"You can't write this whole procedure manual by yourself! You can't even organize it! You're only a trainee, and you're supposed to be focusing on that. It's too much for one person. Who has you doing this?" The Naysayer said when I went to see her to ask her to give me the notes she had written when SHE was trying to do this project.

I sighed deeply. This person is also one of my instructors in the training class. There was a part of me that wanted to put on a relieved face and say "Oh, thank God! I just didn't know how to tell Classy!".....

...at which point she would have beamed and reasurred me, "Don't worry, dear, I'll talk to her"
Which she might anyway. After all, they are friends.

Instead I said brightly, "Well, you know me. I'm just motivated to be as helpful as I can. It may be that I can't do the whole project - you certainly do have a point. But, since Classy is my boss and she's asked it of me, and I think she even cleared it with some of the committee members, I'll have to do the best I can"

We sat there looking at each other like a couple of owls. Great, two people with the determined/ polite model for conflict resolution I thought, careful not to blink, We could be here all night

It turned out we weren't. She didn't give me any documents, but she said she would give me some on Tuesday. I did my best to make noises about this comming second to studying ( which it does, because, after all, I haven't been hired as a technical writer) and finally, in desperation, changed the subject to hair clips - a switch that my gentleman readers might be surprised to know, is easier than you might think.

Oh, well. At least that's out in the open.