My Antipatic Colleague

She is always irritable. She is my colleague. She is in her early forties and I really dislike the way she acts. It seems to me that she has severe mood swing problems: one moment she is talking to me like she's my best friend in this world, and one minute later, she's gonna bark at me like a stray hound! I just don't know what's into her.

Almost everyone at work dislike her. She is really very uncongenial. However, I always try to be nice to her and be kind despite the fact that she unreasonably barks at me most of the time. I always think that behind someone's attitude, there is always a deeper reason and a deeper meaning and explanation.

I was correct!

One sunny afternoon, one of her friends visited her. They sat just a few meters away from me from the office garden. It was our afternoon 30-minute break so it was a coincidence that I was also taking some sun and reviewing my language course lessons near where they sat and discuss stuff. Naturally, I overheard their conversation.

Her visitor is the nurse of her son. The son is a vegetable (paraplegic???? or something like that?). I learned later on, both from the conversation I heard and from people who knew her better than me, that the son, two years ago met an accident in a ski lesson in Italy. The accident has damaged the spinal column area (nervous system organ) and resulted to permanent paralysis of his limbs. Thus, her son can only live if the nurse or his mother (my colleague) is attending him.

I was really saddened by the discovery that I made. I understood why she's behaving so. I found the reason for her mood swings and irritated manner. I uncovered the meaning of everything. I never regret that I always tried to be good to her. She is feeling so bad for the situation of her son. I feel lucky for myself as I am so young, at 24 years of age and healthy and no worries about the health of my loved ones.

From that discovery, I even tried to be even more good to her. I know it's so difficult from her side and understanding from her colleagues is a big factor for her. Now I am thankful that I did not try to bark back during those times she barked at me.