To Tell Or Not To Tell

I had a dilemma at work last week.  When left alone with a coworker I was witness to one of the most extreme rage-outs I have ever seen in my life.  A coworker was full on screaming over the phone to his family over an issue that was not life-threatening, and hardly deserving of such a lashing.  It's irrelevant but the issue was that the guy's kid wore himself out with after school activities the same night he had two hockey games to participate in.  The kid is like 11 and he was being torn multiple new ones.  This yelling fit went on for a good 5-10 minutes.  It happened in the front office, and migrated to the back where I could still hear the yelling up in my office.  It might have even been 15 mins.  I wasn't scared but it was rather upsetting, and I don't think I should have had to witness such behaviour.  My first instinct was to tell Dean.  In fact, to text him right after work.  He's kind of the boss when the owners are away, and I really thought he should be aware of what happened.  But I also didn't want Ross to think I ran crying over nothing.  I asked two friends and 2-for-2 got a "drop it" response.

I decided to heed that advice.  I usually sit down with and talk with Dean about everything so it was difficult to not walk in and start with "You would not believe what happened last night..."  Ross was even on the road that next morning and it was just the two of us up front, I had the perfect opportunity to spill.  But, I refrained.  At some point Dean migrated to the warehouse to take care of some business.  A phone call came in for him, so I threw them on hold and paged him - "Dean, line 1".  The radio that normally plays through the phone stays silent while the call remains on hold and eventually after 30 seconds it beeps as a reminder.  I page him again - "Dean, seriously, line 1."   Dean ran up front and took the call and then came into my office and dropped the phone from the kitchen on my desk.  "Ummmm, this phone was working yesterday and now it's broken."  And at that point the need to share became overwhelming and I blurted it all out.  "I wasn't going to say anything, but Ross lost his shit last night...lost...his....shit."  I told him why, and what happened, and that was that.  He told me he immediately knew there was only one person in the office that would have done that sort of property damage and that he has witnessed Ross' rage on several other occasions.  Maybe a minute passed and then Dean piped up.

"Where did it happen?"
"Here, out back, kitchen."
*Then maybe another 10 seconds later*
"What did you do while it was happening?
"Sat in my office and shut up."

When Ross got in he actually fibbed and said he didn't know what happened to the phone.  I was shocked.  He later admitted he was probably responsible but didn't really elaborate on the level of rage required during a hang-up to break the screen and bust the hook.  I admit I feel better having said something rather than not.  I plan on working with these two guys for several more years, and it was really an unacceptable event.  And when it happens again Dean will know, and he'll know it wasn't the first time.  If I think about it and place myself in any of my other work environments if the same thing happened I would have spoken up then too.

Last week was another brutal week too.  Dean took ill and was off for two days.  I was up at 5:30 Tues-Thurs to get into work for 6:25.  On Tues Dean wasn't in until 6:45.  On Wed Ross wasn't in until 6:45 and then the network was down and we had to reboot the system.  Well, the network seemed okay, but internet was down and wtf do I know about fixing that.  There I am sitting in the network room waiting for the server to reboot, waiting waiting waiting like a total asshole.  I finally freaked out and started pressing the power button on the tower, but to no avail.  I went to my office to get my boss' cell phone number only to realize I had to log into windows to open outlook contacts, and I couldn't do that without the server being up.  And then I walked out to find out Ross' computer still logged in.  I guess "Please log completely out of Windows" somehow translated into "Don't log out at all, no worries."  When I logged him out the reboot unstalled, and my attempt to manually shut down worked.  I booted it back up and then a call from the back came in;

"Computer back here isn't working."
"What do you mean it's not working, was it logged in?"...
"Yes."
 
OMG PEOPLE....omg.  I went into the warehouse in a huff and rebooted that station (yes, all I know how to do is reboot).  It worked, but as that was happening the warehouse guy asked how I was doing. "I'm pissed, I'm f######g pissed.  I came in early and I don't have time to deal with this stupid shit."  And then he comes over to me and says "It's my job to turn the terminal off, but sometimes the guys tell me to leave it on so they can use it after I leave."  I couldn't believe it, I'm having a melt down because I just lost 45 minutes of my life and he's trying to justify why he's not wrong (he's never wrong by the way).   He actually told Ross he booted up first thing when he got in.  And he subsequently told me it was left on by someone else.  So he lied to both of us.  Useless.

Tomorrow is dinner out for an old coworker, Friday is dinner in Cobourg and I'm probably going to stay over.  My mom is still using the first blackberry ever made which was is only slightly less archaic than my old motorola.  All she needs is a new SIM to use my dad's old Torch, which I unlocked for her six months ago.  And she has to decide if she wants a new local # or if she's going to keep her old number.  For someone who doesn't much use her phone she's rather connected to the number.  But I cringe every time I think of her going to send a text message and having to select "Create SMS."  It's time for an upgrade.  She's always been on my dad's work plan, since cell phones went mainstream.  Now she has to decide to stay with her provider or switch it up, and she has become totally overwhelmed and wants me with her in the store in Cobourg. I think I have written her 5 completely in-depth emails describing how she should go about reviewing her options.  And she still looks at me like a beauty pageant contestant answering a question about physics when I ask her what she wants.  So we need to get that taken care of.

I've committed myself to a new biking regiment, to celebrate the success of my replacement adapter.  20 mins a day.  If I'm feeling ambitious I may eventually try to wake up early and bike each day.  But evenings are working fine for now.   I'm on day THREE.  Which is nothing to write home about, but it's better than the big old goose egg I was sitting on three days ago.

That's about all.  Thaaaat's about all.