Caught
Yesterday for the first time my boss gave me permission to work from home. This is cool because it lets me 1, spend almost 2 more hours of my life doing something other than driving (such as sleeping in!); 2, be near my spouse even while working; and 3, save gas money. We are rooting for lots more days like this.
I got to do this because I have a new conservation planning client whose ranch is located in a remote area of northeastern Santa Clara County, in between Mount Hamilton and Livermore... in other words, one of my neighbors. I had a field visit to his ranch and spent the remainder of the day working from home. The ranch visit was fine just fine, saw some hawks and ravens and a big strapping bobcat. Lovely, rugged country.
Towards the end of the field visit, while heading back across the ranch we got to talking about life in these mountains, and that sort of neighborly stuff. And then the conversation went like this.
Ranch guy: Isn't your husband a minister?
Me: Oh, well, not actually. He does have a religious studies degree, but he isn't a minister.
Ranch guy: Oh, ok. Because I heard that he was a minister. Aren't you guys doing some kind of religious thing at your place? I heard you were going to start a church or something.
Me: ***
Me: [recovering)] Um, well, you know, we just got started out here. Heh, you know, we don't really know what we're doing yet.
Ranch guy: Oh, yeah, I know what you mean.
Me: So who did you hear that from? David? [my next door neighbor]
Ranch guy: No, [So-and-so] told me that.
The interesting part about this is that So-and-so is a person up here that we've never even heard of.
So it seems that my work life is getting braced to pry me out of my broom closet. I always knew that my private life here was on a collision course with my public service career, but I guess I thought that I could hang on to my cover for a while longer.
I wasn't ready to come 'out' as a witch in my workplace. It's not so much that I'm worried about my boss or coworkers giving me trouble. The main reason is that I serve the farming and ranching community, and it is hard enough to overcome people's inclination to distrust the government, without me displaying myself as a weirdo leftist hippie satan worshipper. It isn't that the ranchers are all rabid conservative Christians or anything; this is the Bay Area after all. It's just that in order to get anywhere in my line of work I need to cultivate their sense that I remotely understand their needs, perceptions, and way of life. Plus, as a term worker I still do not have true job security so I wasn't ready to come out to my coworkers either.
And I haven't really been outed yet. But I can see the smoke on the horizon, if you know what I mean. Because you see, what this demonstrates is that people up here talk. A lot. And if the bit that gets reported back to me from random strangers in the area is that we're starting a religious center on our property, then I know there was a lot more said that he didn't mention just to be polite. They might still be assuming it's "some kind of church", but that isn't going to last all that long. Plus there have been hints that some people in my office are catching on, too. It has been noticed that I never work on Mayday or Halloween.
It's not necessarily a catastrophe. The ranchers I have worked with usually seem to understand the notion of keeping your nose out of other people's business, and if I'm asked about it and I say "It's just a private thing" it will probably not come up again. But that doesn't mean it won't affect them.
And the other thing is that it means I have to come out to my boss, soon. I have to do that because I can't have him finding out from somebody at the next Cattlemen's dinner that that employee of his has a weird secret life that's being talked about all over the neighborhood. Especially a secret life involving a side career in some kind of wacko religious compound. You just don't want your boss to be the last one to hear about something like that. And because if the information makes it to his ear, it will have been passed through the rumor mill first and God only knows what it will sound like when he hears about it. Plus if he already knows the truth then he will be prepared and can say something smooth and diplomatic instead of "She's into what?"
So now I have to think up a way to break the news to my boss without making the whole thing seem even more weird and awkward than it really is. "Say, Terry, I thought I should mention that I practice witchcraft. Oh, and um, thought you might want to know that for the last two years while I've been working for you I've secretly been building a pagan cult center on my property... Oh, no, nothing big, just a stone henge. Just a little hobby of mine... Why didn't I tell you before? Oh, I don't know, it must have slipped my mind."
I am an instinctively private person. I don't keep an awful lot of secrets, but when I've chosen to set a boundary about a particular aspect of my life, I'm very clear about who belongs on which side of the boundary. And it REALLY disturbs me to have my secrets involuntarily exposed. I think it's the Scorpio part of me, I hate not being in control of who knows what about me. I hate having my privacy boundaries forced open. It makes me feel like I'm under attack. It also makes me instinctively feel compelled to lie in order to protect the secret, and I don't like that either.
I got to do this because I have a new conservation planning client whose ranch is located in a remote area of northeastern Santa Clara County, in between Mount Hamilton and Livermore... in other words, one of my neighbors. I had a field visit to his ranch and spent the remainder of the day working from home. The ranch visit was fine just fine, saw some hawks and ravens and a big strapping bobcat. Lovely, rugged country.
Towards the end of the field visit, while heading back across the ranch we got to talking about life in these mountains, and that sort of neighborly stuff. And then the conversation went like this.
Ranch guy: Isn't your husband a minister?
Me: Oh, well, not actually. He does have a religious studies degree, but he isn't a minister.
Ranch guy: Oh, ok. Because I heard that he was a minister. Aren't you guys doing some kind of religious thing at your place? I heard you were going to start a church or something.
Me: ***
Me: [recovering)] Um, well, you know, we just got started out here. Heh, you know, we don't really know what we're doing yet.
Ranch guy: Oh, yeah, I know what you mean.
Me: So who did you hear that from? David? [my next door neighbor]
Ranch guy: No, [So-and-so] told me that.
The interesting part about this is that So-and-so is a person up here that we've never even heard of.
So it seems that my work life is getting braced to pry me out of my broom closet. I always knew that my private life here was on a collision course with my public service career, but I guess I thought that I could hang on to my cover for a while longer.
I wasn't ready to come 'out' as a witch in my workplace. It's not so much that I'm worried about my boss or coworkers giving me trouble. The main reason is that I serve the farming and ranching community, and it is hard enough to overcome people's inclination to distrust the government, without me displaying myself as a weirdo leftist hippie satan worshipper. It isn't that the ranchers are all rabid conservative Christians or anything; this is the Bay Area after all. It's just that in order to get anywhere in my line of work I need to cultivate their sense that I remotely understand their needs, perceptions, and way of life. Plus, as a term worker I still do not have true job security so I wasn't ready to come out to my coworkers either.
And I haven't really been outed yet. But I can see the smoke on the horizon, if you know what I mean. Because you see, what this demonstrates is that people up here talk. A lot. And if the bit that gets reported back to me from random strangers in the area is that we're starting a religious center on our property, then I know there was a lot more said that he didn't mention just to be polite. They might still be assuming it's "some kind of church", but that isn't going to last all that long. Plus there have been hints that some people in my office are catching on, too. It has been noticed that I never work on Mayday or Halloween.
It's not necessarily a catastrophe. The ranchers I have worked with usually seem to understand the notion of keeping your nose out of other people's business, and if I'm asked about it and I say "It's just a private thing" it will probably not come up again. But that doesn't mean it won't affect them.
And the other thing is that it means I have to come out to my boss, soon. I have to do that because I can't have him finding out from somebody at the next Cattlemen's dinner that that employee of his has a weird secret life that's being talked about all over the neighborhood. Especially a secret life involving a side career in some kind of wacko religious compound. You just don't want your boss to be the last one to hear about something like that. And because if the information makes it to his ear, it will have been passed through the rumor mill first and God only knows what it will sound like when he hears about it. Plus if he already knows the truth then he will be prepared and can say something smooth and diplomatic instead of "She's into what?"
So now I have to think up a way to break the news to my boss without making the whole thing seem even more weird and awkward than it really is. "Say, Terry, I thought I should mention that I practice witchcraft. Oh, and um, thought you might want to know that for the last two years while I've been working for you I've secretly been building a pagan cult center on my property... Oh, no, nothing big, just a stone henge. Just a little hobby of mine... Why didn't I tell you before? Oh, I don't know, it must have slipped my mind."
I am an instinctively private person. I don't keep an awful lot of secrets, but when I've chosen to set a boundary about a particular aspect of my life, I'm very clear about who belongs on which side of the boundary. And it REALLY disturbs me to have my secrets involuntarily exposed. I think it's the Scorpio part of me, I hate not being in control of who knows what about me. I hate having my privacy boundaries forced open. It makes me feel like I'm under attack. It also makes me instinctively feel compelled to lie in order to protect the secret, and I don't like that either.