Nancyitis

The lady I share an office with is a real piece of work. Nancy is three years away from retirement and she's just hanging in. She has maybe three days worth of work in the entire month and the rest of the time she talks. She talks to the workers from the dairy plant who stop in to gossip, she talks (or rather bitches) on the phone to the various crazy members of her family, she tries to talk to me (but I told her the very first day that I don't gossip), and, as a last resort, she talks to herself. Either way, she must always have the sound of her voice filling the otherwise glorious and productive silence.

She is an incurable hypochondriac. At convenient times throughout the day, like during encounters with her "boss man," she suffers from a range of ailments varying from splitting headaches to stomach pains and she lets everyone know all about them. She gets off at 4:00 (and my last hour of work is generally more productive than the whole rest of the day) and it never fails that around 3:30 every afternoon she calls her boss using a much more sickly voice than she's been gabbing with all day and complains of some physical problem that necessitates her leaving early. Then miraculously the Nancyitis I myself suffered from the preceding 6 hours goes into remission until the next morning.

She is also the antithesis of being good to each other. Her family includes her husband, one son, a daughter-in-law, and three granddaughters, one of whom she raised from birth, which I would commend except for the way she speaks to her. Every time Nancy calls her college-age daughter/granddaughter she opens not with "Hey, how are you?" but with "Wherr' you??!" in a totally accusatory tone and then follows that with "Well you better [insert bitchy command here]!" She is never pleasant on the phone to anyone, even when she answers her office phone, which she does with an exasperated "Nancy..." and then hangs up with a bang without saying goodbye.

She always complains about what time it is... "Ohh Emily it's only 11:00"... "Ohh Emily it's only 3:00"... which makes my day eternally long. In general I try to ignore her, but she is a gnat constantly buzzing in my left ear. Think it would be too obvious if I brought a set of earphones and just stuck one in the ear facing her? Probably...

I firmly believe though that every person you encounter in life can affect you either negatively or positively depending, not on who they are, but on how you choose to receive them. For example, Nancy and her gossip buddy from the front office sit around in here complaining about their dumb husbands and they just sound so bitter. Their conversations give me, as a newlywed, a very clear picture of how I never want my marriage to be. I'm actually grateful to be shown the importance of always striving to do what's best for each other and to understand each other. You have to work on a marriage, not just let things go along as they will. You must be on the same side facing the world together, not opposing each other as enemies.

For all the little annoyances, at least I have a blueprint of how not to age. Thanks Nancy!