Thanks to, again, the ghetto computer (I really do need to get that fixed), I’m writing this on my laptop and I’ll upload it tomorrow morning. So when I say “today,” that means Sunday, even though it’s going to say I wrote this on Monday. Not that that really matters, but I felt the need to explain that for some reason. Maybe to make sure the timeline is clear.
First and foremost, I want to say thank you to my fabulous, fabulous twin. We stared talking on AIM when I got to work a little after noon, and we were still talking when she noted the time at 8:15 (yes, I was still at work.) We weren’t talking the entire time, but I don’t know that there was a lot of downtime there. She’s basically awesome and we shared. We entertained each other, and it was awesome. So basically, she’s badass.
I swear I was going to go to church, or at least Sunday school, this morning, but I woke up after the rest of my whirlwind weekend, knowing that I was going to have to go into work, and I just couldn’t motivate myself. I haven’t even figured out entirely why I’m going to church, since I haven’t quite figured out what I believe yet. Maybe it’s for the community. But I was feeling like having kind of a chill day today, so I stayed in bed for quite a while and then went into work.
Ok, before I get into the work stuff, I have to make a comment. Reality TV has gotten so trash. Nothing but. I flipped on the TV to have some background noise while I was writing this and while I’m waiting for the sleep drugs to kick in, and there’s nothing on, so I settled on MTV. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was leaving it on once I realized that it was Paris Hilton’s My New BFF. She’s, apparently, looking for a new BFF, so she’s got all these fame whores living in this mansion while she chooses which one is going to be her new best friend. The challenge that’s on currently is for the group to “party like Paris.” She wants to see which one of these sad people can party the longest. The “Party Clock” is now on 10 hours. There’s this one contestant, Onch, who, as it turns out, is a dude. I had no idea. I thought it was a chick. And he got all mad when the guy he was dancing with at a club didn’t want to dance with him anymore when he realized he was grinding with a dude.
Onch started yelling about how the guy was homophobic and all this B.S. Um, really? If I were a straight dude, and I was dancing with what I thought was a girl, and it turned out it was another dude? You bet your ass I’d be like, “Bitch, please.” That’s not homophobia. That’s being tricked.
Anyway.
So I witnessed this evening what might be one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced in my life, and it didn’t even directly affect me. I won’t name names about who was involved in this particular altercation, since it happened at work and. . .you know, I try to avoid stuff that can get me in trouble. Also, I never thought I'd be able to use my "fighters who fight" tag on blogger ever again, and this gives me a great opportunity.
So these two guys have been at odds for a few weeks now, although I’m not entirely certain as to why. There’s been this underlying tension that is, at times, really awkward.
So. . .I’ll just call him B, B is on the phone and is cursing and being really bitchy to someone. For some reason, I got the feeling it was the other guy (called A from here on out) and I expected A to call me, for whatever reason, after he and B got off the phone. Sure enough, about 10 seconds after B slams down his phone, my phone rings. It’s A, wondering if I knew why B was so pissed off. I had no idea, and A vented a little bit, which was cool, because I felt like B was being stupidly unreasonable.
The thing you have to understand about B is that, in general, he’s a good guy. As long as you do what he wants you to do. He has a short fuse. I’ve never made him angry or anything, though, because I know when to play the cute&innocent card. I play that card most times when I’m around him, and he never has a bad thing to say to or about me. As far as I know, I mean. It’s entirely possible he talks shit about me, but he hides it well.
Anyway, I hear that B is on the phone again, bitching about A. So I do what any good reporter would do and listen in. I’m admitting this now, because I really don’t feel that I’m in any danger of B coming across this. And if anyone that reads this would go and tell B what I’ve said, then they’ll get theirs eventually.
As it turns out, he’s on the phone with Vi. He’s bitching and complaining about A (none of what he was saying, incidentally, I felt had any merit. But that’s just me.) So after he got off the phone, I went and called A and told him why it was B was pissed at him. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If people around this newspaper would just talk to and communicate with each other, I’d have very little to do.
So about an hour later, it’s approximately 8 p.m. I ask B to print out the pages he’s working on so I can edit them and then go home. He prints them, and I go back to the printer in the newsroom to retrieve them. The printer, as per usual, is giving me trouble, and the paper runs out. There are two sizes of paper: 8.5 x 11 and really long paper that we’re supposed to use to print out the proof pages. What had happened was that the long paper had run out and so the pages were printing on the short paper, which resulted in only 1/3 of the page or so had printed. So I started to go buzz Carrie (who was there) to ask her to ask B to reprint. Then I decided to go ahead and put more paper in the printer first, and then there was a paper jam, which caused a delay of a few seconds. Those seconds caused me to not hear what was going on down the hall.
When I finally did buzz Carrie, I said, “Hey, can you ask B to reprint?” She hesitated and said, “I guess I can buzz him and ask.” As it turns out, in the time I’d been in the newsroom, A had come back up and had shut the doors to B’s office.
As there was nothing I could really do until I got those pages, I went into Carrie’s office. I heard the beginning of the fight, and it started out with A saying something I couldn’t hear, because he was being, from what I could tell by his tone of voice, calm and rational.
But there was no questioning what B was saying, because he didn’t speak. He yelled. He wouldn’t let A get a word in edgewise. So in order to be heard, A had to yell, too. They were getting louder and louder, and I’m just standing in Carrie’s office, scared to move. We’re just kind of looking at each other, not knowing what to do. So finally, A leaves B’s office and starts walking down the stairs. I had my back to the door, so I didn’t see him leave, but I heard him, because they were still yelling at each other as A was walking down the stairs. Carrie and I, wearing, I’m sure, identical expressions, breathed a slight sigh of relief. I realized my heart was pounding and my hands were shaking. It was INTENSE. It was intense like nothing I’d ever experienced before in my life, and I almost drowned in the ocean once.
The relief, however, was short-lived, because A came back up the stairs saying, “No. I’m not finished yet.”
Both Carrie and I said, “Oh no.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t either, but I think we pretty much said it in unison.
I will say this, though. When A came back up, it seemed he tried to bring the conversation back down to zero. He also closed the door, for which I was grateful.
But bringing it down to zero didn’t help, because B never even attempted to speak in a normal tone of voice. It wasn’t long before they were yelling again. Carrie kind of hid in the corner of her office, and I went back my desk, which is right outside of B’s office. Truth be told, the reason I went back out there was because I was really afraid that punches would be thrown. I fully expected B to up and knock A upside the head. I was afraid that it was going to come to a fight, and I wanted to be close enough to, if I heard something happen, get into the office and/or call downstairs, because Rodney was still there. Not that Rodney could do anything, because B is definitely bigger than Rodney, and I’m fairly sure A is, too, but I was just, as I do, thinking ahead, planning for every possibility.
I was terrified, though. Seriously, after everything was all over, I was shaking still. I was scared and that’s all there is to it.
A left and I went in and asked B for the pages again. He printed them and I, admittedly, did a half-assed job reading the pages, because I was freaked out and I wanted to get the hell out of there.
If Vi asks me about it, I’m going to tell her why I didn’t do a very good job. At first, I was going to mention something about it to her anyway, just letting her know that I was, in fact, terrified sitting at my own desk, but then I remembered that last time I was afraid of something at work and I was going to say something to someone (the general manager), I was chastised and called immature. I didn’t want that to happen again, so I won’t be saying anything about it, unless I’m asked. If I’m asked, I’m not going to lie. Because scary shouting matches are something that shouldn’t happen at work. I feel like if B had just kept his tongue and let A get a word in edgewise, they could have worked it out with probably half the number of uses of “fuck.” (There were several.)
So, in conclusion, tonight, I was more scared than I had been in a long time. Not because I thought that anything would happen to me, but I didn’t know what I would do if it came to violence. I had this whole plan in my head, but I know it wasn’t practical. I mean, trying to break up a fight between two guys, both who are bigger than you, one significantly so, wouldn’t have been a good idea.
Anyway, I’m going to catch some Seinfeld and then head to bed. There’s no staff meeting in the morning, so I don’t have to get up early. Whoo!
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