Big time backsliding today

[Stormchild]

Hi Pennyplant

Schoolyard it is. Middle school at best, although some of the places I've seen looked more like kindergartens.

The cliques, the bullying, the ostracism of anyone who is 'different'. When you see it clearly you'll never be able to un-see it, but after you overcome the initial shock and disappointment you will find that it is a tremendous help to be able to see it.

Watch what people do, not what they say.

Observe how they interact with everyone... favoritism and fawning are huge red flags. Watch who they turn their backs on, literally - that is a nonverbal exclusion that tells you a great deal, especially when an entire group does it.

And realize that in any workplace that recreates a middle-school emotional climate, the serious and dedicated workers are going to be the ones most often targeted for jeers and ostracism. Just exactly like the good students were, in bad schools. Healthy grownups don't behave like nasty children.

Here is an amazing quote from C.S. Lewis that I actually have posted at work in a place where it's not glaringly obvious to others, but I can see it when I need it:

"Many of us have had the experience of living in some local pocket of human society--some particular school, college, regiment or profession where the tone was bad. And inside that pocket certain actions were regarded as merely normal ('Everyone does it') and certain others as impracticably virtuous and Quixotic. But when we emerged from that bad society we made the horrible discovery that in the outer world our 'normal' was the kind of thing that no decent person ever dreamed of doing, and our 'Quixotic' was taken for granted as the minimum standard of decency. What had seemed to us morbid and fantastic scruples so long as we were in the 'pocket' now turned out to be the only moments of sanity we there enjoyed."

It reminds me of why I chose to do the work I do now - and of what exactly on-the-job mistreatment says about the mistreater(s).

[pennyplant]

Hopsy, I just never knew before that choosing thoughts was possible or even desirable.  It's like I'm cracking something open and all kinds of things are hiding in there.  Neat things.

Stormy, I like the CS Lewis quote very much.  It sounds like my entire childhood and youth was spent in that kind of a pocket.  We escaped for awhile when my husband was in the military for 10 years.  It gave me some perspective.  But I knew I had to come back here some day, when the opportunity presented itself, because I knew the answers to my questions were here.  And I was right.  And by "here" I mean the N pocket that my hometown is and that I grew up in.  Or maybe it is a pocket of rampant Voicelessness.  But coming back here to face it is also the thing that will set me free.  I had to know why certain things were the way they were.  "Why" is crucial for me.  I have to understand what I do before I can really do it.

This morning my replacement came to work and she is very nice.  We have met before.  I found out that she has applied to the program and has been waiting and waiting for her chance.  She thought she would never get to try it out for real.  So, this is very right, what happened.  Maybe somebody complained to hurt me or complained thoughtlessly.  But it turned out for the best.

She is eager to learn and be good at this assignment.  She is more easygoing than me.  Which is not to say I am not good at this just because I am more intense.  I am becoming good at it.  But seeing the personality difference between us made me think that maybe I will keep thinking further about what would be a really good fit for me.  Where I work there are all kinds of jobs.  I'm going to start finding out what more of them are.  I am going to keep learning things that might build me up more and make me more qualified for something that is a really good fit.

This morning we were working on some of the accounting.  I had discovered a problem a week or so ago where we actually had an overage.  I suspected that it actually was an error that occurred the day the office was transferred to me.  It made the most sense given what I knew about the things I had worked with since then.  And sure enough, I was right.  We discovered where the overage really belonged.  The problem occurred because everyone was in such a tizzy the day of the transfer.  A bad mix of personalities.  It was an incredibly stressful day.  Anyway, I just feel good that I didn't make any huge mistakes while on this assignment.  The mistakes I made were all ones that I could learn from and find out how to fix.  I find that I work better if I focus and am careful.  And I have been working that way regardless of what it seems like the rest are doing or seems like they want me to do.  I'm finding my style.

This is what I want to take with me when I go back to my old job next week.  I want to do my work in my own way and not feel threatened when others don't work that way or if they try to get me to change.  I want to keep building my confidence.  I want to keep my focus.  Hee hee, that is what I would have thought I would learn in yoga!!  Instead, in yoga I learned further how to spot Ns.  And in the nest of Ns that is my workplace, I learned how to focus.  Oh, life can be so ironic  .

Well, almost time to get back to work.  Have some tricky tasks to accomplish but not worried about them.  It won't be bad.

Thanks all and have a great afternoon.

Love, Pennyplant

[Gaining Strength]

Wow!!! Pennyplant - you are doing so well.  I am so excited for you!!!

I just never knew before that choosing thoughts was possible or even desirable.
I have been applying this to my life over the past 6 or 8 months and it really has cracked things open.  It is miraculous to me.

 practiced my calmness.  Practiced not worrying uselessly.
Congratulations PP.  I am finding that I can practice these things.  The more I practice the better it gets, even though it is not always easy.

  When I go back to my regular office, it is going to be hard to hang onto the new parts of me.  I am determined to do it somehow.  But it will be hard.  I can't pretend otherwise.
It will be hard, but you will find a way to do it because now you have tasted of that sweet fruit.

It really feels funny to be on the other side of believing in myself.  I have never been here before.  It feels good, even if unfamiliar.  Tentative too, though.  
HURRAY!!! HURRAY!!!

To be away from the constant distractions and the schoolyard atmosphere is such a gift.  To have an environment that brings out the best in me is also a gift.  How to keep it? 
Three keys to keeping it are: 1) believe or know that you can do it and 2) practice it even when difficult and 3) don't give up.

Got a nice surprise today too.  One of the people who worked with me at the beginning called just to tell me how much she enjoyed working with me.  No other reason than to say something nice to me about me.  That just blew me away.  Someone else called to check on me and the circumstances of why I had to leave.  She was disappointed in the way I was treated.  She's on my side it seems.  It feels good to have advocates.
Yes it does and you deserve it!!! File this away in your memory and when you feel lonely and frustrated bring this memory out and celebrate.  It will help you remember that it is not you but the unfortunate group of people you are among.

This is so new to me to not be obsessed with the getting hurt part.  It is still in there but other, better, things are distracting me from my usual obsession.  It doesn't feel as boring as I might have thought it would.  It feels related to happiness.
This is SOOOOOO exciting Pennyplant.  I am so excited for you.

I will definitely take everyone's suggestions to heart.  It seems like there are possibilities out there.  I never really believed that before.
You encouragement encourages me.  Thank you - your friend - Gaining Strength

[axa]

Penny,

Well done

axa xxxx

[pennyplant]

Thanks, GS and Axa.  I will have to keep coming back to this thread and reading the replies because the next couple of weeks are going to be hard.

I have four more days to work at my temporary assignment then it's back to the old place on Friday.  However, today I worked there and learned about some things I have missed.  Heard the story about how one of the more troublesome co-workers conned the boss into letting her eat her lunch on the clock (because an hour and fifteen minutes lunch time off the clock isn't enough time for her to eat) and the boss also will be letting her use work time to write out checks and pay her personal bills because technically that is her break time.  Since this activity bothers the other co-workers, she will be allowed to do this in the boss's office.  And the lunch thing is okay, because apparently all of us are doing this, eating our lunches on the clock instead of working.  In reality, only the boss and her supervisors are doing this.

Amazing how people can take a little grain of truth and twist it into something that is advantageous to them.  And completely unfair to others.  Yet, somehow they can make it sound logical and fair.  The co-worker who gained these privileges for herself told me her version of it today.  Her version is that she got in trouble with the supervisor who brought up the lunch issue in the first place.  She never got around to telling me the part about how she resolved it for herself and actually got permission to continue disobeying the supervisor.  She feels like she got punished, or she wants others to think she did, when in reality she got rewarded.

Before my very eyes, the losers get rewarded and applauded.  The decent people get stomped on.  This is what I'm going back into.

So, today, I worked v e r y   s l o w l y, minded my own business, joked around loudly, etc., etc.  But this Monday through Thursday, I will get to be myself and soak that up and try to remember it for as long as I need to until I can improve my situation.

I also printed out an application for promotion and gave it to another co-worker.  I think of this as helping someone else escape.  I hope we can both escape.  She had asked the boss for assistance in doing this.  The same boss who promised to support me, then a month later pulled the plug.  This boss gave her a song and dance about how to apply and made it sound difficult and complicated, while also saying good for you and I will support you.  Ah yes, heard that before.  It took me one minute to find the form and print one off for her.  The boss could have done it just as easily if she really supported her in her "employee development".

So many liars.  So many power plays.  It's not that I want to be alone all the time or anything.  I'm just so sick of such a harmful atmosphere.  And people know that I see these things.  So, some of them are intimidated or something.  They fawn all over the losers who play the same game.  But it feels like an insult to see this.  More rewards for the game players.  Disrespect for me.  This is going to be a real hard patch for awhile.

Oh, and the person who complained about me getting the assignment without officially applying--he spent two Saturdays extracting information from me (I had mistakenly thought he was interested and being a "colleague").  He just looks right through me now.  I even spoke to him today.  But it was as if I were a ghost.  Such a calculating and cold person.

It seems like a nest of Ns.

[pennyplant]

Woke early from some dreams that were probably about work on some level.  Keep thinking about why I don't want to go back there.  It feels like I don't want to go back with every fiber of my being.  It's because the emotion of fear is being triggered.  I was trying to figure out if it is some kind of free-floating fear or a genuine, trackable threat from particular people or situations.  Is there a physical threat or an emotional threat?  I'm thinking also about my child-anger that has come to the surface and how my child-anger seems different somehow from adult anger over things that are happening.  Well, my child-anger is different.  I think it is different because it is really old fear.  Primal fear.  Fear that I was not physically safe.  And as a child, physical safety was about the only kind of safety I understood.  And so if I did not feel safe, it was a matter of not feeling physically safe.  So I carry that around with me.  And that is what has come up now as a result of what people do to or about me at my job.

I'm having trouble feeling safe.  And since it seems like some of the people I am afraid of are in fact something along the lines of psychopath or personality disordered--well, many of you have been married to these types, or raised by them.  Safety is a real issue in that case.

So, now maybe I have too much knowledge?  If I didn't know that there are real psychopaths out there in the normal workaday world maybe I could trick myself into feeling safe.  Maybe I could say, little Pennyplant, you really are safe now.  The bad people are gone.  The bad people are from the past.  You are safe now.  I could give her a hug, like she didn't get as a child, and tell her that it will be okay now because it is different from before.  She is safe now and people aren't really out to hurt her.

But..... I don't actually believe that because of what has happened as far as the coldness with which I was treated.  The trickery that was involved.  These people whose attention I have caught genuinely don't care what happens to someone like me.

It is just like when I was a child.  And when I was a child I was afraid all the time.  I thought I was angry all the time.  But anger was the last layer that protected my fear.  I was afraid all the time.

That is the emotion that was triggered when I had my emotional affairs and they turned out badly.  That burning feeling I had for months after the first one..... I think I had tapped into child-fear without realizing it.  With the second emotional affair I'm sure I tapped into child-fear.  And now with my dread of going back to my old job, it just has to be child-fear coming up to the surface.  Certain things are making a permanent impression on me.  And in the back of my mind I can hear a warning--get out of there.  Quit.  You're not safe there.

I don't want to give in to that.  I need a job.  This is a good paying job.  One of the best available around here for working class people.  We have so many bills, that it is not a realistic option at this time for me to resign and go back to school.  Possibly in three to five years we could get our finances into a more flexible position.  But for now, if I just up and quit, we would probably have to go bankrupt.

So, the difference, for me, between adult anger and child-anger is the connection to fear.  How I wish I didn't see what these people are really like.  How I wish I could make a funny story about it.  How I wish I had real allies there.  But if I just disappeared, poof, it would leave barely a ripple.  My friends would miss me.  But in the grand scheme of things, it would be like I was never there.  I don't matter.  Nobody really matters there.

I have to figure out a way to feel safe.  It may be that just putting this down here will release some of that fear.  But there is probably a lot of it lurking around in there.  I spent years and years of my childhood and youth feeling afraid.  Today is the first time I have made a direct connection with my child-fear and events that are happening right now.  So, I hope hope hope that is the missing piece to the puzzle.  I have  to figure out a way to deal with that if I'm to go forward. 

[Leah]

Oh, and the person who complained about me getting the assignment without officially applying--he spent two Saturdays extracting information from me (I had mistakenly thought he was interested and being a "colleague").  He just looks right through me now.  I even spoke to him today.  But it was as if I were a ghost.  Such a calculating and cold person.

It seems like a nest of Ns.

Oh Penny,

How awful, with the shock of knowing such a cold hearted betrayal of your innocent trust.

Enough to want to take a vow of silence.

If it is any comfort, I have been had like this, in workplace and in personal life situations.

Feeling safe is my goal for my future, safe from these kind of people, who are not worthy of our attention or affection, and yes, they more than likely do have personality disorders.

The struggle for a good job is one that I am bearing up with at present, knowing that I will never get back what was taken from me.

Penny, been thinking, and we need to remain focused:

on what we have learned from our own unique painful experiences in our life, on the reasons why they behaved toward us as they did, having accepted that they are not going to change, because they have no desire to.

on the realisation that we have changed, and have chosen to grow into a person who is now aware, and becoming equipped, to spot the Red Flags of behaviour and respond in a protective safe way for us.

that we are learning the power of choosing our thoughts (love that Hops and have adopted it).

that we are learning to choose the power of our discerning actions ......... because we aware of the truth now.

Penny, we have so much now that we have come this far, and now we are able to look forward with real hope in our hearts.

Blessings to you,

Leah

Edit:  ps. thinking back to some of my workplace situations 'nest of N's' is a harsh reality

[pennyplant]

How awful, with the shock of knowing such a cold hearted betrayal of your innocent trust.

Leah, over the past few weeks I have had many such shocks.  Yet, it is making more sense now than ever before.  I am grateful for that much.  Because I have always wondered what was wrong.  And now I'm seeing it.  And it is not necessarily personal, though it effects me in a personal way, but it just happens to be my misfortune or good fortune to be the one who always walks into these things and then has to learn some very hard lessons.  This morning I was thinking about that fable, "The Emperor Who Has No Clothes".  I bet all of us here are that little boy with the pointing finger making the loud announcement about what it is before his very eyes.  And being dismayed to discover that no one else will validate him.  They see but can't admit it, don't want to see, and have no trouble keeping with the party line.  For most people there is no cost to their soul to just go along and pretend.  But for me, and for others here no doubt, there is a cost to the soul.  I can't ignore what I see once I see it.

I was also thinking about something else I learned the last couple of weeks at work.  Each Saturday I have been going back to my old office to work, even though I don't have to, and the last two times I noticed to my dismay that the lazy co-worker who is junior to me has been fully embraced by everyone else while I was gone.  She is in and I am out.  It is very obvious that this is what has happened.  Everyone knows she is lazy and not particularly helpful and everyone knows how it bothers me.  How it has burdened me in both physical and emotional ways.  I suspect now that people were holding back from totally welcoming her out of some kind of conscience towards me on some level.  With me gone, they can bring her into the fold.  The reason she had to be brought into the fold is because she is pathetic.  They feel sorry for her.  She can't do as much as me.  She needs the job now more than ever because her husband dumped her.  And they need her because she is such a poor worker they don't have to resent her for showing them up.  In fact, if she does anything good at all, and I admit she does do a few things well, they get almost ecstatic.  They credit her far more than necessary.  Whereas the hard workers are resented because they make the lazy ones look bad.  In the opinion of the lazy ones.  It is grudging acceptance that I have actually been receiving all this time.  I make them look bad.  Even though that is the opposite of what my goal there is.  I work hard because of my own personal issues.  I think they make themselves look bad because they don't work.  Everybody knows this.  But I make it an issue just by my very presence.

I was very hurt to see that lazy junior co-worker has in fact been welcomed into the fold in a way that I never was from day one.  I didn't realize it back then but it is pretty obvious to me, now that I know what being welcomed there looks like.  If this were happening to someone else, and I was just a fly on the wall, my assessment would be that this Pennyplant character is simply in the wrong environment.  She upsets the delicate balance of dysfunction in that place.  It is good that she went away for six weeks because then the natural balance of such a place was allowed to occur.  There will be another place for her.  She just doesn't know where that place is yet.  But it is time to wrap it up and look for a different situation.  Might take some time.  But that is the obvious answer from a cosmic, big picture point of view.

I think I have fulfilled much of my destiny there.  Not sure what is next.  I will have to ride it out for awhile until I find the door that is unlocked for me.  Hopefully, the ride will be a little smoother now that I'm understanding some things.

I seem to be getting some of my answers.

[Leah]

Because I have always wondered what was wrong.  And now I'm seeing it.  And it is not necessarily personal, though it effects me in a personal way, but it just happens to be my misfortune or good fortune to be the one who always walks into these things and then has to learn some very hard lessons.  This morning I was thinking about that fable, "The Emperor Who Has No Clothes".  I bet all of us here are that little boy with the pointing finger making the loud announcement about what it is before his very eyes.  And being dismayed to discover that no one else will validate him.  They see but can't admit it, don't want to see, and have no trouble keeping with the party line.  For most people there is no cost to their soul to just go along and pretend.  But for me, and for others here no doubt, there is a cost to the soul.  I can't ignore what I see once I see it.

Pennyplant,

That is an excellent illiustration of our feelings when no one else can see, or choose not to see!

And I agree with what you say, that for most people there is not cost to their soul to just go along and pretend, because that is what they choose to.

I just can't ignore what I see once I see it either.

And once you are awakened to the knowledge of what is real and true - you can't go back, you can't return to your former self, just to please them, in jumping back in 'their' box that they had you trapped in.

Leah

[Leah]

I think I have fulfilled much of my destiny there.  Not sure what is next.  I will have to ride it out for awhile until I find the door that is unlocked for me.  Hopefully, the ride will be a little smoother now that I'm understanding some things.

Pennyplant,

Oh I am sure it will be all the smoother for you.

Interesting too that you have mentioned finding the door that is unlocked for you.

That's what I believe and what I am standing for, as I mentioned earlier that my current struggle is for a good job, knowing that I will never get back what was taken from me.

I believe that I don't have to concern myself any longer with what I had then, that there is something new for me, a new door will open

And I hope the same for you too - very soon.

We will take with us as we walk through our own unique new doors, all that we have come to learn and understand, so that we will be able to enjoy our new jobs and be allowed to enjoy fulfillment.

Leah

[Stormchild]

Penny,

I thought I'd posted out here about this but it doesn't look like I have. Hopefully this won't hijack the thread, it's not meant to, it's meant to furnish real life proof of just how insane some workplaces can be.

I've been given my annual rating. Outstanding, in every respect, and I've been advised that I am a candidate for promotion*.

??????????

!!!!!!!!!!

[Insert mental image here of Stormchild with her eyes crossed, blowing spit bubbles.]

It appears to make no sense whatsoever - one day I'm being bashed, next day I'm being given parades - except for this:

there are people at work who are invested in abusing me - sadly, my own immediate superiors have been in this group more often than not.

But there are also people at work who have begun to recognize just how much I actually do, and just how much of a role I play in holding the place together on a day to day basis - and my superiors' superiors fit into this second category.

At least, they do now.

Because there are different people in those top slots now.

Some of whom were here before, so they 'knew me when'; some of whom are new, and are judging based on what I actually do, not on backstabbing gossip about me.

It's the second crowd I believe to be responsible for the good rating and the hope of advancement - the first crowd hasn't gone away, but some of them appear to be rethinking a few things, at least...

anyway. this is just a sample of how surrealistic the working world can be.

It's like riding 30 foot waves.

On a sailboard.

Hoping this strange story gives you some hope...

Bthuh bth' bth'uh bthuh [that is my best approximation of what blowing spit bubbles sounds like]

Storm

*Promo's not just gonna happen, of course; I have to do a bunch of stuff, and there's no guarantee - but is there ever? For those of us who are actually good workers?

[pennyplant]

Stormy, this fits exactly into what I'm talking about here.  I have worked in several other offices besides this recent assignment.  Every one of them appreciated me and looked forward to having me back.  It is only when I go back to my home office and see the contrast in the ways I'm valued that I realize what a very sick place it is.  There are normal people out there who see what is really there and do the common sense thing--reward good work and dismiss poor work.

My old supervisor who now has her own office.  She applied for promotion time after time and was rejected time after time.  They would bring her in someplace and she would make things right there..... for someone else to have.  I would sometimes observe the powers that be when they were with her and they didn't seem to have a lot of respect for her.  Sometimes even I would focus on her weak points and think, well, she's not the right type or she put her foot in her mouth during the interview.  And she has said she is a notoriously bad interview.  Well, this last time, she put in for the office she has had her heart set on for so long.  And she was interviewed by an acting-grandpoobah who was here from well-outside the district.  And she got the job and was in place within two weeks!  Usually the way it goes here is the powers-that-be drag it out forever...in some kind of powerplay I am now convinced.

This will give an idea of what the powers-that-be do where I work.  This same supervisor actually applied for the same office twice.  The first time she had been running it as the OIC for many, many months.  They decided to instead hire someone with connections for the permanent slot.  Within one month, the person they chose over this supervisor was being investigated for internet fraud and had to be escorted from the office because he could not be trusted with the vault.  You can't tell me that some red flags of some kind weren't waving wildly at his interviews.  Yet, that is the person who got the job.  It took months to iron it out.  Then finally the right person got it the second time out because of that out of towner who could tell the difference between right and wrong.

From this situation I also learned something really important about being true to yourself and what unusual gifts some people bring into your life if you will let them.  Since she has been gone to her dream job, I have finally come to realize what great things she did for my place while she was there.  No one can touch what she was able to get out of these foolish co-workers of mine.  And she genuinely cared for all of them.  I'm not trying to paint her as a saint.  She is not a perfect saint.  But she is unusual.  And no one who could do anything about it recognized it.  Not for a very long time.  From my point of view, she kept the lid on things for a long time, to her own detriment much of that time.  Someone like me was somewhat protected while she was there.  No more though.

It is my fervent hope that the people in your place who recognize your gifts will also be able to do something to improve your day to day situation.  It really helps to be seen and believed.  To be validated.  But it would be huge if something concrete comes of it.  I really hope it does.  It's funny that I can actually be happy for other people when good things happen the way they are supposed to.  I have been known to become envious of other's good fortune  .  I guess when someone is a good person at heart and has worked so hard in the face of adversity, I'm all for it.  When someone gets the chance to do something they would be good at..... I like that too.  If it can't be me, it might as well be one of my cronies.

In my situation, it is very easy for me to become discouraged and feel hopeless.  Like I've been saying, this next period of time is going to be a real rough patch for me.  I hope I can at least maintain some dignity.  I mean this is a real defeat for me to come back and see that I have been even more marginalized than I already was.  It breaks my heart.  And I have to go back there knowing all this.

[Stormchild]

Penny,

I spent 3 years doing my job in a place where the top tier didn't want to think about what I was doing at all because they didn't like, and didn't want to be bothered with, the area I was responsible for.

The dislike and desire not to be bothered came about because my area suddenly became very active at a time when other areas did too.

Tough knuckles.

I wasn't in any position to tell people to stop expecting my organization to address issues in that particular area - and even if I had been, I would not have done so, because that area is important, and needed to be taken care of just as much as the areas that these people "liked" to work on.

I haven't changed. Well, maybe a little; I see very clearly now when I am being abused, and I see very clearly now when others are slacking and evading responsibility and trying to 'spin' that as something else.

What has changed is who I am responsible to.

But I've spent a long, long time doing it all with no help or hope or recognition.

And I don't have anything tangible yet, don't forget. What I have is some appreciation, from some people who could just as easily vanish overnight, or change their minds about me because it's easier to go along with the majority than to stand up for someone.

That's about it.

And some hope, where I had none before.

[Edit in: good ratings LOOK tangible, but employment case law is FILLED with cases of people who were fired without cause despite years of solid gold evaluations. An excellent rating history and $0.75 will get you a can of soda, if the machine is working. OTOH, bad ratings will be used to do as much harm as possible. The game is rigged, and never, ever, ever in the employee's favor.]

Do you have any way of staying in touch with the savvy lady who finally got the job she deserved? Or with the higher up who did the right thing in that case? Is there any way you could, for instance, teletransfer and work for one of them, without having to move? Just thinking; I don't know the details of your work so I may be totally on the moon about stuff like that. But I would say, if there are people in the organization who see your worth, try to stay in contact with them, don't be shy about approaching them to look for a better slot.

It's perfectly acceptable to tell someone that you 'feel as though you are spinning your wheels and it's time for new challenges' - if they've been where you are and know the dynamics, that will get the message through with sufficient clarity.

((((((((((Pennyplant))))))))))

[Hopalong]

I'm really sorry you're going through all this, PP.
Feels to me as though work really is family in the sense that we give it so much of our primal time and energy...

So being overlooked, unappreciated, or disliked by others there brings up such pain from what it was like to be overlooked, unappreciated, abused or disliked in our original families.

I had to stop thinking, this is who I am.

It wasn't. Even my happy job now isn't who I am.

It's what I do to earn a living. No more... for me, that helped.
Otherwise, there were many dramas I could get pulled into.

(And did, more than once.)

((((((((PP)))))))

Hops

(and congratulations, Storm, on your well-deserved evaluation.)

[pennyplant]

Yes, Stormy I'm in touch with the supervisor who "made it".  I'm hoping that connection can help change things for the better for me.  The one who promoted her.... went back to her home district in another state.  But that's okay.  I see some things now that I didn't see before and one of those things is.....possibility.  I tend to see things in a worst case scenario sort of way.  And I'm starting to overcome that point of view.  There's going to be some ups and downs coming my way but I hope to hang onto the new parts.  I hope to be in a position to see opportunities as they come along.  And I hope for some helping hands along the way.

Hopsy, I think that is why this stuff gets to me so much.  It is a huge part of life.  Work takes the best of your energy often enough.  It galls me sometimes.  Also, it does remind me of my growing up years when outside life wasn't going well at the same time as family life wasn't going well.  No shelter anywhere.  Nowadays home is better than it was growing up, but work takes up so very much energy and time that little is left for what matters.  Maybe work shouldn't be who I am.  But it takes away from who I am.  That's what it feels like to me.  Maybe another boundary issue here.  Maybe I'm losing myself in work.  Maybe I'm still having trouble with "where does my life end and work life begin?"  I think I still have a great deal of interior firming up to do.  I don't think there are gaping holes in there anymore.  But there is still some mushiness.

My father always put the job first.  There was always a "reason" why work came first.  And I always accepted that.  I have absorbed it as a value of mine.  But possibly this putting work first is a way of distracting oneself from trickier issues like social skills and family problems.  Work as escape.  Work as fall back excuse for not doing things you really don't want to do after all.  That is just always the way it was with my father.  Perhaps work offered some kind of structure that was easier for him to work within given his Asperger-like limitations.

Well, it's getting late.  Good night all.