Week X + 1: Soap Opera Moment

Recently I had an experience that made me feel like I’d stepped out of my life and into a soap opera.  I meant to right about it at the time, however got caught up and completely forgot.  Tonight I remembered said moment when reminiscing  with the sister, and thought I should share it here for you to marvel at the strange twist of events I found myself in.

I can’t remember what I have mentioned about my work, but essentially at present I am a workplace trainer. I look after the training requirements for 200+ people in my workplace, chronicle their histories, determine what they need to do, organise and facilitate the training as required. It is a rather large job, that takes a lot of time and energy and made life as a law student more difficult then it needed to be. But anyway I digress.

Recently, while at work going about my business I received a phone call from a lady in head office who asked for me specifically. I was intrigued when I heard who was calling, someone from head office for little old me? Surprised when said lady told me she’d got my name and details off the State’s head guy for Learning & Development. I have never met said head guy and was not even aware he knew of my existence. Apparently not only did he know of my existence, he also had recommended me to said lady for my skills and expertise.

She requested I go to an offsite location, to provide them with training they desperately needed.  Hmm, I thought to myself. Sounds a little challenging, will be good for the resume, and OMG the head guy from L&D knows who I am? Should I be worried? Flattered? Flabbergasted?  Sure I’ll do it. I have nothing better to do on that Friday (which was actually a bit of a lie, because my workload just seems to keep on piling up).  So I prepared myself, which was challenging enough amongst ladies and slithery friends and what not. Gathered my materials and headed out bright and early on Friday morning, plugging the address into my GPS.

Driving along the street, I am looking for the number. Nope, nope, nope… WAIT! The street just jumped up 100 numbers! And the place I’m supposed to be is somewhere in the middle! WTF? Where am I supposed to be going? Ok, I know. I’ll call “home” and find out if anyone knows where this place is. So that I did.  The response I got at “home”? Oh didn’t that place close down a little while ago? Wait, what? No freaking way. It couldn’t have closed down! So I track down the number for the off site and give them a call. Luckily they have not shut, and are indeed expecting me. They provide directions to the most obscure location, but off I trek in search of this place I agreed to go. Stupidly agreed is how I’m feeling right about now.

So I head off back the way I came, to find this mysterious location I have only heard rumors about.  Finally I find it! Hallelujah! It does exist, and I’m only half an hour late. Not too bad really. So I head inside to introduce myself and get things started. Uh oh, IT haven’t set up the programs correctly. Fabulous. Things that desperately need to be printed are not printing. I spend half of my training time on the phone to IT trying to get the issues sorted.  Logged my dramas and got on with the training. In walks my next pupil.

My first thought was oh f#@k! What the hell am I going to do? Shit, shit, shit shit. Perhaps another shit or two. I plastered a polite smile on my face, introduced myself and pretended that I had never met my pupil before. My pupil who happens to be the woman who almost tore my “family” apart. The woman who had befriended us all, especially my mother. The woman who then proceeded to have an affair with my step father. A rather long affair. That my mother found out about and pretty much destroyed her. She has stayed with my step father through multiple affairs but that is a whole other story. This was the first.   And the most devastating. My mother left him for a while, but eventually went back but she hasn’t been the same since.

What was I thinking? I was trying not to actually. I gave myself a stern talking to, that I was at work and must be professional. I have come to do a job, and do it I must. So I continued with the charade that I had no idea who she was. In turn, she played her part.  Although it was a number of years ago now, I know that she must have remembered.  Physically I haven’t changed that much, and neither had she. Plus I have a slightly unusual name.  Although with the hell she put my family through, I damn well hope she remembered. And suffered as much through that training session as I did.  I made sure to cover all the relevant material, and that she understood before I moved on to my next pupil, the last for the day.

Unfortunately I think that last pupil suffered a bit, as my mind wasn’t completely on the job, and I think I omitted a few things, but by that stage all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there and back to my own place of employment. I left their unfixed IT issues with them, promised a cheat sheet and high tailed it back to work as fast as I could. I may have stopped to inhale some comfort junk food on the way though. And that dear readers, was the start of my week from hell (which I may tell you about at another date) and very own soap opera moment.