concessions big-time. unprecedented. uncharacteristic. and now it seems he does not realize this at all?! grrrrrrrr! it was my turn to fire off an angry e-mail. i peppered it with statements, not at all irrelevant, which if he asked me to substantiate i could very well do. and boy, if i did, he definitely would not be happy.
that was the end of the exchange, i think. i did not anymore receive any mail. at least, not yet?
and then this morning, we both had to attend this meeting. ok, discuss this, discuss that. suddenly, one of the attendees used exactly the same word i used in my e-mail. uh-oh! this guy in his non-sequitur reply to me truncated that word, took it out of context and so negatively appropriated it for himself. and hear this, all these negative aspersions he cast on himself he so audaciously attributed to me. eh?! i wasn't even referring to him when i used that word. and the word he bandied about was not even the exact word i used. oh, well. i cautioned the attendee not to use the word. she persisted. the word is fine, actually. but i had to tell her it could be misinterpreted. she wouldn't be stopped. hahaha. i was hilariously horrified wondering what the guy must have felt hearing that word so objectively used in my presence.
things did not stop there. two attendees started slamming and complaining about practices and shortcuts this guy himself has similarly been resorting to. my, my, my. so bang on! there i was, putting in my two cents worth to this and that statement or complaint and the guy could not really join in lest he be put in the awkward position of having to pan something he himself has been doing. ahahaha!
through all this, i could not help but wonder whether the guy was squirming in his seat. moreover, i was wondering whether he thinks i shared our unpleasant exchange with the other attendees. no, i did not. and that makes what just transpired sweet poetic justice for me ... ; )
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