(Unrealistic) Expectations

I was having some serious OP love earlier this week. The whole "of course you go to your sister's event" thing was up there as well as his hand in talking with Man Who Makes Me Cry In My Own Office (who had e-mailed me wanted to share thoughts on youth sunday... thoughts which consisted of "did I miss something because how was that considered a worship service." Oh yeah.)

But you know, I think that love is fading at the moment (it's not all gone, just the glow). The interferance he was going to run, I'm sure tempered Man Who's rudeness but I still got jerked around by him. I don't know exactly how he deals with Man Who but I sometimes think he could do even more. Does he ever call Man Who out on his down-right rude treatment of me or is it "well, that's just something they'll have to work out." Which would be fine, I suppose, except Man Who literally worships OP and I think sometimes if he just said "look, you two don't see eye-to-eye but you've got to stop patronizing and needling her" it might help. Or at least let me know I'm not alone in this.

Also, and this is minor and petty (but), we have an executive team meeting before our session meeting each month. At 8am. On Friday. My day off. So, that's lame in and of itself - a day I shouldn't be at work at a time that he knows I'm not at my best. Apparently they used to meet at lunch on Friday before the session meeting (which would me at least half better). So I've always kinda been bothered by the fact he never said "hey, we have a new team member on board who is off this day and it's ridiculous to ask her to schedule a meeting on her own time, so let's move it to Thursday."

So this morning I arrive at the meeting at 8:01am (there was traffic on my way over). And at the end of the meeting he asks to see me. To "ask" me to be at church 5 minutes before the meeting. Because, you know, it's been a couple meetings now that I've arrived exactly on time or a minute late (literally a minute). And, of course, he starts this meeting (not the session meeting or any other meeting but THIS meeting at 8 freaking am) before the actual meeting time or exactly on the dot.

This is just a small example of a constant theme. It's gotten much, much better, but I don't know if OP fully respects me or sees me as a colleague or is fully aware of his power over me and how much that, well, sucks for me.

Ah, rant done now. Now it's time to try and write a sermon about not fearing. Hmmm... one of these days maybe I'll take my own advice and actually talk to OP about some of this. Probably not, but maybe.

Edited to Add: Got an e-mail back from Man Who... apparently youth sunday begs the question of why the youth weren't challenged enough (I didn't realize they hadn't been) and while he thanks me for me e-mail, he doesn't appreciate my condescending tone. Wow. Um, didn't know I had been condescending in said e-mail - in fact had a friend look at it before I sent it to make sure all was pleasant. But I think what he reads as condescending is me answering his trap question - "how was that considered a worship service" - as best as I could. I drove back the the office to talk to OP - which meant crying of course - and while he said, there's nothing you can do, I wanted to say "well, what about you?" When a parishioner is just not nice to someone, even a minister, shouldn't we address that? Bleh...