Lesson learned...don't even bother being nice.

As I said yesterday, I am trying to just make peace with work. Come in, keep my head down, work as hard as I can, and then just get the f*ck out at the end of the day in one piece. Run home and enjoy the time I get to have outside of the office.

And it seems like a workable plan, more or less. I know that there are going to be some days/projects that are going to cause more stress than others. And I know that there will be some colleagues who may be more challenging to work with than others. WORK with.

Not just inhabit the same space.

I just had an experience this morning that I have no words for. Most folks I know have some form of security badge, ID card, or key fob to get access to and often get around their office building. Well, at least working in the hyper-aware-of-security-threats DC region, anyway. And I don't think it matters how careful/mindful you are, everyone has had the experience of getting "locked out" at least once or twice. You get stuck in a hallway, or outside an elevator because you accidentally left your badge/fob back at your desk. Then you wait by the door and give a sheepish grin to the first person who happens to come by and let you in. They give you a little nod back that says "Hey, we've all done it!" and you each go about your day.

Coming back up to my office with another colleague in tow, we exited the elevator where I noticed a lady just sort of standing in front of one of the doors. Assuming she had "locked herself out" I scurried over, chirping an enthusiastic "let me get that for you!" as I swipped my ID badge to unlock the door.

The woman looked at me with absolute horror and, I kid you not, disgust. "Can I help you?!", she barked at me.

"Oh..sorry...I thought maybe you had forgotten your badge and were waiting for someone to let you in", I cowered.

Growing more disgusted with me, she huffed back, "Whatever would give you that idea?!"

Um.....that you were standing motionless in front of controlled access doors? With no forward momentum to actually get through said doors?????

"I was just applying hand sanitizer! And really, that is for everyone's benefit!!" she said, growing so irritated I was beginning to get a little scared.

"Ok, great. Have a good day!" I called back to her as I hightailed it out of there with my colleague. Colleague turns to me and says, "Haven't you learned by now? Don't bother being nice to anyone here. Don't. Even. Bother."

I will again count my blessings and be EXTREMELY grateful that this is a shortened work week and will be counting down the minutes until I leave this place on Thursday. I think right now it's just about 1,320 more minutes. Of which, I will probably be stuck in meetings for about 500 of those minutes. (Sad part is, I actually did the math for that one...)