Disowning Projection

International Women’s Day today. I’d already written the topic below when I realized what day it is. Not one single person in my world of face-to-face contact mentioned it, and not many, perhaps not one, would know what I was talking about if I mentioned it. So, I’ll mention it here.

I’m actually doing pretty well with the situation at work, managing to get through the time and sleep at night. I’m on a regime of medication to assist my stomach through the month of March, which is flaring up from the stress, the stress of the day to day with herself, the negative coworker. I am lucky enough to be working almost every day in March, but with herself. The silver lining, adequate work, is shiny and bright and much appreciated, the cloud itself keeps me busy keeping dry.

Here is a day in the life, my life, my working life to be specific. Working with my negative co-worker is a challenge. Here is part of yesterday’s interaction. I was busily working away, minding my own business. She came around the corner, stood watching me work and began to converse, which I cannot reject out of hand without causing a lot of conflict, been there, done that. She is in charge of the office, the boss, when we are working together.

Her: “you get a pension right”
Me: “do you mean a pension from this job?”
Her: “ya”
Me: “no”
Her: “you don’t get a pension!”
Me: “no”
Her: “you get benefits right”
Me: “nothing but the hourly wage minus union dues, taxes, usual deductions”
Her: “you don’t get benefits”
Me: “nothing”
Her: “nothing!”
Me: “correct, nothing”
Her: “I don’t blame you for being to so bitter”

Bitter? Every conversation is some sort of head game, a setup for future gossip with the other employees and/or the community. She will continue her efforts to entrap for hours, she seems to thrive on it. Maybe she has learned this from her favorite TV show, Survivor; I doubt it though, this seems ingrained. It seems she lives to gossip, loves to stir up conflict, loves to repeat what people say, out of context, projecting her own dysfunctional perspective onto anyone [disowning projection] who is not present to defend themselves. I have to listen to her for hours every day that I am there. They really don’t pay me enough! Where oh where is the relocation I asked for! As another employee who refuses to work with her says, “life is too short”.

It is quite possible that at the end of March, having spent almost every day with this individual, I will be feeling quite bitter. However, that feeling will go away when she does, or, more accurately, when I stop working with her. I know that relocation is coming, I know it!

Thank you dear reader, for your forbearance of my efforts to project this unhealthy experience onto this page.

Worldly Distractions

Weather

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Dewpoint: -14.1°C
Humidity: 67 %
Wind: ESE 9 km/h
Wind Chill: -19

Quote 

“A bully is not reasonable – he is persuaded only by threats.”
Marie De France
12th Century

“If it were not for history everything would happen at once, if it were not for geography everything would happen to me… ”

Written on a stall wall in the washroom of the By The Way Cafe, Bloor Street, Toronto, 1991.
[I have my reasons for loving geography!]

Notes

Disowning Projection

In a projection , a person attributes certain aspects of him or herself to others (→ Attribution Processes ). The process is closely tied to → identification in the psychology of personality. A disowning projection involves attributing negative aspects of the self to others, such as “selfish motives, evil intent … [or] stupid attitudes” ( Cameron 1947 ). Cameron includes the exclusion of those characteristics from the self as part of that projection (hence the disowning portion of the name). Theoretically, a disowning projection should be contrasted with an assimilative projection , in which a person similarly projects his or her own qualities onto others. Although both are projections, the content and effects of the projections are quite different. When negative characteristics are projected, the person who is projecting disassociates him or herself from the characteristics. When positive characteristics are projected, no such disassociation occurs. Instead, the person who is projecting maintains the view of him or herself as being described by these characteristics, and, after projecting them onto others, sees him or herself as similar to those others.
Source: http://www.communicationencyclopedia.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405131995_yr2011_chunk_g97814051319959_ss55-1

Marie de France

Marie de France was a poet, in France and England during the late 12th century. Little is known of her early life; from the simple but literary Anglo-Norman French in which her works are composed, it is supposed that she was raised in Normandy. Her name is known from a line in one of her published works: Marie ai nun, si sui de France, which translates as, “My name is Marie, I am from France.”

Her written works include 12 “Breton lais” (or lays), the “Ysopet” fables, and the Legend of the Purgatory of St. Patrick. The first record of Marie de France is about 1160, with the last known record being at about 1215. One of her works is dedicated to a “King Henry,” the other to a “Count William”; it is thought that these refer to Henry II of England and his oldest son, William, Count of Salisbury. As the wife of Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine was well known to be a patroness of troubadors and other artists, it seems logical to assume that Marie de France was a member of their court.
Source: http://www.biographybase.com/biography/de_France_Marie.html