Shit Show

Today was terrible. Since the new intern joined up with us yesterday I took that to be a good sign since he seemed to be good company. However, I didn't realize that having a third worker meant that things would change and she wouldn't keep out personal matters since she didn't really need me anymore.

We started off the day and were looking for the transect and our run with Fort Union has been pretty bad because so many rebar haven't been found and it was believed to be a mistake in the parameters of the GPS unit. So, of course, we couldn't find the first rebar and after a few minutes I commented that if we didn't find it we should call Tomye and ask what to do. So we went on looking and Chris and I started joking with each other about how the bars were never there, while we were looking. One of the jokes was "The Hardy Boys and the Case of the Missing Rebar" and I sent that to Tomye who thought it was funny.

Apparently, Tomye sent a message to Jill saying how much time to spend looking for rebar. At the time I was taking a little break near where the first rebar was supposed to be. Suddenly I hear this yelling and cursing; Jill was yelling at me to start looking again. So I started going again and Chris, who worked with her last year, said she had yelled at him a couple times last year and blamed it later on her diabetes or "girl thing." She's always making excuses and not just taking responsibility for things.

Eventually she came back to the original point after doing her 100+ meter radius (our transects are only 50 meters). She told Chris to start working and me to come with her to the car. That's when my stomach started hurting. She took the spare car key from me and basically put me in time-out by the car for that transect. The whole situation felt like a mom towards her son who had done something wrong. I told her I had only sent a joke and that I was only taking a break when she yelled. She told me to think about what I'd done and went to work, leaving me by the car without water.

The rest of the day I had a stomach ache and my hands would shake when I was around her. I knew that it was because of fear. I've been afraid of her most of the summer because of how unpredictable, and therefore dangerous, she is with her personality tweaks. I've never felt this afraid, though. Chris was a good guy and he couldn't believe all he'd seen.

I knew I couldn't trust her. She's overreacted before. This was just a terrible, depressing day and there's still a lot more to go. If she tries to put me in time-out again I'll call Tomye because I'm not fifteen and I'm here to work and I do good work and never let personal feelings interfere.