The Other Jill

Yesterday, on the way home from the not-to-be-mentioned-again destination, my conversation with Andrew focused on my usually hidden alter-ego, "Bitch Jill," (going forward let's just call her B, dropping the J for obvious reasons). We both realized that I had just spent hours in a less than desirable location, requiring multiple customer service interactions, yet I had stayed calm and relaxed.  Regardless of the idiocy of the process or the personnel, I smiled and said thank you at every stage.  I didn't pace the floor, find a manager or mumble snide comments intentionally loud enough for people to hear. Jill triumphed over her B. I was happy that he noticed, and sad that he had to.

I'm not proud that my kids are pretty familiar with B, but at times she has gotten us out of some bad situations. She has been successful in getting a better hotel room (not happy near an elevator, service closet or the ice machine) and getting cable installed on a holiday (with a long term discount) when they did not show up on the assigned day.  However, it has become clear to me that she is less powerful in most other situations. I do have a temper, and a low threshold for incompetence and indifference, but history has shown that anger only gets me angrier, embarrasses my kids, and makes the offender want to be more offensive. I do have boundaries, I am always patient in a restaurant (I spent enough years as a waitress to know better), in a hospital, on an airplane, or at school (except one incident with a gym teacher who totally deserved it).  Just to be clear, I am not a public screamer; B does her damage with a condescending tone and relentless badgering. She usually runs through the ranks of available staff until ultimately finding the person in charge or whoever is unlucky enough to wear the name tag that shift. Sometimes the desired outcome is reached through logical reasoning (usually helps when nice Jill visits and apologizes; management is caught off guard) and more often than not because she wears them down and they want her to go away. Over the past few years, she wore me out as well.  I hope most of you have never seen her in action, or worse, been her victim. Unfortunately, my family usually has a front row seat to "B Theater”; I have done a fairly good job of hiding her from everyone else.  It's a two-act play; Act One: situation occurs, tension builds, opposing party is indifferent or obstinate, B arrives, and battle ensues. Act Two: Kids scatter and Jeffrey swoops in to play "nice customer”, apologies for his B wife and befriends the wounded party (who could resist that Jeffrey laugh), B softens, uncrosses her arms, releases her furrowed brow (not a good look regardless and costs me a fortune in Botox), manages a smile, attitude adjusts, kids return, leave happy and remorseful.  B has shown up at work only once or twice. She was completely ineffective and not popular with other the staff members. I’m proud she's mostly gone for now. I can't promise she won't appear on a phone call with random "customer service" operators (especially the "outsourced" workforce reading from a prepared script, "I'm sorry you feel that way Jill, we are doing our best to solve your problem." Nope, don't think you are) or when a teenage store clerk can't look up from her cell phone to acknowledge a line of customers. In this case the verbal assault from B brings smiles to the faces of those around her; she bravely says what they are thinking.

This discovery of a kinder, gentler Jill in the face of dissatisfaction is not blog-related; I've been working on her for a while now. I like her much better than B and she gets the job done with lower blood-pressure and maybe a few less gray hairs. The blog does provide a perfect format to voice my frustrations and disparaging commentary when necessary (reference:  yesterday) and the damages are far less when the attack is in hindsight. Most issues are not caused by the direct action of the person behind the counter and most can't be solved by them either. They're just doing their best to get through the day, go home and complain about the “Bitch” they had to deal with at work. If I can help it, they won’t be talking about me.