Posted by gardenergirl on March 27, 2004, at 14:16:09
Okay, here's an example I would love your consultation on. Sorry for it's length, but I want to give enough context, and frankly it is still in the midst of being quite distressing. I work in an office with four other people, four total desks, two computers, and one phone. Three of us are caucasian females, one is caucasian male who is kind of a spacy, flaky, sweet guy who lives on his own plane of reality, and one is an African American female. We have all got along reasonable well despite the crowded conditions. Rarely are we all in there at the same time, anyway. I have become close friends this year with the other two caucasian girls.
Recently, the African American girl (I'll call her A)left a document spooling in the printer overnight. She then logged off the computer and went home. Early the next morning one of my friends (B) came in to print something, found the printer out of paper and a document stuck on spooling. Since the document itself was not accessible (A had logged off), she cancelled the document that was stuck in order to print her stuff. One half page of printed material came out of the printer before the document cancelled. She threw this away, as it appeared to be unusable for anyone. (half a page of doc. and then some gibberish, and then the blank space).
"A" came in later and found her page in the trash. Since she had been printing a three page doc. for some reason she looked around the office and found a shredded doc. in the shredder that looked like the other two pages. Her assumption was that someone in the office intentionally threw away one page and shredded the other two. Already not a parsimonious theory, who would do two different things to the document? This is someone, I should note, who recently told me that after watching "The Passion" she really identified with Jesus Christ as she felt equally persecuted. That was a shocker at the time, and I was really sad for her, but did not really go any deeper with her about it.
Anyway, she posted a nasty note telling everyone not to shred any doc. that was not theirs. Okay, no problem. But then she accused B of doing the intentional act. She never asked me or the guy, or C, the other caucasian girl if we had done it. This was quite perplexing to the three of us. It was also distressing for me as I could not conceive of anyone in the office taking so much energy to do something like that. She very patronizingly told me, while she was patting my hand, that someday I wouldn't be so naive and would learn that my friends were essentially "evil".
Later C went through the shredded materials because she had recently shred a similar document (everyone is working on the same project for their CCE's and these doc's are very similar. She shreds each iteration of it as she revises it so she doesn't get them confused.) She determined that it was hers in the shredder, which goes along with the fact that only half a page of A's ever came out of the printer. A refuses to believe this, got belligerent that she has nothing to prove, and now thinks that B and C are covering up.
Here's our dilemma. Clearly, this woman is mistrustful of all of us and our motives. She even brought up the fact that the radio is on the desk she usually uses and suggested that it was because it was "her" desk. Well, the radio was placed there at the beginning of the practicum placement, before anyone had claimed space. That is where the most free outlets are, and the most free desk space as neither of the computers or phone stuff is on that desk.
C and I considered ourselves to be at least casual friends with A. We also consider ourselves to be good listeners, and capable of expressing empathy and support even if we do not agree with others. We are training to be T's after all. Whenever we try to listen neutrally, reflect what A is saying to be sure we understood, and offer support, she basically throws it back in our faces and gets hugely defensive. C and I have learned from her statements and behavior that we never were friends with this girl, that she never trusted us, and that she does not respond at all (at least overtly) to empathy statements. This really has shaken us up, almost to the core, as usually our intuition and assessment about relationships and our use of empathy garners some response, even in the most truculent clients. A has stated that she is mad at C, but "doesn't know if she will stay mad" so she wants C to go on behaving as usual, but A reserves the right to not talk to her. She refuses to give any behavioral examples of what C has done to offend, saying "you know what you did." I swear, between that and the name calling, it feels like she's acting like a seven year old.
We feel like we are in a no-win situation. No attempts to date to try to understand A and/or clear the air to start over have worked. It is affecting the way B, C, and I act together as we feel we are walking in a mine field whenever A is around. And that is distressing because we rely on each other for support in dealing with the stresses of this placement. A lot of that support invovles humor, which we feel has been taken away from us now. When we try to be ourselves, it feels false and forced if A is around.
What do we do? How do we get past our hurts and personal feelings as well as learn to communicate with A in a way that is not going to induce more accusations or arguments?
I would love any advice you can offer. I feel like the office needs smudging or something to remove the negative clouds which I feel like I am carrying home with me.
Thanks for reading!
gg
poster:gardenergirl
thread:329117
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040324/msgs/329117.html