I joke a lot, but the jokes are not to provoke her.
For context, W had one of her employees out sick. The employee had a stroke. I asked W how her employee was doing, and she said "she's doing okay, but she's trying to come back to work too soon." Her coworker said "Way too soon, if it were up to me, I wouldn't let her come back until she was better." I work in the office in IT, so I jokingly said "Ya know, I can delete her schedule if you want..."
W said "DO NOT JOKE ABOUT MY STORE OR MY EMPLOYEES."
I said "You KNOW it's a joke. I wouldn't actually do that, and you know it."
She said "Well, maybe if I talk to you like this all the time, you'll start to take me seriously."
That's when I turned to S and said "Okay buddy, time to go home."
It wasn't malicious in any way. W just decided that was a good opportunity to attack me.
More context: things she's attacked me over in the past month: smoking (because apparently that's enough money to cover a $700/mo day care bill...it's not), the joke at the store, um...honestly, I'm having trouble remembering the other things...there were more, but I've just started ignoring them most of the time or cutting off the conversation when she starts to get that way. Heh.
