Circling the drain

Can one person make a difference? Hell yeah. I noticed it today.

It wasn't the presence of one person that made the difference - it was the absence. My co-worker, who shall henceforth be known as "The Festering Pool of Negativity" transferred out of our department and suddenlyn things are soooo much better.

She has been gone a few weeks but today it really hit me - this place is different. No one is at anyone's throat. No one is gossiping about each other. No one is backstabbing. We are all talking. We don't mind spending time together. Work doesn't suck the way it used to.

It's weird, because I actually kind of like The Festering Pool. I don't mind having lunch with her. We both have a sarcastic, bordering-on-mean sense of humor. But I think where I do it for effect, she lives and breathes the meanness. And day in, day out, 40 hours a week, it is just too hard to work with someone like The Festering Pool.

When she transferred out, she was soooo happy. The new department was so different, so superior, she couldn't believe how long she had lasted in our Pit of Hell. She was so glad to be gone.

But you can guess what happened after a little while in her new department, can't you? Somehow it took on the characteristics of The Festering Pool and became her very own. Apparently now it sucks over there, too.

As they say, no matter where you go, there you are.