upheaval, transition & everything must GO!
So, here's a real update.
My best friend of these last 14 years has done most of the packing up
& now our house is mostly empty & I can't stop crying.
This hurts more than I thought it would. It's the kind you can't prepare for ahead of time, you're just IN IT.Even though I'm really-super-happy for her
and it's TIME. I ty to concentrate on that in the sting. It's time for both of us to experience newness & give ourselves new challenges.This is not sudden, nor a surprise.
Still, we've been through so much together; break-ups, deaths, taking care of cats & kids,road trips,spoken word adventures,wrong turns, mistakes, and victories.She gets me like nobody else and I get her like nobody else.Not being close when things fall apart is going to be so very hard.And I am tired and exhausted of going through hard things by myself, except for her.
She cried the other day, too. Even found some hair dye she used for a parade more than five years ago.Lots of memories.
But we will have a great big party on Saturday before she goes for real-real.Laughter, more memories, more tears.
In my own transition news, I got a case of the cold feet a bit after colleagues told me they'd been talking to the woman from the bookstore as references. Cold feet were weird.I am so used to just plowing ahead after I make a decision, it was an odd experience.
I conn-ed myself for a minute thinking I should just stay here.The voice in my head said things like: "You might have to miss some of NPS because the fall term begins around that time. Also, the logistics of moving are too expensive and too hard and the timing is off (I would very likely have to leave in a hurry & before I wanted to). You don't have the support system out there that you've cultivated over a decade here! What are you thinking? You're going to be isolated and stuck out there!"
Another very close friend, Sonia Tetlow, is going to grad school at Emory in the Fall & another got a job here. "Lunches with fun people and study breaks with friends!" My brain thought. "you like your work, you don't hate it that badly!Besides, Theresa is just moving in and it wouldn't be fair to her to then move out." (even though she knows the deal and wants to get out of where SHE is.
Really?
FEAR, sometimes you wear the oddest faces.The insecurity of being alone (see Amanda leaving,thinking if one friend leaves, I AM ALL ALONE. Which is a falsehood), just never really goes away, it just changes masks.
FEAR of change will use any excuse to settle and remain put with the status quo.Sometimes I feel like a sick pet that refuses food & I am coaxing myself "come on, you can do it. Remember when you were energetic and full of vinegar? Remember what you tell other people in similar circumstances ALL THE TIME?" Coax, coax, coax.
FEAR, how you try to shape your life around others as a ruse to avoid working on self-improvement & positive change.
So then, all it took was calling in sick last Thursday to remind myself of the toxicity of my environment. Big long ranty part: My supervisor actually picked up the phone. but before saying anything polite like, "I hope you feel better," or "well, come in when you feel up to it," etc. Instead he rattled on a bunch of work that was piling up and waiting for me and "we will put on the spreadsheet that it arrived today, even though you're not here."
He was then out on Friday.
I come back in yesterday, after a long & awesome weekend with my slam team & Amanda & Sonia, I get an email that's not even addressed, railing me about the inconsistency of my hours since I've begun to take the bus to work and my un-permission-asked-beforehand use of flex time.
Okay, two things: Emory encourages use of public transportation to the effect of making it FREE to use. 2nd, every Emory employee has a right to flex time. I know he's been harassing a fellow colleague of mine for going "over time" on her clock outs by 15 minutes here and there. It bears mentioning that the system used here is based on weird 7 minute increments, not the literal times used for clocking in and out.(Never mind that the first 5 years I worked here,w e didn't clock in and out at all).
I am done. I wasn't having it. This is from a man who comes in himself at 9.30 and leaves at 3 every day. I replied to the email that I have no problem registering my hours to reflect inconsistency and then trying to be more consistent than in them, explaining exactly when my buses leave, the routes and their times.But I'm not giving up my flex time because that's an Emory benefit, nor am I adapting my schedule to be much different than it is now, based on the bus schedules (which are often erratic).
And guess who isn't here himself today?
It's part of a pattern I am mapping and taking to HR. Even if I leave this place, I'm going to University HR. The sh* is ridiculous.
So anyway, taking deep breaths, doing some cleaning & deciding on my own life.
Whatever happens with the bookstore job, or doesn't (the fact that tracking down supervisors during a holiday week is impeding quick progress), by hook or crook, I have to be out of here (this department, this stuckness) before the year is out, which is my original goal.
My best friend of these last 14 years has done most of the packing up
& now our house is mostly empty & I can't stop crying.
This hurts more than I thought it would. It's the kind you can't prepare for ahead of time, you're just IN IT.Even though I'm really-super-happy for her
and it's TIME. I ty to concentrate on that in the sting. It's time for both of us to experience newness & give ourselves new challenges.This is not sudden, nor a surprise.
Still, we've been through so much together; break-ups, deaths, taking care of cats & kids,road trips,spoken word adventures,wrong turns, mistakes, and victories.She gets me like nobody else and I get her like nobody else.Not being close when things fall apart is going to be so very hard.And I am tired and exhausted of going through hard things by myself, except for her.
She cried the other day, too. Even found some hair dye she used for a parade more than five years ago.Lots of memories.
But we will have a great big party on Saturday before she goes for real-real.Laughter, more memories, more tears.
In my own transition news, I got a case of the cold feet a bit after colleagues told me they'd been talking to the woman from the bookstore as references. Cold feet were weird.I am so used to just plowing ahead after I make a decision, it was an odd experience.
I conn-ed myself for a minute thinking I should just stay here.The voice in my head said things like: "You might have to miss some of NPS because the fall term begins around that time. Also, the logistics of moving are too expensive and too hard and the timing is off (I would very likely have to leave in a hurry & before I wanted to). You don't have the support system out there that you've cultivated over a decade here! What are you thinking? You're going to be isolated and stuck out there!"
Another very close friend, Sonia Tetlow, is going to grad school at Emory in the Fall & another got a job here. "Lunches with fun people and study breaks with friends!" My brain thought. "you like your work, you don't hate it that badly!Besides, Theresa is just moving in and it wouldn't be fair to her to then move out." (even though she knows the deal and wants to get out of where SHE is.
Really?
FEAR, sometimes you wear the oddest faces.The insecurity of being alone (see Amanda leaving,thinking if one friend leaves, I AM ALL ALONE. Which is a falsehood), just never really goes away, it just changes masks.
FEAR of change will use any excuse to settle and remain put with the status quo.Sometimes I feel like a sick pet that refuses food & I am coaxing myself "come on, you can do it. Remember when you were energetic and full of vinegar? Remember what you tell other people in similar circumstances ALL THE TIME?" Coax, coax, coax.
FEAR, how you try to shape your life around others as a ruse to avoid working on self-improvement & positive change.
So then, all it took was calling in sick last Thursday to remind myself of the toxicity of my environment. Big long ranty part: My supervisor actually picked up the phone. but before saying anything polite like, "I hope you feel better," or "well, come in when you feel up to it," etc. Instead he rattled on a bunch of work that was piling up and waiting for me and "we will put on the spreadsheet that it arrived today, even though you're not here."
He was then out on Friday.
I come back in yesterday, after a long & awesome weekend with my slam team & Amanda & Sonia, I get an email that's not even addressed, railing me about the inconsistency of my hours since I've begun to take the bus to work and my un-permission-asked-beforehand use of flex time.
Okay, two things: Emory encourages use of public transportation to the effect of making it FREE to use. 2nd, every Emory employee has a right to flex time. I know he's been harassing a fellow colleague of mine for going "over time" on her clock outs by 15 minutes here and there. It bears mentioning that the system used here is based on weird 7 minute increments, not the literal times used for clocking in and out.(Never mind that the first 5 years I worked here,w e didn't clock in and out at all).
I am done. I wasn't having it. This is from a man who comes in himself at 9.30 and leaves at 3 every day. I replied to the email that I have no problem registering my hours to reflect inconsistency and then trying to be more consistent than in them, explaining exactly when my buses leave, the routes and their times.But I'm not giving up my flex time because that's an Emory benefit, nor am I adapting my schedule to be much different than it is now, based on the bus schedules (which are often erratic).
And guess who isn't here himself today?
It's part of a pattern I am mapping and taking to HR. Even if I leave this place, I'm going to University HR. The sh* is ridiculous.
So anyway, taking deep breaths, doing some cleaning & deciding on my own life.
Whatever happens with the bookstore job, or doesn't (the fact that tracking down supervisors during a holiday week is impeding quick progress), by hook or crook, I have to be out of here (this department, this stuckness) before the year is out, which is my original goal.