A**

Today I was called an “asshole” at work.  In front of my entire department.  By the co-worker who has created the mess that has made my working life a living hell.

Now, I will confess to being a lot of things- too serious at times, socially awkward on occasion, even bitch-y when the moment strikes, but I am about as far from an asshole as one can get.  And I just can’t let this go.

Let’s go back a few months when my already stressful and oft infuriating job became a nightmare.  See, the aforementioned co-worker, we’ll call him Narcissus, lawyered-up to go after the NJ counseling board for not issuing him his independent counseling license.  Narcissus has been practicing unlicensed in our facility under clinical supervision for several years.   At one time, somebody somewhere considered our facility exempt from having licensed clinicians because we were an “educational facility”.  But then the laws changed and we retained several unlicensed clinicians.  When Narcissus applied for his license, he was denied repeatedly for a number of reasons that I will admit do not make a whole lot of sense.  So then he decided to fight the board for his license, leading the board to become angry and agitated (I’m sure because he also treated them as he treated me today).  In their anger and agitation, they went after my licensed supervisor for supervising an unlicensed clinician and stated that no unlicensed clinician could practice in our facility, effectively eliminating 4 of our 7 clinicians instantly.

Now, I am independently licensed and have NEVER practiced without a license because social workers are properly educated in understanding the laws of their state.  Our state only allows me to practice unlicensed as a certified school social worker (I am also one of those).  So, all of this means that I now get to carry a massive caseload while rescinding much of my job to a case manager who is supposed to be a clinician but can’t be because Narcissus had to go and make waves.  And I frequently find myself going through entire days where I do not have more than 2 minutes to breathe, but am fortunate enough to pass Narcissus in his office texting on his cell phone while he does virtually nothing and gets paid for it.

I will admit that I was angry, even furious, at this man for the problems he has entangled me in.  You see, I have broken no laws, I have done all that was expected of me, but I am the one working 10 times as hard to meet the demands of our facility.  I have essentially avoided Narcissus, knowing that I could not show much regard for him, especially when I heard that he was considering declining the license offered to him because it was not the independent license that he sought.   Such a decision would narcisistically allow him to avoid work while I continue to work like a dog.

Which leads to today.  This morning I received a Christmas card in my work mailbox, my first name written on the envelope – “Nichole”.   And inside, a card simply signed by, you guessed it, Narcissus.  Now, I’m not one to really get angry when my name is spelled wrong, but I would expect a man who I’ve worked with for three years to have a pretty good idea of how to spell my relatively easy-to-spell name.   But, narcissistic people only care about how to spell their own names.   In all honesty, it was one of those slightly painfully funny moments that makes me laugh a little at the absurdity of my job.

Later, we had a “going away” lunch for one of our interns where I thought I would take the opportunity to remind Narcissus how to spell my name.  So I simply said this line, “Pop quiz [Narcissus] – How do you spell my name?”  Let me elaborate in saying that this particular co-worker goes around “quizzing” other clinicians on clinical theory and whatnot on a regular basis to continue to promote his believe in his being superior to the rest of us.

And he replied, “A-S-S-H-O-L-E”.

And I replied, “Wow, that was mean.”

Because I’m pretty bad at comebacks when I get slapped in the face like that.  And then I went on to explain why I was asking – because he had spelled my name incorrectly.

And he replied, “Does it really matter how your name is spelled anyway?”

Because the truth is, no matter how hard I work, not matter how much I demonstrate (rather than just profess) my abilities as a clinician, Narcissus will never respect me and I never really will matter in his eyes.

And I just can’t let this go.