J.T. got a rejection letter from the VA yesterday, stating that he didn't meet the minimum qualifications to be considered for a position with the VA. I knew he was upset, but I didn't offer any other response other than "fuck them, they don't deserve you." I thought that when someone was upset about something, my job as friend was to encourage them, or blow smoke up their ass, if you prefer the less positive spin. So when I got home from Lawrenceburg yesterday, I was greeted with this:
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"Here's what I sent the contact named on the letter.
'I received a letter today that said "You were not qualified at the GS6 level
due to not meeting the basic qualification requirements as advertised in the
vacancy announcement."
There must be some mistake as I double checked every aspect of the listing
and when compared to my application/resume, I am more than qualified for this
position.
This is in referance to Announcement number 08-154.
Please contact me at your first available convenience to clarify what the
problem is.
Thank you
LT. J.T. Jackson
KY Dept. of Military Affairs.'
Don't give me any "more flies with honey that vinager" BS either. THEY
fucked up."
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I asked him if he was directing that figuratively at them, meaning they better not give him some cock and bull story about why they're not considering him. I didn't get a response after 20 minutes, so I asked him if he meant that I shouldn't give him that BS. Here's the exchange that ensued:
Him: That part after my name was for you.
Me: Well, I'm sorry they fucked up, but I don't recall any use of BS on my part, at least not tonight. Anytime I have allegedly used that in the past was my apparently lame attempt to be supportive. I'm VERY hurt by that. I don't like you implying that I'm taking their side, when I always try to take yours, even though you may not interpret it that way.
Him: I was saying Not to in a preimptive manner. Just didn't want any smoke up
my ass.
Me: Well, next time, it would help if you'd soften it with something like "I'd appreciate you not blowing smoke up my ass." My BP is still raised from that comment. [author's note: it's raised just by rehashing this again, too]
Him: Relax will ya.
Just because its in an email addressed to you, doesn't mean everything in it
is aimed at you.
Me: You just said that the last part was intended for me. I'm sorry they responded the way they did, and I'm sorry you're upset about it. I don't think you meant to hurt my feelings, but you did, so rather than let it get to me any more, I think I'll just leave you to your work. Goodnight.
Him: Fine
Me: A "sorry I upset" you would be nice. I at least tried to offer some sympathy.
That was it. I haven't heard a word from him, nor have I contacted him. I didn't expect to hear anything else, but I would think that most people, upon learning that they have upset someone, would apologize. I don't expect him to. He probably forgot about it less than an hour after it happened, whereas Frank and I were on the phone talking about it off and on for three hours. I don't expect to hear from him tonight, either, but that's fine, because my ass is heading to bed around 11:15, and no later. I'm not going to sit up all night, wondering if he'll e-mail. If he does, I'll see it tomorrow morning. If he doesn't, I won't be mad at myself for waiting on him for no reason. And quite frankly, that goes for every night. He doesn't lose sleep by staying up to e-mail me... why should I do that with him?
This is what I would love to say to him: "Why did you e-mail me to tell me your response to the VA? Were you just telling me to inform me? If so, and you didn't want an opinion, you should have told me so. And even if you didn't, if you had said, "this is what I told them," then there would have been no reason for me to say, "you should have said it this way or that way." Besides, I thought what you said was fine - no honey coating necessary - and it was pretty presumptuous of you to assume I would criticize it.
Also, two bits of advice, even though you probably think you don't need them. 1) You might want to copy and paste your responses into Word so that an auto spell check will be done. "Reference" was misspelled in your response. And 2) avoid using "don't" as the first word in a statement, if at all possible. All that does is evoke defensive, "I'm being told what (not) to do" feelings from the person to whom it's directed."
Or more to the point, and in his style of speech: "Look, if you don't want my opinion on something, either tell me you don't want it, or don't tell me about it at all."
The bottom line, and what I would love for him to answer, is... am I supposed to sit there and not react at all when you receive news that's not to your liking? I'm a girl. My nature is to nurture. I'm genetically engineered to be more in touch with my emotions, and more sensitive to others' emotions. Therefore, when someone I care about receives bad news, my first instinct is to come to their aid, however I can, and the knee-jerk reaction is to pump that person up so they feel better about themselves and can put the blame off them and onto whoever or whatever made them feel bad. I can't help it. It's how I'm wired. So, either tell me how you would prefer that I react, or deal with how I react on my own. I tell you what, though... I'm not contacting him first. There is a very small part of me that wants to be the pacifist, because I am the type of person who doesn't like for people to be mad at them. But in this case, knowing how quickly he "gets over" things, I can pretty much guarantee that he hasn't thought about it beyond 1am this morning, like I mentioned before. Besides, he's not the one who's mad here - it's me. The desire to be the pacifist is trumped not only by that, but also by my feeling that if I extend the proverbial olive branch, I'm somehow accepting blame for what happened, and it was his stupid, presumptive, assholish comment about flies and vinegar that caused this whole mess. Therefore, I'll spend the next several days, waiting on him to make the first bit of contact, and I'll play mind games with myself until then in an attempt to convince myself that his reaching out to me will be some sort of bizarre peace pipe.
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