wanted: good worker, nice assistant, non-violent

* this is off the record and cannot be used against me by HR *

so, right before labor day i got a new assistant through a temp agency. someone to fax and scan and help keep my head above water. she didn't work out. she took lunch breaks too long, called in on her 3rd day, brought a lot of drama and personal junk to the office and my boss got rid of her. as much as firing someone is a big deal, this was the right thing.

this monday i got a new assistant. the first morning i gave her our company handbook to review and she said "do i have read all of this?" speaking of the roughly 10 pages in front of her. i said "yes" and almost showed her the door. later in the morning i was joking with another girl in the office about her relationship that is on the rocks and made a comment to her that was in no way rude. the girl laughed and agreed with my comment, but this assistant (shall we call her Betty for this blog?) thought she didn't like what i said and smacked my arm like i was her child. hello? did she just smack me on her first day? who does that?

the week carried on with a hundred more "do i have to do this?" questions, but then she started saying "you're stupid" or "shush" to me when she didn't understand something. not in a "give me a minute" or "teach me" fashion but in a tone that almost got her fired. everyone in my office will tell you i have given her more patience than i might be good at, but she's getting to the end of her rope. i've made comments back like "umm, you can't necessarily tell me you don't want to do that" and the like. she doesn't quite get it. maybe it's because she's 20 years older than me. maybe because she's insecure having no clue what she's doing. maybe because in her words, she hates geography and got stuck in a job that requires it.

my favorite story of the day... she started to create an overnight package to Accra. she asks the coordinator where Accra was. he nicely said it's in Ghana. i asked her if she knew where that was and she looked at me like "is it a real place?" i asked her to look it up as we are an international forwarder and it is important we at least know what continent we are sending things to. she wasn't happy and made a few of the above mentioned comments while i showed her how to do a google search to find something (really). in the midst of this, she got frustrated and literally smacked me on the top of my head with her overnight envelope saying "shut up." i was floored, my mouth dropped, and the guy behind me looked at me for my reaction.

what would you say to this?
- "Please don't ever touch me again jerk"
- "Get the heck out of my office"
- "You messed up my hair!"
- "Ok, ok, it's in West Africa!"

i said, "excuse me? did you just hit me?" she laughed, still not realizing what she did. i can't understand why someone's brain would think this is normal and ok in the workplace. (don't get me wrong, i have not been silent, but i don't have the authority to truly reprimand her right now.)

all that to say, i'm not so sure this is going to work out...