Co-workers

At my job before I left because people were coming out of my body, I sat next to a loud talker. We will call her Diane, because that was her name. Diane was a full bodied gal in her early 50's. Whenever Diane was on the phone she would talk using an outside voice. Her normal outside voice that you reserve for ball games and making sure your kids don't walk into the street. She would use this for her clients, and her personal calls. Don't you want to be quiet on a personal call during the middle of the day? Not Diane, she had not a care in the world.
Frequently her loud booming voice would aggravate me. I am known for my subtly so what I would do to get the voice lowered slightly is to kick my garbage can repeatedly or yell "ssssuuuuuush" in my best librarian impression.
What fascinated me about this situation would be that Diane never seemed to be reprimanded for this behavior or the fact that she would come in late all the time, and once just never showed up for work, not a call, nothing. Also her work appeared to be shotty at best.
She was a nice lady and occasionally I would feel guilty about all the nasty thought I had in my head when I was on the phone with a client and I could not hear because of the LOUD talking about her new apartment or what her friend Wilma was up to, but then the guilt would dissipate because "the voice" would boom again and I would have to take out the 'ol excederin bottle conveniently located in my top drawer.*

After I left, because people were coming out of my body, I heard she had been let go in layoffs my company had. I wonder what Diane is up to now. I know wherever she is, she is talking loudly. It just makes the world seem right.


* Worlds Longest Run on Sentence.