Living and Working with ‘The Worst Person in the World’
The Intolerable Girl Who Almost Made me Quit on Colombia
I’ve encountered my fair share of nutcases in my life. Some people just seem to attract whack jobs, deceitful people, and people who talk so much sh*t and turns out none of it’s true- or maybe I’m just gullible.
Whatever the case, even many of the liars I’ve met seem to be good at fooling other people, but this girl was considered by literally every one of her coworkers at the hostel I worked at in Colombia to be “the worst person they’d ever met.”
When I first showed up at the Casa, Maggie, a German girl, was the other volunteer who arrived the day before me. She would be replacing a girl named Stacy, and I would be replacing another another volunteer who had left a few days before.
Maggie seemed panicked and stressed, naturally I guess, as anyone would be if they did not speak Spanish and only arrived a day ago, not knowing her role yet at the hostel. But she had this permanent look of disgust and frustration on her smacked-arse face, as if someone just set of an anxiety bomb inside her cut-away thong bikini bottoms.
I only say cruel comments when someone truly deserves them by the way, and after ten days of total unnecessary stress from this individual, every insult I throw her way is well deserved.
The first day we sat down and went over the job duties. What should have been a half hour run through of the day’s itinerary turned into a full day to get through it, as Maggie butted in with questions every 30 seconds, and over complicated something as simple as handing a guest a glass of juice on arrival.
I kept quiet for the first day on my thoughts about Maggie’s odd and now intolerable behaviour, but the second day I had to politely say to Marco, the receptionist who was in charge, how she was really starting to stress me out.
“I think everyone is getting stressed…” he replied with a soft smile.
Marco and his wife, Adrianna, the other receptionist, were incredibly sweet. They were a Colombian couple who had come to Casa to get experience to one day open their own hostel. Adrianna spoke no English, but I could tell she was kind- so for the two of them to agree that Maggie was becoming a problem, then she obviously was one.
I came to Colombia to avoid a stressful situation back home which I knew I needed a break from, but Maggie made the knots in my back tighten… I even stepped on a sea urchin in the ocean when I ran to get away from her at the end of my shift.
As volunteers, we were supposed to be given a one week “trial” to prove we were a fit for the hostel, so although the entire staff wanted Maggie gone, we had to grim and bare it until her trial was over.
It’s funny. The mutual dislike for this person which was shared amongst the staff at the hostel is what started many of my friendships and in turn, helped me to learn more of the Spanish language.
My coworkers spoke only Spanish, and were all from Islote. Fun fact about Islote, it is the most densely populated island in the world, home to only 500 residents. Though they dressed in the latest fashion trends, and were very intelligent people, their island had no running water, limited electricity, and only four shops with a small selection of essential goods. They travelled by power boats every day to work at the hotels and resorts in the San Bernardo Islands.
Neither Maggie or I spoke Spanish, but my co-workers began to remark on how much more willing I was to learn, my patience, and ability to communicate, regardless of knowing the language.
Stacy-whom I mentioned above-became a good friend of mine within the first day. She was an English-Speaker, but also fluent in Spanish, and was able to translate to me the comments coming from everyone about Maggie’s frustrating behaviour.
Since Maggie was replacing Stacy, our staff needed to come up with a plan to get rid of Maggie and get Stacy to stay. Through a misunderstanding, Stacy had been ‘let go’, but stayed around to train us new volunteers; however, she would eventually have to leave the islands and return home if she couldn’t find a new job.
After a few days, Stacy was told she was no longer needed, but stayed on the neighbouring island, Islote, hoping to find another volunteer position at one of the two other hostels in the area.
So our staff came together to come up with a plan to get rid of “Ella Diablo” (She-Devil). With the aide of Google-Translate and elaborate gestures, we came up with a plan to bring Stacy back to work, and send Maggie to the mainland, Cartagena.
It may sound harsh, but Stacy had traveled from England to Colombia to work at the hostel, as I did from Canada, but Maggie was just a traveller already in Colombia, who really did not appreciate the opportunity she had been given. When I tried to level with her and apologise for something, she even said “I am not going to talk this over, this is not worth my time, not for a volunteer position.”
I remember one night Adrianna and I stood by the bar as we watched Maggie argue with everyone. Adrianna gestured wrapping Maggie up in a hammock and casting her out to sea. A little back story here, since space was limited at the hostel and we were expecting extra guests, Maggie was told all staff either needed to share a bed for a night, or sleep in the spare hammock, and she refused to do either.
Milena, the head of the kitchen, and I had never exchanged more than a few words before, but used Google Translate to share feedback on this horrible young woman.
Apparently Maggie had been rude to the kitchen ladies, brutally insulting the “slowness” of their cooking, and making every request difficult. She also insulted one of the three English-speaking staff members on how poor his English was, and used that as as excuse for why there was so much miscommunication. English was not her native language, though she had fluently spoken it since she was a child.
Enough was enough, and the day came when we got approval from head office to book transportation on the daily boat for Maggie to return to the mainland. I wasn’t there when they told her the news, but I heard the screaming and shouting in front of the guess was like something out of a white trash reality TV show.
It makes me laugh how someone that intolerable even exists in real life. As I said before, these nut jobs always have a way of finding me.
I’m glad that although I contemplated leaving my dream job on a beautiful house on the water because of her, that she was there at the start.
Because of Maggie’s painful personality, cultural intolerance and arrogant nature, she aided me to become friends with a wonderful group of people, learn more Spanish, and hey- it made a pretty funny story.
Love from Lala.
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