“There’s this person, whom I’ll call X. X is bubbly, has no discipline, self-respect, or respect for our (hers or mine) superiors. Except, of course, when she’s busy ass-kissing. Anyway. So we’re (we = about 20 people) all watching a movie when X’s boyfriend, for like the 10th time, turns around in his chair and makes kissy noises at me. How dumb is that. So anyway, because of his position his chair is on two legs. Whoops..I kick the chair out from under him. He lands on X. X gets pissed at me, apparently not recognising (although I guess her bias is understandable) that her boyfriend is just as much a rambunctious schmuck as I. She proceeds to go nuclear and gets in my face, I mean like four inches distance. Then she starts with the finger stabbing. I don’t feel like getting smacked today so I grab her arms by the wrists and keep them at her sides, at which point she almost breaks into tears and announces I’ve broken her wrist. Then she leaves. Comes back with a nonstandard can of Coke (pre-shaken) and explodes it all over me.

The sum of X’s boyfriend’s reaction was “Dude, you hurt her, not cool.” – and then he went back to the movie.

What makes it worse? I am surrounded by Xs to varying degrees. There are four non-Xs out of the 20-40 people I work with here (# varies because of different taskings and timinngs). And there is only one non-X whose mind is completely stable.”