Mind Your Own Business

One thing that really gets under my skin are people who try to tell you how to handle your life.  I work with this woman who feels the need to criticize anything and everything I do.  At lunch, she will take a look at my food and say things like, "You're eating pasta?  That's going to make you fat."  This woman is at least 80 lbs overweight.  So for someone who weighs far more than myself, don't give me nutritional advice.  I count my calories on a daily basis and know what I am eating.  I do not judge her for eating those sodium-loaded Ramen Noodle cups every single day.  If someone wants to live off of Ramen Noodles, go for it.

This woman also tells me instead of driving to San Diego, our family of three should fly because it would be cheaper.  I'm not sure what planet she lives on, but it costs so much more to fly then to drive.  Even if gas was $5 a gallon, it would be far less expensive to take the five hour car ride then to get on an airplane and pay $465 round trip for the three of us.  I get it, the plane would get us there faster, but why spend hundreds of more dollars when it's easier to take a car?  I'm not a fan of getting groped by the TSA agents.  And has anyone flown with a pre-school aged kid?  It's not exactly fun...

I am the only person she criticizes on a daily basis.  I'm not exactly sure what I ever did to her, but it has gotten so annoying.  I'm not sure if it's jealousy or what.  She never acts this way towards the other woman we eat lunch with.  If she doesn't stop with her nastiness, my inner bitch is going to come out and she's not going to ever want to be in the same room as me.  I could stoop to her level, but what would that prove.  It wouldn't be too hard to move my lunch schedule around and go at 12:30pm instead of 12pm, but it would suck because I really do enjoy eating lunch with the other two women.  Since I don't feel a workplace should be treated like high school, I'm not going to put the other two in a position where they have to chose who to sit with at lunch.  That's just childish.

If I don't show up at lunch, maybe she will start judging and criticizing someone else.  Her toxic behavior will slowly start to infect everyone else.  I can't avoid her completely because we are on the same team.  So I have decided that the best way to avoid any of her bullshit is to take a later lunch.