Oh hi, I’m Princess Muffintop. Now, this may come as a HUGE shock to you but… I’m not a Princess in real life. It’s true. If you think YOU’RE disappointed by that huge and non-obvious reveal, imagine how my parents took the news.
What do I REALLY do for a living? I am an account executive for an advertising agency. Some of you may be familiar with this position. For those of you who aren’t, let me just sum it up for you. Whatever the client wants, I have to do it. I’ve often described this position as “an underpaid prostitute/actress with a side of therapist and a dash of babysitter”.
Once upon a time when I started my current position, I had a NIGHTMARE client. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Most of us, regardless of our industry have had that ONE client that could quite possibly be possessed by Satan. To keep things anonymous, I’ll change my satanic client’s name to “Debbie”. No… she’s just not a Debbie. Let’s try “Asshole”. Yes, that’s more fitting. She was awful. She treated me like a slave. She threw me under the proverbial bus whenever she screwed up. She would make snide comments about my appearance. She was sneaky; she did whatever she could to make sure she came out on top regardless of the bodies piled up underneath her. During all of this, I had to put on a smile and pretend to be her BFF.
The best day of my life occurred when she quit her job. I was filled with joy when I found out that I would never have to see Asshole again. I cried… I jumped for joy… I even did a victory lap around my office. Life after that day became infinitely better.
10 months ago, I found out that my husband’s employer was transferring him to Georgia. My company and I decided that I would continue to work for them remotely from my house. Because of this, my manager decided to hire an additional person “just to help out”. We interviewed about 10 billion people with no success. AMAZINGLY, there isn’t a huge pool of people looking to become somebody’s bitch for a 40-dollar annual salary.
Then we received a resume. FROM ASSHOLE.
We joked about what nerve she had to even apply. We talked about how horrible it would be to have to work with her. Then it was time for me to move to Georgia. Somehow (I’m blurry on exactly what happened because I wasn’t involved), Asshole WAS HIRED. And let me tell you that the past 9 months have been hell on Earth for me as far as my career goes. She hasn’t changed at all. She is still sneaky, and she does whatever she can to make sure I am pushed out of my position. She has slowly but surely taken over all of my responsibilities, leaving me extremely vulnerable to be fired. I have kept my mouth shut in attempt to not rock the boat, because working from home is a pretty awesome gig. So instead of voicing my opinions, I just make extremely passive-aggressive remarks and tiny digs (yes, I know… SO lame) so she understands that we are NOT, in fact, the 2 best friends that anyone could ever have like she thought we were.
Then last Wednesday happened. During a regular status meeting, I made a snide remark about something Asshole had done while she was present. She asked me if she’d done anything to offend me. I was very silent for what felt like an eternity, waiting for my boss to give me the green light to tell her exactly what she’d done.
And then my manager said OK. And so I did.
I don’t remember all that I said, as I believe I Hulked out from rage after the first sentence (though I’m SURE it was all extremely professional… um, yeah…). My rant went on for about 10 minutes. After I’d finished and regained consciousness, Asshole apologized for being a sabotaging, sneaky, awful person (OK, she didn’t use those words- but I’m SURE it was something like that). She also admitted to being a terrible client, and hoped to be a better coworker in the future.
At the end of the conversation, I felt better. Not because Asshole apologized- but because I was able to do something that EVERY SINGLE PERSON in an account service capacity has wished that he/she could do. I told the client (even though technically she isn’t a client anymore) what I really thought of her.
This will probably be the only time in my life that I’ll have this opportunity, so I wanted to share my small victory in a safe place with all of you. Thanks for listening, you guys. You rock my anonymous world.
TTFN,
AMo
