Bushwhacked by 1999

I was looking through an old box of CDs for some old-new hits for my next spin class when I found it. Except I didn’t so much find it as get clobbered by the dumbfounding discovery of its existence. I don’t know how I never saw it before, snuggled between Tori Amos and Tom Petty. I thought it was my bootlegged Swing Kids soundtrack, which was safely snapped into a similarly slim jewel case last time I saw it, but no. It glared at me, all shiny silver surface and heavy purple handwriting; “Jill – A****n Stuff”. Hell. Oh hell.

I sat back and stared at the CD, the only evidence left of my torturous year at that terrible job. My heart was pounding, wondering how I came to have this and why I never knew it. I tried to imagine what could be on it. Old emails, probably, and maybe some of the point-of-purchase materials I designed and was never credited for. It isn’t my handwriting on the disc, so someone else must have made it. I gently probed my nightmare memories of that place, searching delicately for a remembered ally. Tony maybe? Joel? I couldn’t reach back any deeper without risking…what? What was I so afraid of? It was a long time ago, in a whole different world, but still I was frightened of pushing too hard at the door that shields me from the worst of those painful, angry shadows.

A moment later I shook myself and slipped the CD in its case onto the guest room bed, face down as if I didn’t want it watching me unobserved. I tucked away the scattered contents of the trunk, collected the stack of CDs I wanted (I still never found that damn Swing Kids soundtrack and I can’t for the life of me remember what song it was I liked) and tucked the A****n CD under the rest.

In the dining room, I ejected the Speed soundtrack from my laptop’s hard drive and clicked the A****n CD into the tray, heart still pounding. It seemed like eons until the dialog box came up asking me what I wanted to do with it. I opted to open it and view the contents, but what I really wanted was to erase it. Not just the disk, but all of it; the whole almost-year I spent trapped in that psycho-spiritually torturous hellhole.

I held my breath as I clicked on the first of five folders, labeled simply ‘Disc 1’. I breathed a little sigh and almost smiled at my panic when I saw the contents. Bumper sticker lists, funny t-shirt slogans, directions to my OB/GYN – harmless, right? I clicked on the first file, labeled ‘1999 Objectives’, thinking, “How adult and forward-thinking of my eight-years-ago self to have set objectives!” Oh god, if only.

They weren’t my objectives. They were objectives my ‘boss’ had set for me as a way of telling me how horribly disappointed he was with my less-than-superhuman powers of shit-shoveling. Actually, he was mad because he’d heard it through the grapevine that I’d been (gasp!) griping about my job and wanted to remind me how lucky I was to have my vaguely-defined, ever-growing, underpaid mountains of wildly diverse responsibilities.

Lemme put it to you this way. I worked from 7AM until whenever they got done with me, which sometimes was as late as midnight. I was hired to answer phones and type letters, but wound up creating sales databases, bills of lading, vendor agreements and temporary employee tracking systems, in addition to any of their personal bidding they saw fit to dump on me, including watching their kids. At the office. While doing the rest of my job. And all they ever did was criticize and belittle me. It didn’t end there, but I’m still too wound up to think clearly enough to be precise. The ‘objectives’ he set for me were patronizing, condescending and outrageously inaccurate. Rereading that list sucked me right back into that ostentatiously appointed conference room that day when he blindsided me with a laundry list of unfair accusations regarding my performance. Here, today, right now, as I remember it my throat gets tight, my heart hammers, my hands shake, and my eyes fill with empty, futile, utterly helpless frustration until I want to scream.

I clicked that file closed and let my eyes scan the other four rows of icons. When I came to the one labeled ‘Evaluation’, I clicked the folder shut and immediately ejected the disk, wishing I’d never seen it. I cannot go there. I can’t, and I might never and I don’t know why. It was eight fucking years ago!

Shit. Why did I have to find that disk?

Because I post here, I don’t really have anything to post here. I might try someday anyway. What is your Wish for the World? I don’t accept notes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t comment.