another ridiculous "fit"

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2004
another ridiculous "fit"
1
Fri, 04-21-2006 - 8:34am
I lost control of my car this morning trying to kill a HUGE spider on the dashboard. I freaked and went halfway into the ditch. If someone had been in the other lane there would've been no more Jodie since I was going almost 65 mph, over corrected and violently swerved over to the left lane nearly hitting the ditch on the other side of the road too. It's amazing how powerful that steering wheel becomes when you loose control. It nearly yanked my arms out of my sockets! What an idiot!
So then I get to work and there was almost NO parking except in the deck which I hate. Several people have gotten robbed in there. So here I am unable to control my anger ranting and raving as I walked through the office. The guy I was venting to was baffled at my stupid raging--he was like "it's JUST a parking space". Yeah, I know-I'm being unreasonable, AGAIN. I'm sure everyone was thinking "there she goes again"! I thought the lack of spaces was another office here that is much larger than ours. Turns out it was MY office--people working overtime today. So now everyone is really annoyed with me and they are ignoring me. I suppose that's better than full confrontation. I think I'd loose it even more. I could kick myself!
Jodie

Jodie

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-05-2003
Fri, 04-21-2006 - 9:26am

You know what you do? You apologize. You tell everyone "I'm sorry I acted like such an (censored word that will get deleted but is another word for donkey) this morning. I had to kill this humongous spider in my car this morning and almost drove off the road and I was just totally freaked out and it totally was NOT the parking spaces."

People will understand. They will. A., most people hate spiders and B., most people like getting apologies. Only real jerks are going to hold a grudge.

Goodness knows I've done my fair share of overreacting in my day (see my post about getting censored, lol), and usually an apologize, a self-deprecating joke and a comment about the weather/sports team/Tom Cruise does the trick nicely.

Also, and this is advice my mom gave me years ago, most people really just don't care that much about you and your antics. You aren't that important to them. They aren't sitting around all day thinking about whatever snit you had this morning. They are thinking about the traffic they got stuck in, their crappy parking spot, what they are going to have for lunch, what that annoying little thing in their ear is, should they go see their doctor for that rash or just wait and see if the ointment clears it up, etc., etc., etc.

Your parking lot rant probably got about 16 seconds of thought from them this morning and now is compeltely out of their heads. Seriously.

It's not b/c they don't like you; it's because people inherently see themselves as the center of their own universes.

Unless you are getting open hostility from someone, just make your apology and move on. The apology is mostly for you, but will help your co-workers see you in a generally more positive light.

Also, if after having a particularly memorable rant at work, people are actually talking about it, bring cookies. Or donuts. Sugar and fat are great memory erasers.