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Thursday,
September 2, 2010
Turning the Page
So yesterday was my very last day on the Plantation/Isle of Misfit Toys. I had my exit interview and now am officially retired. So why did I wake up bright and early at 4:44 a.m.? Because that's when I usually wake up on a work day -- just before the 5 o'clock alarm goes off. So I guess it's going to take a little time before my body conditions itself to sleep as long as it likes. The good news is that, unlike the usual practice of loading up on caffeine to stay awake and get through the day, I can now just go back to bed and sleep it off.
When I woke up, my mind was hearing "angels unaware." I know that's a bible verse and so here I am up bright and early, and on my laptop, doing research.
"Hebrews 13:2 - Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained ANGELS UNAWAREs."
On the surface, it doesn't seem to fit the situation I just turned the page on, but somehow I do know the phrase is a message to Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Do not reject the words from those around you which do not stroke your ego, which do not support your ego's vision of yourself and the fantasy world you have created in your head, for thereby you have rejected angels, the voice of truth, the voice of reason, sent to aid and assist you.
So along with reconditioning my body to not awaken at the crack of dawn, I am also going to have to cleanse and purify myself from thinking about Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde aka Director Guy and how I could not get through to him. I think it was that I originally liked him very much, and I was there for him. Then, when he turned and showed that the him I liked and was there for was only one of the many characters he portrayed, I became disgusted by him and disgusted with him because I knew he was being consciously deliberate about showing different faces, depending on with whom he was dealing, in an effort to further himself and his agenda and his ego in the game of life in spite of knowing better and in spite of being better.
So I guess the lesson here is that, along with not forming attachments to people in future and setting myself up for eventual hurt, as was the situation with Manager Mistress, I need to also learn not to be disappointed in people when they are not real, when they know better but are spiritually weak and, consequently, do not perform better. Now that I am retired and do not have to deal with people and their egos on a day-to-day basis, hopefully it will be easier for me not to judge or be disappointed. I think I understand why some have become crotchety old folks who reject all forms of human contact and those who walk around with tee shirts that say, "Don't ask me $hit." In fact, one of the girls from the front office, the lesser mistress, made a surprising visit to my desk yesterday to wish me well. She shared that she herself was burned out from dealing with people and hoped to retire in three years at the age of sixty. We were talking about how taxing some people can be and I said I was likely to become one of those old folks who sits on the front porch, turns the water hose on any human who approaches and yell for them to go away.
And speaking of people who are taxing, Mean Specialist Mistress tried her best to get on my last nerve on my last day with her steam roll approach. It was something she wanted me to do on the website that was beyond the norm. She insisted I'd done it before, when I'd not -- well, actually, I had, but not in the way she was insisting; and if she'd just given me a moment to think, I could have come up with a way to get what she wanted done. But nooooooo. She just could not shut up trying to force the issue, so I started getting a migraine, shut down and played stupid. She ended the mental beat down of me by saying, "I'll ask the IT department to do it." And, of course, IT did what I expected then to do -- they said, "We don't do that." She was stuck having to come back to me and she tried but by then I was not only shut down but locked tight and not she, nor a senior contracts person she brought in, could break me open. I continued to play stupid and never offered that I'd figure out a way to get it done, so what Mean Specialist Mistress wanted never got done and she had to eat it. I was gone at 3 o'clock with no goodbye said to her, to Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde or to the Weasly Klansman. I just slipped away, leaving my area and my computer files so clean that it's almost like I never was. I got a text from a worker in another department that she was hurt I did not stop by and give her a hug but, though there are some who have formed or want to form attachments to me, I'm no longer doing that. I've learned my lesson and I'm cutting most, if not all ties, strings and moving on.
So now that I've turned the page on the Black and Blue period of life, I need to shut down this site and think of a name for the next chapter of life. Something that documents how few people I can manage to see, speak to or come in contact with on a daily basis. Thinking .... thinking ... thinking.
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Tuesday,
August 31, 2010
See Ya
So two people approached me this week to say they came to the "open house" last week to see me and only to see me. When they were told I was out sick, they said they turned around and left because they wanted nothing to do with anyone else. One girl actually said, Manager Mistress never speaks to her so she wasn't interested in sticking around to wish her well.
I'm trying not to get a big head, but I'm getting a lot of love from a lot of folks. A few in my own department (sans Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde or Mean Specialist Mistress) and a lot from other departments. They mention how I was so helpful and polite and sociable -- speaking, smiling, positive and how it's been nice to have someone around who was like that. "A person so special," one girl put it.
And speaking of Manager Mistress, she told me the day after she signed her retirement papers that she'd wasn't planning on retirement just yet, but she had talked to her family and told them, "If Shirley's not there, I don't want to be there." I didn't take that statement 100% serious. I figured there might be some grain of truth to it, because though Manager Mistress has been mean to me at times by taking her anger at others out on me, and though she has failed to protect me from abuse by her subordinate the Mean Specialist Mistress, I know she did care for me, but I doubted my impending non presence was the deciding factor in her retirement. But, today, one of the Maintenance Workers told me they'd just talked to Manager Mistress, wished her will and Manage Mistress told her the reason she took retirement was because I was leaving. WOW. Today was Manager Mistress' last day. We hugged when she left, but it was awkward for me because I still have that wall around me that went up when she went ballistic back in May and was awful to me for almost an entire month. I shut down and stopped speaking to her during that period. I was sad and weepy and attributed it to feeling like I'd lost something. Lost someone. Lost a friend. I recalled the bible verse, "Put not thy faith in Princes, neither in man whose breath is in his nostrils." And I took that to mean the hurt I was feeling was my own darn fault, because I had allowed myself to form too close an attachment to Manager Mistress and that I should have known never to allow myself to trust or be that attached to another human being because human beings always turn on you. So, once she'd moved beyond her mean period, I had learned my lesson and I was over it. Over her and just never came back. So as she was saying her goodbye, she said, "We'll see each other again. In fact, we definitely will," but something inside me knows we won't because I won't allow it.
One more day of work before I slide the chute. After that, I don't know where I'm going or what I will be doing, but whatever is in my future, Manager Mistress will not be a part of it.
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Monday,
August 30, 2010
Didn't Suck
So today did not go as badly as I had prepared for. Instead of attitude from Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, I got normal. Just business as usual. And I got cooperation. He actually signed what I needed him to sign without getting on his high horse and saying or asking silly $hit.
I learned today Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde may possibly get hit with another employee sliding the chute. Mean Specialist Mistress is interviewing at another agency. I'm sure she's going to apply for the position Manager Mistress is vacating, but I understand the job she "really wants" is at this other agency. So, I'll just know Divine Right Action for her on that. Her destiny is either to continue to play the game with Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, which is going to get harder and harder to maintain the facade she's adopted for smoozing him and not lose her mind because he will test your sanity, or her destiny is to get the position at the other agency and cause those employees who are so unlucky as to have to deal with her to lose THEIR minds, as she too can test the sanity of others.
I just hope Mean Specialist Mistress does not have lead over any Black people if she gets the position at the other agency because, judging by how she told one of our drivers that she "could not stand" me because I "didn't know my place" and judging by how she informed our direct report, Manager Mistress, that she was "going to break" me and judging by how she put a lot of effort into trying to do so, I'd have to say Mean Specialist Mistress has a Plantation Mentality and expects Black people to be weak, ignorant, submissive and dependent upon her.
So good luck whichever way it goes. But if I had a choice for Mean Specialist Mistress, it would be to get the other position so Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde will lose the last remaining member of the Contracts team. He will rehire and replace all of us for sure, but it's only going to take 3 to 6 months before the newcomers wise up and begin to lose the desire to live.
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Sunday,
August 29, 2010
3 Days - 1 Monday
To go before I am off the Plantation. I won't be actually retired until September 7th, but I work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday then I'm on vacation until the 7th. It would be financially beneficially for me to work up to the last day, as I will get paid for vacation days still on the books, but the work environment is just so draining that I need out ASAP. I also had to sacrifice two sick days I would have been paid for as I did call in ill on Thursday, the day of the "Open House" honoring my retirement and the retirement of the Manager Mistress, and I phoned in sick on Friday just to show Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde that I'm not taking any crap from him. I did hear from coworker girl that the atmosphere in the department was "tense," and that Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde had an "attitude" towards her, as though it was her fault I called in.
Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde is kinda crazy I've deduced. He's so busy hiding his true self to those outside the department, and so afraid he's going to be found out, that his behavior is often that of a rat in a maze, just running hither and fro doing things that make no sense. Plus I think his medication might be an attibuting cause to his often frantic behavior I attribute his "rat in a maze" thing to the fact that I had two missed messages from him on my cellphone the day I called in ill. I did not hear the phone ring, but got a beep and saw one call logged in at 11:01, the other at 11:04. He left no message, did not call again and, since it was the first time I've been sick this year, and since he acts as though I don't matter in the office, why he would find it necessary to call me does not compute. At any rate, I'm expecting the worse from him tomorrow, but I'm ready and not afraid to tell him 1) He no longer fools me 2) I hope he felt the total fool and was as hurt when I did not show up for my own party as I felt when he laughed in my face and said he didn't care that I said I was hurt by his actions towards me.
To top off my dissing Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde in front of staff and his peers, he will also hear that the clericals hosted a luncheon for me the day before I phoned in sick. I went and had a fabulous fun time. Former Coworker came to the luncheon as did Brilliant Girl. And to add insult to injury, I also attended the housewarming yesterday of an employee in another department. So the only party I missed this week was the one Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde hosted in my so-called honor. And, if he asks why, my answer will be, "You freeze me out to the point where I retire 10 years ahead a schedule, then want to throw me a party. I don't think so. Be real. Be honest with yourself and others. I am."
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Monday,
August 23, 2010
Open House
So I got a
telephone call from a coworker in another department. She asked if I
was going to attend the Open House. "What open house?" I said. She said "An email just went out that says we are all invited to an Open House to celebrate your retirement." SAY WHAT!
I open up Outlook and sure enough, there it was:
"_____ (Manager Mistress) and _____ (me) from the _____ Department are retiring and will be leaving soon. For those of you that know and/or work with them, please join us for an 'open house' in the _____ Department Thursday, August 26, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Refreshments will be available."
What a nerve.
I thought I made it clear in my conversation with Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde's mouthpiece, the Weasley Klansman, as blogged in my August 12 post, that I'm only sliding the chute because of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde and that, under the circumstances, it would be disingenuous of him to host a party. Besides, his only reason for doing so would be to have another opportunity to put on one of his performances; promote himself as such a great caring magnanimous leader, and I just can't take any more of his phony sincerity.
So, in response to the coworker who telephoned, I replied, "I won't be there. I just can't do it."
In fact, the last two weekends have been spoiled by images of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. I can't get him out of my head. I keep seeing his smug face and hearing his voice when he said and did hurtful things ... like when he gave credit for my accomplishments to other departments and when he left me out of training pertinent to my position and made me beg him ... and when he talked down to me as though I were an idiot when I asked a question ... and how he did not support me when I asked for his help in dealing with his buddies in IT when the website was down for four months ... and when I asked for his help with the obnoxious temp. He's totally just screwed up my work flow and the work flow of the department. I was there for him and he used me and hurt me and failed me and everyone else in every way possible, so I've reached the point where I am so disgusted by him and so disgusted with him that I want nothing more to do with him. I'm polite, as always. I do my job as always, but I am otherwise as cold and distant as cold and distant can be, and I'm really struggling to heal and get beyond how I feel about him. To go to this party would just damage me further, so I'm not going. I will be calling in with a migraine that day. If it embarrasses him and makes him look bad tough. He didn't care when he hurt me. Now it's me who doesn't care.
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Wednesday,
August 18, 2010
Body Count
So pink slips came down on Monday. We lost 10 drivers, 6 mechanics, 1 Human
Resources Specialist, and 1 clerk from another location. Considering we
have over 600 employees, that's not as big a blood bath as we were expecting and, as far as I can tell, everything was done by the books with the last hired being the ones to go. No management positions were eliminated. Go figure. At any rate, I've only got 11 days, 2 Fridays, 2 Mondays, 2 Staff Note Submittals, 1 Web Posting to go before I slide the chute and start my permanent vacation and never have to think of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde or the Plantation/Island of Misfit Toys ever again. Thank you Baby Jesus!!!
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Thursday,
August 12, 2010
Sliding the Chute
So today, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde went to senior staff meeting. When he came back, he called his new best friend, Mean Specialist Mistress, into his office. They closed the door, but spoke only briefly before she came out. A short while later, Director Mistress approached me and said Mean Specialist Mistress said Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde wants to do something for our retirement. I said, "Absolutely not." Director Mistress said, "It would just be cake and people coming and going for about two hours." I said, "You can do what you like, but I just can't do it. Just let me know which day so I can call in sick."
After that, my head started hurting. It progressed to the migraine stage. THEN I felt like I was going to throw up. After all those bodily reactions to the mere thought of letting myself be involved in another one of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde's performances passed, it occurred to me that it wasn't even his idea. He is so self-obsessed that he is completely oblivious to his team unless and until it's something that reflects back on himself and puts him in a good light. So what I'm thinking is that someone at senior staff asked, "Are you going to do something for them?" THAT's when Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde became aware and he probably made something up on the fly, as he always does -- "Why sure. We're having cake and you're all invited." Then he flew back down here and got Mean Specialist Mistress on it. That would be his modus operandi.
Later, directly after Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde's personal staff meeting, Weasely Klansman comes over and asks me, "So what are you doing?" I thought he was asking what I was going to do after I retired, so I said, "Whatever spirit wants me to do." He said, "No. About the party." I said, "You guys can party all you like, but I won't be there."
"Why?" asks Weasely Klansman.
"Because it's not really a retirement. I wasn't planning on retiring for another ten years. What it is is what that Jet Blue flight attendant did -- he reached the point where he'd had enough and he "Slid the chute. He got the heck out, and that's what I'm doing, sliding the chute, and that's nothing to be celebrated."
"It could be," Weasely Klansman said.
"You guys can party all you want, but I won't be there listening to the fake sincerity," I replied and what I meant was Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde's fake sincerity.
I promise you -- if anyone starts feeling sorry for Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde and starts talking about my being mean and embarrassing him and hurting his feelings, I'm gong to remind them that when I went in to talk to Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde about how hurt I was that he had given credit to his buddies in IT and in Marketing for the website activities I'd been handling since 2004 and for the department intranet I developed, that Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde's response was to laugh in my face, lean back in his chair with a smug look on his face, shrug his shoulders in a "so what" gesture, then actually say to me, "So what. You haven't told me anything" and later that, "I don't care." So now it's me who doesn't care.
I don't hold any ill will towards Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde and, unlike others on
his staff, I do not hate him. It's just that, I'm disgusted by him, I am disgusted with him, and I no longer care. In the words of a Gretchen Wilson song, My give-a-damn's busted.
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Wednesday, August 11, 2010
28 Days - 4
Fridays - 4 Mondays - 1 Board Meeting
To go before I am officially retired and off the Plantation/Isle of Misfit Toys.
I did not want a retirement party per se because Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde aka Director Guy would have used it as a platform to promote himself -- to show what a great guy he is, how magnanimous he is, and I don't want to put myself in a position where I have to watch another one of his performances, his fake sincerity, nor have to listen to any more of his lies. I did agree, however, to a simple luncheon with coworker and a few of the other clericals. Daughter No. 2 works in the area, so she's coming as well.
Manager Mistress also did not want a retirement party, for the same reason, and Mean Specialist Mistress is taking her to lunch.
Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde has done just as I imagined he would, which is he has not said one word to me about my taking the package nor addressed the reason for my taking the package nor the reason Manager Mistress is also taking the package. He's just buried his head in the sand, like he does with everything, and is focusing on moving forward with new hires.
Manager Mistress is the happiest I've seen her in years. The cloud she had hanging over her which caused her to flip flop in her words, actions, and which caused her to become so vicious towards me at times has dissolved and she is now giddy with joy. I was asked if I wanted Manager Mistress invited to my luncheon, but I declined. It's like I said in a prior post, though our communications are back to what appears to be normal, it's not really. I'm just sort of going through the motions without any real feelings since her last blow up. Plus, I'm remembering how she has failed me in so many ways in the past -- mainly having to do with the way she failed to do her supervisory duty and allowed the Mean Specialist Mistress to nag, badger, bully, abuse and misuse me. Manager Mistress asked me for my email address and telephone number so she could keep in contact. I gave it to her but hopefully she'll lose it because I just want to put a period to everything and everyone that's happened between January 6, 2004 and September 7, 2010, except for Brilliant Girl and Former Coworker, and go on with whatever else life has in store for me.
It occurred
to me that since everything is in the body of God and since everything in a sense filters down and is a version of the body of God that the department is a body. When Former Coworker left in 2005, the heart of the body went with her. All the fun went out. When Brilliant Girl left in 2007, the brains of the body went with her. With me goes the soul, the light of the body, so what's left is a dead thing, an empty lifeless shell.
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Tuesday,
August 3, 2010
Misfit Toys
So I had a revelation today. Since the old Massa left, the Plantation is no longer a Plantation per se, at least not for me. For others there is still the racism and abuse of authority, but my being targeted that particular way went out the door with Massa. Director Guy tries little things, like trying to bypass me on training for new procedures, giving me a comical performance appraisal or none at all, and he still has not apologized or attempted to rectify in any way, shape or manner my having managed the public website since 2004 and my having developed the intranet and his giving credit to the IT Department for both. But the foolishness Director Guy tries is mostly due to his incessant need to promote himself and to sacrifice his staff in order to win the good graces of colleagues and superiors. In other words, he's just a dick.
But the revelation I had today was that the atmosphere has gone from racism and abuse of authority to the Island of Misfit Toys. Those of us who are able to take the package and get out are taking it and getting out. This includes the Nice Manager Mistress who decided she no longer wants to die the slow death of boredom and frustration and lack of appreciation experienced under Director Guy's rule, plus she told me, "If you're not here, I don't want to be here." That was sweet of her to say and it touched me but, though we're back talking to each other as we did prior to the rage incident, I still have that sense that the incident had such a damaging affect on me that we just can't go completely back to the way we were.
So as I was saying about the Island of Misfit Toys, those of us who are able to get out are getting out. What's left are the broken, the clueless and the delusional -- God's misfit toys.
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Friday, July 30, 2010
Sand in the Oyster
So the Agency has lost a lot of its funding and there's been talk of layoffs to balance the budget. I was 99.99 percent certain of being exempt from layoff, so I wasn't worried. In fact, I was actually kinda hoping, like other employees, that I would get laid off. I'd have missed the paycheck, but things are just so depressing and demoralizing and so screwed up that getting laid off and collecting unemployment seemed to some of us as kind of a blessing in disguise. At any rate, last Friday, to see if they could get enough people to leave voluntarily in order to offset some of the layoffs, management sent out an offer of an early retirement package to all staff. The offer was so minimal that most staffers were insulted, and it was felt no one would take it. I saw it as an opportunity to get out while I'm still alive, so I accepted the offer.
It's not an attractive package, but it's workable and goes into effect September 1, which means I'll be out in 30 plus days. I now see Director Guy in a whole new light. I see him as the sand in the oyster.
You know how that grain of sand gets inside of the oyster and it just irritates and irritates and irritates and how that irritation eventually turns into a pearl? That's how I now see Director Guy. If not for him, I would have stayed on the Plantation another ten years in a state of tolerating. Thanks to the person that he is, I was motivated to discontent sufficient to get out sooner rather than later. Looking back on it now, I can see my work on the Plantation is done. Thanks to Director Guy's poor management, poor decision-making skills, and poor people skills, the department is going down faster than the Titanic. Productivity is screwed. I'm bored. Getting up every day and heading for the Plantation is an emotional drain. I can't get through to Director Guy; upper management is clueless to his lies and manipulations. I'm wasting my time, my energy. The atmosphere has aged me. I'm looking at all this irritation and I had that moment of clarity and realized, "I'm done". I signed the paperwork and immediately mentally and emotionally checked out. I feel so good about the decision. I feel euphoric and I'm counting the days until I can put this experience behind me. I feel really grateful that I live simply and am in the position to take the offer.
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Monday, July 12, 2010
Lithargic
Had an awesome weekend. On Saturday, I put the finishing touches on what I guestimate is scrapbook number 39 -- a recent visit to the Huntington Library. Plus I organized my scrapbooking materials and reduced the clutter down from five containers to three. It's now easier to find what I need when I need it as all the paper is in the paper container, all the stickers and lettering are in the stickers and lettering container, and all the tools are in the tools container. I also organized the pictures I need to finish the 2009 album.
On Sunday, I went to the movies to see Eclipse. Can't wait for the DVD, so I can see it a couple more times. After the movies, I stopped at 7-Eleven to take advantage of Free Slurpie Day. I've never had a slurpie before, and the sugar free Banana/Stawberry was very tasty, as was the loaded with sugar Cherry. I got a total brain freeze while sipping and driving. A brain free so intense that I had to scream and grab the door handle to relieve the pressure, but I liked the slurpie and will more than likely stop in for another real soon.
So even though the weekend was fab, I had a hard time getting up this morning and heading off to work. Why is that? I like my job. I love the work I do. Coworkers are okay, with the exception of the Mean Specialist, the Weasly Klansman, and Director Guy. Those three are not fun, not okay, but are tolerable, so why is it so hard to get going on work day mornings? The overall atmosphere is still depressing and employees are still demoralized, even though we now have a new Massa. There's talk that, because of the economy, we may have to do some downsizings/layoffs. No one wants to lose a paycheck, but people are so miserable that there's talk about getting laid off as a blessing in disguise. THAT'S the measure of how unhappy people are.
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