Since I last sat down to gather my thoughts things have changed a lot. I left my job. Visited home. Got a new job. And right now I’m in transition- haven’t started the new job yet and am trying to enjoy a well earned break and make sense of the situation I left so that I can begin to heal and get some of my confidence back.

The biggest question that keeps floating in my mind is how much of what happened is me? As in, did I create a lot of the stuff in my head and make it worse, or was it as external as I supposed.

I play devils advocate a lot. When things I usually spend a lot of time afterwards looking at my own behavior, questioning my own motives and feeling guilty for my role in things. I usually end up crediting the other party way more then I do myself. I shoulder most of the blame and take on a lot of the negative “baggage” and assume my motivations/behavior was more petty and self-centred than the other persons.

But not this time.

This time, looking back I can see I wasn’t perfect by any means. I used gossip via e-mail to a trusted friend to relieve some of my tension- and also unleashed my poison tongue with some like minded gossips in person. Being on the receiving end of gossip stings, I know, I’ve been there. And that’s why my gossping is the only thing I feel guilty about. And I fully intend to think about that- though there’s a caveat, as bad as gossiping is, and as much as I would prefer not to engage in it, I know that in the big picture it’s not the worst thing in the world and my gossiping only reached hurtful proportions when I was at my most stressed and most overwhelmed emotionally. I know that I gossiped to deal with the situation. It was a coping mechanism. I couldn’t affect change in a straightforward manner with my manager so I dissed him behind his back and made snide little comments to people whom I knew would be receptive. So really what I would like to do is cut down on the idle, gossiping about harmless people that just rolls off my tongue in a moment of weakness/bitchiness/passing frustration and get away from people who make me so frustrated and who block me into corners so that my only defense is to strike back by talking trash about them. So that’s what I learned and it’s something I have wanted to do for a long time but everyone does a little gossiping and when you’re with friends it feels so good to finally say all those things that have been building up inside for so long and laugh about it over coffee. So honestly I don’t know how realistic that “lesson” really is; which brings me to my point: I wasn’t perfect, but I can forgive myself this time for any behavior I exhibited because overall I was coming from a place of trying to enjoy life, grow professionally and fix what needed fixing at work. Which is why this time, not last time, but this time, I am placing the blame externally. Because for all my imperfections and less than stellar behaviour at least I didn’t behave in a way that made me ashamed or seemed “wrong”. They did, however.

That job started off very well. But I knew right away L was going to be a problem. She’s bitchy and catty and smart and talented. She remarks about everyone and provides a strong social code of behaviour with punishments doled out very quickly, and yet the rules don’t apply to her. She’s a middle-aged Queen Bee with a hive swirling around her and I knew right away that in order to get along there I would have to befriend her and put her onto a pedestal. Which I did.

I promptly began to kiss her butt, as she was my supervisor and I relied on her good graces to keep me protected from other divisions/depts. stealing my time with make-work projects, and most of all my manager stealing my time. I knew right away she was the de facto manager and I’d be wise to show my deference and loyalty more visibly to her than to him.

Things went swimmingly and if I had any qualms about having to kiss her ass I quickly squelched them because I was happy to be included in a group and to have peace at work.

But once X came on and L started to see a new group forming within the group she turned on everyone- it was also at that time that she started to date a super senior manager who has a reputation with the ladies and she went through a lot of angst about whether or not to date him for her own personal reasons. She’s also highly sensitive about aging. So all of that combined into a perfect storm and she blamed all of her emotional stuff on the people around her. As I later found out she did something similar during her divorce.

So there was the episode with L. Which, to his credit, my manager stepped in for and stood up for us.

I survived that very well in tact because I had friends who kept me sane and balanced. I even lost a lot of weight that summer.

Then C left. Then X left. And then L left. And then things took a turn for the worse in terms of workload. I got dumped with more and more projects because I had the longest corporate history and well, because I was the only person there. A very talented person who I respected greatly and I competed for the same job. Both of us were equally qualified. Neither got it. Instead it went to a smarmy, sexist pig.

And then things went from bad to worse because my highly qualified and wonderful friend was laid off and my work load got bigger. The new person was lazy and lacked iniative. So my workload got bigger. Plus, by this time I was serving two masters. I did 2 jobs worth of work and I had two managers to answer to, neither of which was willing to give me up and each of whom fought over my time. Only one of whom was my actual manager. The problem for me was, I found the work with my non-manager supervisor to be more interesting, rewarding and more important for the overall wellbeing of the company than the make-work I had to do for my actual manager. Plus, I was working at a much higher level. So I felt like I was being dragged down by routine, mindless tasks, stupid window dressing projects that lowered our credibility, and had to carve out time for real communications work that would benefit the company in the long and short term, while being paid less than my lazy colleague and doing the amount of work of two, and oftentimes 3 jobs. With no appreciation and no foreseeable way to get out. And when I tried to deal with it with my manager on many occasions he became extremely defensive and rude and mean, questioning my dedication and my professionalism on small mistakes that I made (I lost a flower arrangement at an event- but in context to the service and product I provided on a daily basis I hardly think losing a fucking flower arrangement is worth questioning my work ethic over.) Then came the sexual harassment and then came the betrayal of the company. After all of that I can truly say that while I may regret gossiping as a coping mechanism I forgive myself that error in judgment and can only feel compassion for myself.

Of course I was saying snotty things by e-mail! I had to find some way to make it in every morning, to make it through the days when a dumb decision landed on my desk and I had to fix another mess and be treated like shit on top of that. And you know what? I am fucking ambitious and I did want my co-worker’s job. I should have had his job and yes it did cause bad feelings. Not initially. No, at the time it really didn’t bother me at all except on my other co-workers’ behalf who I felt deserved a promotion of some kind. But I figured the new person would be a real dynamo and would pull their weight and produce good work and I would learn from them- after all I reasoned- there had to be a good reason why they were hired over me or the other person. But alas not. And not only that he was a prick. A creep. So I began to feel even more bitter and resentful. And when I tried to talk my manager about my workload and he freaked out my feelings were hurt and I put my head down and tried to make the best of it. But really I gave up. And the truth about me is; I’m not really able to give up. I care too much. So I just got bitter.

Now, I wonder, what did I learn? What valuable lesson can I take away with me from all this? The first thing that springs to mind is to move on sooner. I started feeling that way in October but I stayed because I thought they needed me for SABA and well, because I like SABA. I couldn’t have known that decision would blow up in my face, but I could have checked my ego a bit. They need me? No, they don’t. Nothing I built there will be remembered fondly or honoured. And why should it. That place didn’t need me- because I’m replacable. Which isn’t to say I didn’t do good work, I did, but that there is nothing special about me and I shouldn’t have worried about them- it’s not my problem. (But saying I should have moved on sooner kind of denies reality in that I tried a few times but didn’t get any bites and was so exhausted after 5 days of that craziness I had no energy on weekends).

Lesson number two- when you stop taking care of yourself for a job it’s no longer a healthy environment. For me, the level of my happiness is best expressed through my level of self-care. Self-care for me consists of a balanced diet, working out a couple times per week and the ability to have fun in my body- that can be a long bike ride, a hike, going out to eat without guilt, or pilates. When I start to distance myself from my body and its wisdom it means I am distancing myself from the message its trying to tell me. My body doesn’t whisper, it roars. And when I ignore it takes a lot of work, a lot of active deception and sabotage on my part, but I’m also very good at ignoring it, I’ve done it for many more years than I’ve had the pleasure of working with it. And that’s exactly what happened this time- I didn’t want to listen to the message it was sending about stress at work, about feeling bitter and looked over- about feeling trapped in a job that was going nowhere and for whom I felt it necessary to sacrifice my health. I stopped working out because I was so busy and something had to give and I had to make more time for myself to decompress and sleep to recover, and so I took more time/mental energy from my already strapped self- rather than from my work. I hate to sound like K but she was right. Your body is a well. You have to re-fill it all the time. And you have to be more vigilant when you’re taking a lot from it. But I got so busy emptying the well, drawing on my reserves to the last drop that I had no time, no energy or interest in re-filling it. I couldn’t. And my body knew, it saw it happening and I knew it wasn’t healthy or right. And I ignored all the subtle hints, all the messages it sent. I lost so much. Physical strength, emotional well being, that sense of accomplishment, energy, zest, hope, flexibility, a flatter stomach. And I gained 10 pounds of flab in exchange.

Lesson Number three: The hardest of all. The one I will have to think about, long and hard. The realization that maybe I’m not cut out for a stressful job. Maybe I don’t handle even mild stress very well. Other people have done that job (though its changed quite a bit since C left- but then it had it’s own stresses then, too) and didn’t feel as depressed and shit on as I did. Maybe if some of my blame lay anywhere it’s in the fact that I denied to myself how little stress I can actually handle. Maybe I am more fragile than I ever thought? But when I think those thoughts, when I allow myself to go there a voice, my drill sergeant, shouts: NO! It sounds weak and pathetic and I don’t want to be those things. My brain says only tiny little weak women with itty bitty bodies get to claim their “fragile” and can’t handle stress. Not big fat oxen like me. Not work horses, not me, a lumbering mule with a thousand lb weight on my back. I have to be strong, stronger than most, with hidden wells, reserves of strength- why? Because I always have, because I’ve always pulled through (at great cost to my body) and so I expect myself to tough it out, take the harder road and persevere. The idea of admitting I need a gentler environment, a softer existence, special accommodation because I can’t cut it seems like admitting I’m a failure and weird and weak, and I don’t want to be any of those things. I feel like I already make excuses for myself internally, I don’t want people to see my weaknesses externally, too. And I don’t want to miss out on opportunities, on fun because I took the easy road and opted out of competing.

And I guess that’s all for now.