My job is NOT who I am. It is not what defines me as a person, writer, wife, mother, friend etc. So...why then do I continue to let it bother me that my boss is a jerk that does not give out recognition, but rather uses people, manipulates and rarely treats you as well as you should be for the work that you do?
I have been arguing with myself, since yesterday, that I should not give a shit. That I should just let it go and act like I don't care. BUT I DO!! All morning as I was running at the gym and then while trying to do my yoga, and simply concentrate on my breath, I kept telling myself to get over it and just move on.
A hard task. I just spent a week trying to NOT have overtime in a company that does not like to see it happen. I worked a 12 hour day on Monday doing HIS work while he was on vacation. Payroll and other tasks that are really not in my job description yet, but he did not want to have to come in and do it all while on vacation, so he taught me how do it all. Something that is good for me to know prior to a promotion, BUT... I took great care to keep things smooth, keep spirits high as we are busier than we have ever been and shorter staffed than we have ever been as well.
It was one of the most exhausting weeks that I have ever worked. Yes, I did it all as part of my plan to prove my worthiness for a promotion, but there should always be a little recognition for a job well done. I took the time, often, through this past week to thank those that I worked with and even bought meals over the weekend for the entire store. I fully recognized how hard people were working and on what short fuses. We never seemed to have a slow down moment where one could catch their breath. Not one.
I even did an interview with a potential new hire that I thought was excellent and recommended that he hire this guy upon his return. I know that I am pretty much his flunky right now as he takes advantage of the fact that I have something to prove,BUT...
A little thank-you, a note, or just some recognition of the effort that was put forth. He knows that I worked a 12 hour day and did not even ask why. he knows that things were smoothly attended, but he has chosen to say nothing. He came back and got right back to work without a single word about the work that was done in his absence.
Hard to get over and even though I know that I should not even let it phase me...why does it? That job is just what I do for money to allow me to write AND have health insurance for John & I. So why do I care if he recognizes my contributions or not? I guess we all want someone to continue to tell us what a good job we are doing no matter what stage of life we find ourselves entering or leaving. I guess it all started with that first gold star in our first year of school. After that we were all hooked.
I am still chasing the gold star. Are we all?
I just could not believe what I was hearing! I could not get to a pen and paper fast enough to write it down. It was four in the morning and I was getting ready for work. My habit is to turn on the chat radio shows to see what people are talking about. Usually, at that hour, you will find the variety of uber conservative types , that I have never heard of, that they run in the hours when there is usually no one up and not too many folks listening.....at least this is what I believe. Maybe these people have huge legions of fans and a gigantic fan base. If that is the caes then I am very afraid!!
The chat host was a woman, and I do not recall hearing her name, but she sounded somewhat youthful. I know you can not tell much from an anonymous voice, but she did not sound elderly. She was in the middfdle of a discussion when I turned her on, but it was the closing comment before commercial that cuaght my attention most. She ended with, "God bless the American housewife". Are you kidding me??
The "idea" of the traditional housewife has been dead for years! If not largely at least it is in my mind and with the people that I associate. In a time when both people in the home, not to mention those without a partner, must work I find it appalling that there are those who either yearn for the 1950's ideal of a "stay-at-home" mom type. It just can not be done. Unless the other income is so good that the woman does not need to work there is no choice these days. There are usually two cars to pay for and kids crap is not cheap. The time of the wife at home cooking dinner is long gone. Granted they still may try and enforce it in the extreme Christian home, but generally speaking the family dinner time has become a thing of the past.
When Max was small I tried to have that sort of dinner, but as he got older and more involved in other activities and John and I had different types of jobs and schedules it became more difficult and even more stressful to cook and eat a meal. It was much easier to throw in a Stouffers Lasagna and talk while we all watched a movie together.
Sometimes when I listen to these conservative chat people talk about the need for mom's to stay home and raise the kids it makes me want to scream. Their target audience might make enough for that to happen, but what about for the rest of the population that has to struggle to make ends meet and have to have multiple incomes? What about God bless the single wage earners, or multiple earners, who are trying to pay for basic living?
They always complain about how the liberals always pick on them, but it seems to me as if they are still living, or want to live, in the Father Knows Best era. Mom/wife in a dress with an apron and pearls when dad gets home from the office and she hands him the pipe and a martini!!
Also, they always have to bring God into it as well. They love to hearken back to how a good, God fearing, Christian woman/family lifestyle is the best for the country and this time in which we live. Yuck!! Obliviously ignorant of the fact that there are plenty of good women out there, raising kids and families that are neither God fearing or Christian.
Yesterday it became apparent that you just really never know what might be going on in other people's lives. Those you work with as well as those you might serve. people that you come in contact with every day and all day long.
I am one of those people who always goes to work with a good attitude. People think that I am always funny & goofy. They have a good time working with me. They can never tell what my personal life might be like. There are other people, and I am sure that you have worked with people like this, they are always an emotional wreck or have some sad story or wear their emotional baggage on their sleeves.
I had a meeting with my boss yesterday to discuss a promotional/reward program that they asked me to create/implement etc. As it was over he shared some news with me that nearly brought him to tears and me as well. Then I shared with him the drama that is currently going on in my life. he was quite surprised and said, " What a mess are we right now"! Yes, I said, but you know I never try to roll my problems to work in a wheelbarrow. He knows that is the truth.
Max left me a note yesterday that he is moving out. He is coming over today to discuss what his plans are etc.
I am torn between being crushed, feeling like a failure, or begging him to stay. I feel terrible. The last thing I am interested in right now is work!! I could not be working on that promotion at a more dysfunctional time!
He has no intention of going into the Navy. I know this because he came home with an entire "sleeve" on tattoo outlines on his arm. not that I am opposed to tats, but you know if you can't afford them and don't have a really good job to pay all your bills etc. that you should be holding off, but he has not. I am not even sure that he still has a job. At least not enough hours at one to pay the bills he currently has.
I know that I moved away from home at 18, but I also got a really good job AND was able to pay bills. I was also moving out of an abusive environment. Max has nothing like that going on here. We have always been supportive and done all kinds of things with and for him as an only child.
I do not know what he is thinking. I guess I will know in a few hours, but it does not stop me from feeling like a failure as a parent. It feels like after 18 years I did not do any of it right. I have not given him any direction. I did not do my job properly because he is floundering and does not know what to do. I watch all these people whose kids are graduating and going off to schools and careers and mine is just floating off into nothingness.........
He says that he is going to go and stay with his friend that just moved in with some people and it is a first apartment. Oh yeah! I am thrilled about this.
I have always been so good at putting on the stage face and not letting people know what my personal life was like. Maybe as the result of having grown up in such a dysfunctional home it was my coping mechanism. It makes me look at customers in an entirely different light. How do I know what happened to them this morning before they came in for their coffee? How do I know what their kids did or said to them this week?
John is leaving Monday and for the first time I will be totally alone. I will not have Max here to watch junk television with. No one to talk to about the newest You Tube videos. It will be totally & utterly quiet here.
He had such promise with his electrical engineering background. I know that you can not force anyone to do anything, but it is very hard to watch or sit by and just let them go, when you have no idea what they are going to. I am feeling stunned, shocked and dismayed right now and can not imagine where to go from here.
