Micro-aggressions
A friend once told me she was looking for a job while she was still happy enough to be picky.
I usually leave while I’m still happy. Which makes for a lot of looking back.
One time I wasn’t happy was 10 years ago this week. I quit the job I came to Florida for. Like, walked in, handed them a letter, left my laptop, and flounced the fuck out.
I regret that move. It took two years to work off that karma. Would not recommend.
Someone had left two comments on my Faceypages wall, which just came up in my memories:
“Don’t you feel like you were just told you don’t have cancer anymore?”
“So long to editing uninspiring copy from uninspired writers.”
Most separations weren’t quite the cause for celebration. But the one thing that unites them all is looking back and seeing with fresh eyes the stuff that put tiny little cracks in your heart along the way.
I got to thinking about when our Delray office was taken away from us and I had to start driving 30+ minutes each way again.
How I had always dressed up in Delray but now suddenly I was getting called out left and right that my Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger and DKNY weren’t enough to one person’s liking.
How, as if it weren’t enough that I came in and did the jobs of three people who sat on their asses and watched me, I ended up on crutches.
But was I able to work from home, as I’d done once a week in Delray? No.
Was I able to dress down an iota? Nope.
Was I talked to about my comfier shoe choices when I had one ankle swelled up like a grapefruit? Yup!
I know none of that (was that from 2016?) had anything to do with the job I ended up leaving in 2020.
Most of those people were long gone who created that culture. And who stood aside and watched it happen. And who didn’t value ME but instead just let people manage the way they manage.
(Just like we let ole tRumpy believe he won the 2020 election. Let’s review how THAT turned out.)
In any event, no wonder everyone was surprised when I left. They had no idea. Heck, *I* had no idea how much I had stuffed deep inside my psyche.
Now that I help my mom more than ever, I think about that. I wouldn’t tell her to put on a suit and heels to walk to the kitchen. Especially when not a goddamn other person in the building looked like they did much more than shower that day. (Thinking of the guy who wore the same pants 4x/week. And jeans on Fridays. And how some could wear sneakers but my sandals were subject to commentary.)
And I will never get over some nasty bully BIATCH getting our good healthcare while I busted my ass and yet my mom couldn’t because she’s a mom and not whatever providers think “family” is.
I will still look back on that as my favorite job because I enjoyed it far more than the micro-aggressions that threatened to chip away at it.
But I don’t have those same micro-aggressions anymore. It’s weird having no conflict, so now I feel conflicted about that.
In any event, we have a lot of changes coming up. It’s nice having the mental bandwidth to participate in that.
If I had more of that, I’d still be where I was. But then I wouldn’t be where I am.