Job blues, life blues, winter blues

[Hopalong]

Hi everybody,
I've weathered the job crisis temporaily but I'm still walking on eggshells. The deuling alpha-dogs each inneundoed that my slap-in-the-face was the other's idea, but the major N (Snarky) revealed his cards by denying it in one breath and then letting stuff slip that made it clear he had genuinely tried to get rid of me. (The other one, more for his own benefit than mine, intervened...but I found out he wasn't fully honest in what he reported to me either. So nothing's secure, I think I'm in a place that is toxic, and I will have to, in 2006, start a new hunt, I think. Can't face it now).

What's hit me, irrational as it is, is how HURT I feel. I have worked my heart out and done an excellent job...even have letters to prove it. But because Snarkyboss is only interested in digits (databases), everything I've done for the patients and families and other clinicians, reams of correspondence and relationship building (which they told me they wanted me to do at the outset)--is irrelevant. I know life isn't fair, I accept that it's a fact, but on some level, I'm genuinely hurt that my real accomplishments and contributions were blown off so Snarky could zero in on minor mistakes. I know, deep in my gut, it's because I snapped at him one day when I was exhausted from dealing with Mom's chest drain for weeks on top of the FT job, unable to sleep, in severe back pain...and Snarky's the only person I associate with here who never bothered to ask how she was. So, when he was laboring to point out a minor error (which I had already spotted myself and corrected), I snapped, "I simply made a MISTAKE, Snarky." From that moment on he's been after me.

It's like with an N in power (as so many of them are), you can't cross them or defy or show any resistance, EVER. Or you pay. Meanwhile, although there's a reprieve, I'm sort of reverberating with the fact that this man would willingly cause me to lose my home (not to mention moving Ma into a nursing home) and my livelihood...simply because I did that.

I feel hurt, powerless. I have to stuff the anger because the only way to survive even short-term will be to keep my head WAY down. And though I'll be looking, jobs for my skills are very very hard to come by in this town. So this is truly survival stuff, and I'm reacting with horror. Had a couple of anxiety meltdowns and that's passing, but now it's morphing into depression.

Siggh. Just wanted to tell somebody. My best friend doesn't work here any more and KP is positioning himself carefully to please Snarky...so I'm feeling more isolated than ever.

I know this is a self-pitying whine, people have it a lot worse, but thanks for listening!
Hoplaong

[write]

I hope you can get out of that job soon, to something where you're appreciated.

Apart from a toxic marriage I think a toxic workplace is the worst thing there is.

Here's a giant hug ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((())))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[miss piggy]

Hello Hoppy,

Wow, I hate hearing this is happening to you.  I do relate to this.  So I offer this:

You have this great body of work that you have accomplished.  No one can take that away from you.

You have new relationships with clients, etc., and they appreciate your work on their behalf regardless of Snarky & co.

You can take the abilities you have and offer them where ever they may be valued.

So, my dear Hoppy, it isn't all for nothing.  Plus, it's weird, but in my case, I caught up in wanting my prior workplace to value my contributions and wanting to convince them I was "worthy" of their recognition.  (this was all years ago...)  I was determined to "win them over".  It never happened.  [reason: I didn't fit the picture of "young boy wonder" which they were in love with.  They would over promote guys in their early 20s like they were discovered prodigies.  N corporate culture.]  Then I went to work somewhere else and it was like coming out of a dark cave.  My colleagues at the new place gave me respect I never got at the old place.  I was listened to, my opinions were sought out, etc.  It was just so great!  And like the abused youngster I was, I didn't know (while at the old place) that it could be different anywhere else. 

Was my time at the old place wasted?  Well, maybe I should have read the writing on the wall sooner but I did gain great experience while slaving away.  So it's mixed.  Some time was wasted but not all.

I do wish the sun would shine brighter during this time of year!     Makes a huge difference in how we feel.

Hang in there!  Hugs, MP

[Hopalong]

Thanks so much, Write (hugs hlep!) and MP.
Everything you say helped. Especially the part about not bothering to "win" the appreciation of people who don't bother to give it. That's excellent. And will save me energy.

MP, the only caveat is I'm really feeling pretty hopeless about finding another halfway decent job in this town. Yet I can't move. I really can't face giving up my support system, church, familiarity. It has been such a strain to survive economically here, but in every other way it's kept me in one piece, more or less, to at least have a community. Some of these people I've known for 20 years.

My resume is TOO BUSY. I have had multiple jobs in the last 7 years, after 7 years of total stability. So employers look at that (the most recent stream of short stints interspersed with freelancing) and scratch their heads. It was the beginning of the dotcom bust, then I bounced around freelancing...but to find a "secure" (HAH) job here, it took SEVEN YEARS. The town is full of brilliant frisky youngsters who have graduated from the high-powered local university and work for peanuts, and are computer-literate way past me. If it takes seven more years I'll be well into my 60s and I don't fool myself. But I will look anyway.

I am just exhausted from the strain of it. I know I should bound out there with a will and a bright attitude but part of me would rather go live under a bridge.

That's depression and back pain talking and I will try.. For now, it's just helped a lot to vent here...I think I'll just take it easy for a week or two, try to make sure this slump doesn't morph into serious depression. Attack a job hunt once I've processed the shock of what happened here.

Doesn't help that NMom is having--genuine--physical problems so I go home to her high anxiety every night.

I'll get a grip, I'm sure.
Thanks again for all the good thoughts, it really helps.

Hopalong

[Plucky]

Hey Hoppy,
As a bodacious guy long ago once remarked when I walked into a club with a giant chic oversized handbag, "wow, you're toting a load!"

The facts are there to support why you are stressed out.    As unfair as it might sound,  the only thing you can change, is your own reaction.

You are looking for love in all the wrong places.   You want to be appreciated by jerks who only value power, and you want them to actually care about what results their immature actions have on your life!  Hello!   It's not going to happen!

Try to detach.  Your friend who tells you not to be attached, may actually have a point.   It is not fair, it is not going to be fair.   It is a GAME.   Either play it, or be played by it.  Your friend is playing.

As a friend told me when I whined about some backstabbing I had endured in the workplace, "it's just business. It was like that before you came along, it'll be like that after you're gone."

Are my cliches helpful at all?

The real thing in your life is your mother, and your friends, etc.  The job is a game, that you play in order to get the money.  If you were not doing it for money, you would be volunteering.  I ask you, would you do your job for free?   I thought not.  So now you can realise that you are there in order to make the money, and that is about it!  So  just make the money, focus your time (the one thing you cannnot make up later) on what is important, and try to enjoy life.

I KNOW this is not easy to do.  I know that.  But try to take this approach.  It will enhance your ability to deal with jerk #1 and jerk #2.

Plucky

[write]

If you were not doing it for money, you would be volunteering.  I ask you, would you do your job for free?   I thought not.  So now you can realise that you are there in order to make the money, and that is about it!  So  just make the money, focus your time (the one thing you cannnot make up later) on what is important, and try to enjoy life.

yes, yes and triple yes- except I say don't settle for the money, only short-term.
Find the volunteer bit and develop that.
What do you really want to do?/
What skills you have/
Who could benefit from those skills/
the environment you want to work in- maybe ot a hard-hitting, competetive for-profit organisation.

Honestly H, I was despairing of what I would do when it came time to support myself. And as with my other careers- the money came to me after I volunteered, learned some new stuff, adapted my skills, and was supported and encouraged by a few people who could see I was passionate.

Work can be such a trap, to pay the bills.

Have you read a book called 'Do what you love and the money will follow?' ( Marsha Sinetar I think )
She points out that many organisations trade in the skills- but also the passion and love of what you're doing which informs a job and makes it a vocation, a calling.

Another hug (((((((((((((((((((((((())))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[Hopalong]

Thanks, Plucky and Write.
Plucky, your reality check is helpful too. I'm snapping out of the "whyyyyy is it this way" stuff. It just took a while. A friend of mine has a similar nugget that helps: "That's why they call it work." (As in, expecting pleasure, fulfillment and appreciation may not be realistic.)

Write, I'd gladly follow my bliss and volunteer, it's just that I physically can't. I am at or past my endurance. On top of the job I have the 95-y/o N's needs to deal with daily, and my back troubles mean most nights I have to hit the bed with a heating pad by 7. I do make it to a Vespers service on Wednesdays because it's very early and short, and to a Covenant Group supper meeting twice a month, but that's it. Right now I don't have the energy to add on new activities. (The job hunt itself will consume everything I've got, and my drive for security really has to be Job One. Fulfilling job later, would be nice, but it's very unlikely.)

I hear myself saying YES--BUT...hate when I do that! However...it is just as true for the local nonprofits, the competition for the tiniest job. There are loads of highly educated people here, it's a quite small city, and the competition for ANYTHING is beyond amazing. I will attack all that in 2006 but right now must put on a burst of extra energy (not sure from where) in order to prove myself in new duties in the existing job, or I'll lose that. I really don't have the ability to follow my bliss right now. Too much risk. Hate to admit it, but it's reality, it's true circumstances.

Years ago I was a poet-in-the-schools for 4 years. Would love to do that again but I couldn't rent a tent to live in. Anyway, I know I'm being tireseomly repetitive. I do appreciate your positivity!

I'll keep tapping in for that from you when I do gear up for new directions, and I sincerely appreciate it.

Hopalong

[Portia]

Hopalong, are you logging in here at work? If so is there a stated policy on the privacy or otherwise of web stuff? I tend to be scrupulously private and secure about using external PCs (I don't log in here or my bank on an external PC!) but then I have a dose of what I think of as 'realistic paranoia' - on the basis that at work, people have been out to get me. It's great to tell safe people your story but on the other hand please make sure that your identity is as secure as can be? If it's not a problem, please ignore me. I can tend to be over-precautionary sometimes. From bad experience though!

[Hopalong]

The policy as I understand it is personal emails are understood as routine things people do now and then on lunches or breaks. They can't invade your computer privacy without a major legal-type reason. I'm small potatoes...

Thanks for the caution though.
Hopalong

[write]

I hear myself saying YES--BUT...hate when I do that!

do you know the writings of Eric Berne? 'Yes but' is one of his 'Games People Play'!

It sounds to me like you feel really trapped? as though your choices are eroded by mom's health/ your health/ financial considerations?

Poet-in-theschools sounds wonderful. A couple of times I've been into school and written a poem with a class, I loved it.

I've just reordered the Marsha Sinetar book, I've given my copies away, I'll let you know what she says!