Verbal Indigestion of sorts

Ok, I am so completely cheesed off by this colleague of mine that I feel I have to bitch about her a little.

She has this habit of forcing ideas down people's throats and you could really literally feel that you are being force-fed. NO KIDDING!

I really hate people forcing me to do anything and this type of 'force feeding', I really DO NOT LIKE.

Today, we were both doing night shift and decided to have dinner together. Our job is a little complicated as we reported to different supervisors: one direct supe and the other is the manager of that particular branch. She asked if I had told our branch manager and I told her no, that I had not.

She told me with a serious, earnest straight face that she should have been the first one I told and that I should go tell her. In fact the look on her face made me felt like I had to take some form of transport back to branch and tell her immediately, now (by the way, we do not work night shifts at our own branch. This is a little complicated).

I told her I am going to tell her but maybe I will email me. Only reason is that I am very, and I stress VERY, bad with situations like that. To have to sit face to face with someone and tell them things...Work review times are not one of the times that I enjoy. I get gastric pains one day before that. So go figure.

She then gave me that earnest and serious look and to the brink of reprimanding, " This sort of thing, you should tell her face to face. Livvie (of course she does not address me in such close terms. Yuck! Yuck!) you MUST tell her face to face. This sort of thing is better to tell her personally. Email is too...cold.

I could feel her forcing the idea down my throat, coercing me to do it. I almost felt that it was Stalin or Hitler. No wait a minute, Chairman Mao talking to me! All this while I was trying to enjoy my fish and chips.

Me, being the stubborn me, told her "No, I will send her an email".

Deep down inside though, I know that telling her face to face was the only right thing to do. It's just the thought of the process of having to walk into her office and tell her is killing me. Let's just say that I am bad at handling situations like that. Eventually I am going to have to do it. Eventually.

Meanwhile, I was being stubborn to the core and did not admit that I will do it. Simply because the method she chose to give me advice was really not up my alley. Mentally choking, and this was not the first time. The last time this happened was when she was trying to convince me to take the Masters in Library Science programme locally with her a few years back. "Livvie (again, that is not the way she addresses me in real life), that is the only way for us to go already. There is no other way."

Of course there are other ways!! I still have my dreams of going back to Oz to further my studies. I could choose to study something else other than Library Science. There ARE many other ways.

Anyway, after my indignant protestation and defiance against her, we slipped into a very un-natural period of silence. I was chewing my food too hard and swallowing my food too fast. I was starring into nothingness. That is what I do if I cannot fathom something or I want to avoid further confrontation.

This colleague of mine is so set in her views that she can be quite unbearable sometimes. I do not know how I stayed friends with her for so long. Plus she is also quite the nosy sort who tries not to act nosy (if you know what I mean) and that makes her more irritating...at times.

Well, she will be moving on to another department soon and I will be well on my way to other things. Don't think I will see much of her from now, though I must say, at times, she had been quite a good listener.