Mean Spirited Classless Broom Wielding Harpy

I couldn't figure it out.  Why did she hate me so much?  I hadn't had time to screw up that much, had only been on the job for a couple of months and was learning as fast as I could, was working as hard as I could.  But every day, she glared or yelled at me, and every day I went to work with my stomach churning, waiting to face The Wrath of God.

She stayed on my case like it was winter and she was a blanket. I considered going over her head to the superintendent. It was harrassment, pure and simple, and I'd be damned if she was going to force me out of a brand new job that I hadn't had a chance to prove myself in, yet.  But then, one day, I walked into her office and it was obvious she had been crying. 

Are you ok?  Is there anything I can do?

No, I'm fine. I'm fine...

Well, Ava was not fine.  She was exhausted from caring for her dying, elderly mother.  She was in pain because of her knee, and the concrete floors and four flights of stairs at the prison certainly weren't helping.  No, she had a lot on her plate, and I wasn't going to add one more crumb to it by going to the superintendent, no matter if I threw up all the way down the hall in nauseous anticipation of her next fit of rage.

It's hard to believe, now, that it was only a year ago that an incident pushed me into an anxiety attack so severe that I found myself on my front porch, crying, with no idea how I had gotten there.  I simply didn't remember. 

It was two days before the Thanksgiving holiday - two days off from work!  But that night, I decided I was calling out and taking a break from Ava to get myself together and decide what to do - stay in misery, or simply quit.  It was that bad. The woman despised me, and there is nothing worse than having a supervisor with a razor blade tongue and a broom for transporation.  Would I go back?

Yes.  I pulled myself together, steeled myself for work the following Monday, and found out that Ava's mother had passed away.  She would be out of work for the next two weeks.  Not only that, she would be going out for surgery, and wouldn't come back until February.  I was sorry for her loss, but so relieved she wouldn't be there.  It was a reprieve.

Well, February came around quick - the months passed so fast, and I knew there was a decision to be made.  I couldn't put it offone more day.  But while she had been out, I had learned a lot, made friends at my new workplace, and had become the charge nurse's right hand - her words.  It wouldn't be an easy decision.

And then, the day she returned, Ava walked in and scared the holy hell out of me. 

She smiled.

to be continued