It doesn't pay to be nice to interns
I usually try to avoid personal attacks in the blogosphere, out of fear that my rants could fall into the wrong hands and then get me into trouble. But I was so upset about this particular person's behavior that I don't even care.
To make a long story kind of short, we had an intern at work this summer. She had no car. I have given her rides to work and back from work every single day. I have taken her shopping, out to eat, to movies, etc. All of this in an effort to reach out and make her experience here as pleasant as possible because I was miserable when I was intern because I didn't know anyone and had no life.
So, since this girl had never been to the Mall of America, I offered to take her. Actually, she asked me to take her, and I said yes. I knew all along that she was Dutch, hard-core Christian, and pretty much a total square. So I knew that it was going to be a dry, boring excursion to the Twin Cities, but I thought it would be tolerable. I was wrong.
I had decided we would stay with my sister, who now lives up there. We decided to go to dinner with my sister and her boyfriend after spending the day shopping at MOA. We headed downtown, and I soon found out that this girl hates big cities. She didn't like being downtown, none of the restaurants had menu items that were acceptable and she decided at that time to quit speaking to any of us. I suggested we go to the suburbs and eat at a generic chain restaurant. So we ended up at TGI Fridays, where I orderd a Bud Light and my sister ordered a strawberry daiquiri. My sister mentioned that she had two college friends who were going to stop by her apartment later, and they planned on going out.
I had no plans of going, and I said so, because I knew intern girl (who had, incidentally, just turned 21) would flip out. So my sister and her boyfriend left the table to go outside and smoke, and intern girl picked that time to have a total mental breakdown. She started bawling – BAWLING!!! Because she couldn't deal with the fact that people were going to come over to my sister's and be drinking. She said – through her tears and sobbing – that she couldn't be around it, that she was too stressed out, blah blah blah. She proceeded to cry through dinner and through the car ride back to my sister's apartment.
So, after we got back from dinner at about 10:30 p.m., I told her ridiculous, sobbing ass to get into the goddamn car so I could haul her ass the 4 hours back to Sioux Falls. She proceeded to attempt to justify her behavior, and asked me if I understood, and I politely said No, I don't understand, and then turned up the radio really loud.
It was one of the most bizarre situations I've ever encountered in my life. And I generally don't get mad about too much, but I was borderline enraged for that whole four-hour ride back to Sioux Falls. And I'm still (obviously) kind of pissed off about it. I might be overreacting, but it was so annoying and irritating, and then the icing on the cake was her attempt to justify it as if it was normal behavior.
So hopefully this blog rant will help me mellow out and let the whole thing go. Oh, and my sister says I'm not allowed to bring friends to her apartment unless she pre-approves them.
To make a long story kind of short, we had an intern at work this summer. She had no car. I have given her rides to work and back from work every single day. I have taken her shopping, out to eat, to movies, etc. All of this in an effort to reach out and make her experience here as pleasant as possible because I was miserable when I was intern because I didn't know anyone and had no life.
So, since this girl had never been to the Mall of America, I offered to take her. Actually, she asked me to take her, and I said yes. I knew all along that she was Dutch, hard-core Christian, and pretty much a total square. So I knew that it was going to be a dry, boring excursion to the Twin Cities, but I thought it would be tolerable. I was wrong.
I had decided we would stay with my sister, who now lives up there. We decided to go to dinner with my sister and her boyfriend after spending the day shopping at MOA. We headed downtown, and I soon found out that this girl hates big cities. She didn't like being downtown, none of the restaurants had menu items that were acceptable and she decided at that time to quit speaking to any of us. I suggested we go to the suburbs and eat at a generic chain restaurant. So we ended up at TGI Fridays, where I orderd a Bud Light and my sister ordered a strawberry daiquiri. My sister mentioned that she had two college friends who were going to stop by her apartment later, and they planned on going out.
I had no plans of going, and I said so, because I knew intern girl (who had, incidentally, just turned 21) would flip out. So my sister and her boyfriend left the table to go outside and smoke, and intern girl picked that time to have a total mental breakdown. She started bawling – BAWLING!!! Because she couldn't deal with the fact that people were going to come over to my sister's and be drinking. She said – through her tears and sobbing – that she couldn't be around it, that she was too stressed out, blah blah blah. She proceeded to cry through dinner and through the car ride back to my sister's apartment.
So, after we got back from dinner at about 10:30 p.m., I told her ridiculous, sobbing ass to get into the goddamn car so I could haul her ass the 4 hours back to Sioux Falls. She proceeded to attempt to justify her behavior, and asked me if I understood, and I politely said No, I don't understand, and then turned up the radio really loud.
It was one of the most bizarre situations I've ever encountered in my life. And I generally don't get mad about too much, but I was borderline enraged for that whole four-hour ride back to Sioux Falls. And I'm still (obviously) kind of pissed off about it. I might be overreacting, but it was so annoying and irritating, and then the icing on the cake was her attempt to justify it as if it was normal behavior.
So hopefully this blog rant will help me mellow out and let the whole thing go. Oh, and my sister says I'm not allowed to bring friends to her apartment unless she pre-approves them.
posted by Melissa @ 1:35 AM
4 Comments:
At 11:49 AM,
MaggieCat said…
Holy crap! She doesn't seem Dutch-Christian - she seems hardcore Amish or Mennonite or Mormon or something. Jesus, talk about repression. I think this qaulifies you for, if not sainthood, at least a Blessed status.
At 2:16 PM,
Melissa said…
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it was ridiculous. I think she actually has a variety of mental health issues - obsessive compulsive, social anxiety disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.
I actually told her that she should probably be on medication, but she said she's gotten a lot better in the past few years and doesn't need medical help because she has a "really supportive church."
That actually pissed me off even more, because if she had admitted, "yes, I have mental issues and I should get help," then I would've felt bad and tried to help her. But the fact that she denied having mental health problems and attempted to brush off the entire incident was infuriating.
At one point, she said, "I hope you don't think I'm crazy." I just chose not to respond. Hopefully she'll interpret my silence for what I really wanted to say: "hell yes, I think you're crazy!"
At 10:32 PM,
MaggieCat said…
Yah - I think the over zealous repression she probably got from her home and her "really supportive church" probably instigated the majority of those mental health problems. Do you have to see her still or is she gone now? Why was she there to begin with? Where the hell do these people come from? (Excuse the end-of-sentence preposition, but it isn't the school year yet - not until tomorrow :( )
At 11:14 AM,
Melissa said…
She's gone now, thank god. She moved back to Looneyville on Wednesday after we got back in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
She came through a national internship program, and she is from Kansas and goes to U of Missouri. She also was extremely arrogant, and talked about how she's worried she's going to have too many job offers after she graduates and how will she know which one to choose from, because everyone is going to want her to work for them, etc.
I think she also said something like "I would never work at a paper smaller than this one" knowing full well that I started out at a weekly paper. I just pray to my God that they don't try to hire her here after she graduates. I might have to quit then.
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