I am sick and evil. Hear me roar.

Actually, it’s more like, “Hear me wail.”

One of my places of employment is training potential new hires. This isn’t a bad thing, by any means, because we are a tiny staff and we need all the help we can get to help things run more smoothly.

There are two problems. The first is a small one: I like working alone. I can focus or chit-chat with Mr. “He’s fond of you” or do homework without bumping elbows with anyone. I am unbelievably easily distracted and flustered by people, and I hate when people are in my way, but when I’m alone I can channel everything into doing all the tasks on my plate rather well.

The second problem is bigger and is the source of my evilness: one of the new hires is a woman, and that bothers me. I’m the only female student employee currently, and I have an interesting position of the Source of Giggles, the Source of Woman-Violence, the Source of Easily-Read Facial Expressions (all eight of them, according to Luke), and the Source of Big, Friendly Grins that keeps me in fairly good with the crew, even when I am worn out and bowed/broken.

The new hire has the potential to be a souce of these things, too. I am no longer exclusive.

Now, I’m not hating on the woman for being friendly and giggly— Wait, who am I kidding? Any new female hires need to be ugly bitches that carry switchblades and alienate everyone in the course of doing their job (and their job should be done poorly, at that!).

Insecure? Hell, yeah, I am. Fuck. Sexist, too? Apparently. Petty and irrational? You know it.

This is pretty low, even for me, although I’m not surprised at my response. There are some things I am incredibly possessive about, and this situation falls neatly into that set.

She’s good; she’s smart, and not as reticent (or tired) as I was when I started. I should be trying to make a friend instead of worrying about office politics, particularly because she’s a social[-seeming] CS (and social CS’s are cool, by default).

This is just like one of those situations, though, when you’re set with a group of friends and all your relationships and hierarchies (flat as they may be) are all set, and all of a sudden, there is Another. Another may be a friend’s SO or just someone trying to integrate, but they’re jockeying for your spot in some way and that fucking sucks, to put it eloquently.

Oh, well. Time to stamp out the big Lissa-ego and grow up. Grr.