Some venting

It’s been a really rough week; I was struggling with Jimmy’s death as I working 72 hours this week.  As I walked to the morning meeting, my boss (“D”) had asked me if I was ok and could handle working a crazy week and I said yes, then I asked him if he could hunt me down sometime that day; he never did nor did he the other days. Finally on Friday, I quietly asked D to hunt me down because I wanted to talk to him but it can wait towards the end of the day before he leaves. He looks at me, sees tears welling up in my eyes and said that he would before I went to lunch.

The entire 8 hour shift came and went; D did not come down to talk to me. I took a 30 minute shift break between my shift and the next shift. By the time I came back to where we’d have the afternoon shift meeting, there was D. I pulled him to the side to talk with him. Here’s the conversation (to what I remember):

“Hey, D. Look….I wanted to let you know why I was a hot mess when I came in this week. My friend committed suicide on Friday (May 10^th)…..”

“Why didn’t you call off from work? I would’ve let you take the time off you needed.”
“I didn’t want the time off, nor did I need it. ‘Linda’ knew about it, thought that she would’ve told you…..considering she tells you everything that I tell her!”

“No she doesn’t tell me everything you say….at least not after you ripped her a new one – which she completely deserved by the way. I wish you told me earlier this week.”

“At that point, the less people who knew the better. Plus, I need to make a friggin’ appointment to come talk to you. You could say that I’m not exactly high on your priority list….you couldn’t even be bothered to come see me when you said you would.”

“You don’t need an appointment to come see me and I didn’t say that you’re low on my priority list; I’ve never said that! I didn’t come down to see you because I had a rough day!”

“You had a rough day? I’ll tell you about a rough as all hell day….I worked 12 hours last Friday, missed calls and texts from my friend’s mother, met her at his apartment, open the door and see his brain splattered all over the foyer. I haven’t had much sleep since seeing that. I didn’t get home until the early hours of Saturday morning. I’ve been working 12 hour days all week this week, missed the funeral service of my friend and I get told by a supervisor they had a “rough” day. What you had today, D? It was a cake walk compared to what I had to work with for a week. Until you see your friend’s brain & blood all over the place, that’s far from a rough day!”

“I – I – I’m sorry that you’ve been struggling all week. Of course I didn’t have a day or week from hell like you have. I’ll come see you before I leave; I’m staying a little late myself.”

“Don’t bother hunting me down….you hardly hunt me down these days. I’ll see you next week!”

Then I storm off back to where I was assigned to work. I knew from the moment I had asked him early Friday morning that he wouldn’t swing by. He comes down from the office once a day, usually mid morning, to take a quick glance to see how the temp agency employees are doing then heads back up to the office for the rest of the day.

I don’t know what I saw in him a few months ago and barely see in him now (besides that he’s kinda – physically – attractive and close to my height).