Invisible
Honestly, I feel so invisible sometimes.
At one of my jobs I have volunteered to be on the Beta team for the new online class system that has been implemented. There are 7 people on the team and 2 people who are the go to people who fix the errors/issues.
We were told to send all errors to a particular generic email address. I am very proactive with finding and reporting errors/issues. So here in the last 8 days I've reported (to the email address that I was told to) various errors - quite a few as a matter of fact.
In the meantime, everyone has been reporting issues to the entire team (meaning, everyone gets copied on the email and it does not appear like anyone is using the generic email address). The things that they report get acknowledged via reply email and fixed.
Today, I participated in a teleconference with the beta team so that everyone could voice whatever new issues have been located as well as things they think should be changed. I have a hard time jumping into those discussions... especially when there are LOTS of chief type personalities. So I didn't say one thing during the conversation (at one point, someone asked if I was there, and I thought 'Oh good, this is my chance to speak.' So I asked if everyone could hear me and a few people said yes, and then someone jumped in with the next thing they wanted to report, so I fell back into oblivion.
One of the things that was reported during this teleconference was something I reported early Monday morning to the email address I was told to report errors/issues to.
I heard one of the Go To people say, "Okay, I'll put that on my list to fix." And I felt like yelling, "Hellooo??? I reported that 2 days ago and was never acknowledged!!"
Now I know this is just my ego that wants to be recognized as someone who is competent and worthy of being listened to. Knowing this doesn't make the feeling of invisibility sting any less.
After this, tears started streaming down my face (not a big deal, they can't hear me anyways since I have the mute button on). I feel so unseen and so unappreciated and so unacknowledged.
What is the point of spending all this effort when it doesn't appear to be of any use... seriously, I get paid the same whether I am "seen/heard" or not "seen/heard". So why even bother if what I contribute slips by completely unnoticed? I'd rather go sit on the couch and put my swollen feet up and read a book if I'm of no use anyways.