How do I deal with horrible people?

I have a shift leader that I really, really can't stand working with. She is volatile, aggressive, rude, and tactless. I have seen her be incredibly snarky and impatient with customers, and corporate has even had to intervene on occasion. I honestly don't know why the company has bothered to keep her around, because she would be easily replaced. Things got to the point that I requested to my store manager that I not be scheduled with her. He agreed that he would avoid it if at all possible, but did point out that there might be occasions where he has to schedule me with her.

Occasions such as this Saturday.

I am honestly dreading it. I haven't worked with her in a while, but I briefly interacted with her yesterday and it was pure rudeness spewing out of her mouth for the whole 10 seconds. I had done absolutely nothing wrong, but she just couldn't resist being a jerk. I am seriously stressing out about having to spend an entire night with her; I don't know if I'll be able to handle it without breaking down. Believe it or not, I'm kind of sensitive to hatefulness. I've talked to other employees about her, and not a single person likes her because of her attitude problem.

Any advice on how to deal with people like this? I've already tried being really sweet and kind, and it does absolutely nothing to her. (Might even make her even worse, actually.) I feel like I'm going to end up bursting into tears and going home early. I'm not a confrontational person so I'd never have the nerve to just ask her, "Seriously, what's your problem with me? Have I done something to you?" But I'm at the point that something's gotta give.

National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day

Today is a day that has been marked as a time to remember the women who have been through miscarriages, still births, and infancy losses. You guys all know that I went through a miscarriage in August, which makes me part of a statistic that most people don't know about. It's estimated that 1 in 4 women will suffer a miscarriage at some point. I know I'm not alone; so many other women are right there with me, wishing that somehow things could have turned out different, wishing that there was something they could have done to protect the tiny, innocent life their body was holding. I kick myself constantly for not having recorded our baby's heartbeat when we heard it on the ultrasound... I would give anything to hear it one more time.

Missing my sweet Finley so much today. Momma hasn't forgotten you, little one.

Party time!

Political party, that is. An interesting discussion came up on The Bump about voting preferences that really got me thinking.

Someone stated that they thought Obama was doing a bad job, but that they would vote for him again anyhow. Their logic was that he more closely represents their value system than McCain/Romney/Bachmann/whoever, so they would rather cast their vote for him even though they knew he would do a bad job.

Personally, I feel that voting for a competent candidate is more important than party lines. An example of that would be that I would rather vote Democratic than vote for Michele Bachmann, because I think she's an embarassment and an idiot. I think it would be a worse idea to vote for an incompetent candidate than to vote for someone whose value system is different from mine. (Personally, I think Ron Paul is the way to go, but a third party candidate probably will not make it into office any time soon.)

So, which do you feel is more important? Voting along party lines, or voting for someone you feel will be good at the job?