Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The Laying on of Hands (another random annoyance)

I may have mentioned before that I work with a variety of personalities; some of them strange, and the vast majority of them completely normal. One of the more normal folk is a rather religious lady who sits fairly close who has to put up with my swearing, saying "Jaysis" a lot and general gesticulating and sighing.

I am not a religious person, in spite of the frequency with which I roll my eyes to heaven and take the Lord's name in vain. I am not a churchgoer, although I like to visit old churches when there's no religious service on. I'm not keen on organised religion at all, however I am not a devotee of Richard Dawkins either. (My cynicism towards organised religion mainly stems from studying the stranglehold the Catholic Church had over the affairs of the nation throughout the twentieth century. I wrote a postgraduate thesis on it and related matters a few years back. Where once we were a nation blighted by priests, we are now a nation suffused with retail parks and SUVs.) But, I digress.

This religious colleague is a lovely person, always helpful and with a beatific smile. Even on the more stressful days, the unpleasantness is "offered up". She remembers us all in her prayers. And that's a nice, well-meaning sort of thing.

Here's what gets me though; when talking to me, she has a habit of touching my arm, and sometimes even my shoulders. I'm not happy with that. I'm not very tactile. You could say that my family motto is "noli me tangere" which literally translates from the Latin as "don't touch me" or, in my own parlance, "FUCK OFF". However, reacting like this in front of the rest of the section would be unprofessional. Telling a colleague to fuck off while jumping around dusting myself down, that is. Not random fucking swearing about "where did I put that fucking form" or "there's no fucking paper in the fucking printer again".

There's no other solution for it other than to have a quiet word. And the word won't be "Fuck" either. Shite.

What the hell is it with me lately that attracts them? Is it my new deodorant? Or is my black, sin-stained soul showing?

Funny that it should be, because I sold it for this job.

2 comments:

galwaywegian said...

It's probably a dare! The one who touches you when you're the most pissed off gets the most serious kudos.

Rosie said...

sounds like an excellent workplace challenge to me.