Looking for a Short Pier

WARNING – insanely long entry ahead!

. . .to take a long walk off of. This past week has in a few words, sucked giant donkey dicks. Seriously.

We had a giant deadline at work on Wednesday and me and my new boss worked out asses off to get everything done at the last minute. I was still feeling like shit, I was so tired Tuesday, I didn’t think I would be able to go on. When I went home that night, I noticed that my chest was hurting more when I coughed and in a particular area. I feared the worst, worried that I had pushed it too far with work and was making the pneumonia worse.

I got up Wednesday and it felt worse so I decided to stop by the immediate care clinic, once again, for a check up. The same doctor was on duty as the week before and was surprised to see me. I explained the pain in my chest and he had me stand up, pushed in a few areas, asked me a few questions and concluded that I had cracked a rib from coughing the past few weeks. WTF? Are you serious? I have never broken a bone in my life and now a cracked rib?

He also decided since I was there, he would send me for a follow up chest X-ray, just to make sure I was recovering as I should be. So, literally within 45 minutes, I was down, had my X-ray, back up to the clinic and had my results – the only good news all week – the pneumonia was almost entirely GONE! But, I traded one pain for another – sickness for a broken bone. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do for a cracked rib – they used to bind your chest to keep it from moving but over the years, have discovered that is one of the worst things you can do. It can keep you from taking deep breaths which can collapse the lung or cause fluid to build in the lungs and cause. . . pneumonia.

Wednesday and Thursday went even farther downhill – the pain from the fracture increases every day and by last night, I am taking leftover Vicodin from my surgery last year, to be comfortable enough to sleep. At first, it only hurt when I cough but now, if I don’t keep myself doped up on Advil during the day non-stop, it hurts to breathe, touch it, twist my body, anything. Brian and I had sex this morning for the first time in 3 weeks and it even hurts to have an orgasm! That is just cruel!

THEN – work. Work is about as bad as it can possibly get now. I can’t believe everything that happened this week. As I said earlier, my boss and I worked together – or I should say, we worked separately but equally as hard to meet a big firm deadline on Wednesday. Once the projects were completed, there were high fives all around – all seemed well. We had a meeting scheduled for Thursday to discuss the annual budget process – something I have never done before, know nothing about and which starts after I get back from vacation on November 4th. I scheduled the meeting for the team to touch base – me, the senior staff and my new boss (my old boss’s boss) to get us started on anything to complete before I left for vacation next Friday.

I was looking forward to the meeting – getting some information about the process, where to start, who to talk to and get an idea of the timeline and what to expect. My old boss had laid this out on a calendar which was insanely helpful but while all of the deadlines are documented, I honestly don’t know what all of them mean or where to look to get the info needed to complete each step. And why would I? I have never done anything like this before. When I took this job, my boss, the senior manager, was going to train me on how to do it – assign us all various duties throughout the budget process and we would work as a team to complete it. Right? Sound reasonable? I was really looking forward to it – my boss was very knowledgeable about the budget process and was going to be a great person to learn from. But, with her leaving, I was unsure of the next steps – we had never discussed them before she left.

So – my new boss, the very same one who sat in my office with me when my old boss turned in her notice and held my hand as I cried my eyes out, the same person who told me not to worry, she didn’t expect me to be Lisa, we would work together, it would be fine and hugged me – I quickly learned that this kind, understanding person. . . does not exist.

The person sitting across from the desk from us on Thursday was a completely different person – condescending, rude, mean, demeaning. She wouldn’t let us ask her any questions – she got pissed off like we were bothering her, she was in a hurry and anything we had to say wasn’t worth her time. She said , in these exact words, that she could lead us through the budget process, step by step but that she wasn’t going to and it was up to us to figure it out for ourselves. It was our responsibility to research it ourselves, figure it out ourselves even though neither one of us has any idea what we are doing.

I was so shocked, I just sat there with my mouth hanging open, saying nothing. Who was this horrible person and what happened to that kind person who was going to help me, teach me from a month before? After about 45 minutes of being yelled at, we both scurried out of her office, back to our respective desks to panic. What are we going to do? I could tell right away – my take on her was all wrong. She is the type of person who is a bully, who feels like they are insanely important, that everyone else is stupid, a nuisance and she doesn’t want anyone asking her questions about anything. Ever.

How did this happen to me??? If I would have known this is how things were going to turn out, I never would have left my last job to begin with! My boss from my previous department sucked but at least she was indifferent. She never bullied, she basically just ignored me. I can handle that a lot more than someone who treats you like dog shit and pushes you around! Later that afternoon, she asked me to schedule some meetings for her – I didn’t understand what the meetings were about so I tried to ask her if we could talk about them – I was supposed to be leading the meetings, for God’s sake so I thought it might kind of be important for me to understand them and her response was “Just do what I told you do to.” And wouldn’t answer me.

I was completely panicked – I cannot handle working in this type of environment. I just can’t. I can’t handle a bully – I am not a punching bag. When I am backed into a corner, I don’t roll over – I fight back and I knew any fights with this woman are going to be deadly to my career. I talked it over with Brian and he agreed – you can only take so much and if and when I needed to fight back, he would support me, even if it meant my job. Scary thought in today’s economy.

So, I got on our company website just to check and see if there happened to be any other openings at our firm for me. Turns out – there actually IS a job posted in our firmwide accounting department that I would be perfect for. It is a manager position – same level I am now – would be supervising 4 people, would be working with 2 women I know, like and respect and most importantly, they would be training me on my new duties. I wouldn’t be left to sink or swim on my own.

I IM’ed a number of friends in the firm, everyone encouraged me to contact the person in charge of hiring for the position – I asked her a number of questions about the opening, it sounds like the hours would work, she was impressed with my background and agreed it sounded like a good fit. She asked me to send her my resume so I E-mailed it to her before I left on Thursday. Unfortunately, once again, due to company policy, I could not formally apply for the position with asking my coach for permission first – the very same, horrible woman I am now trying to get away from! I swear, that is the worst company policy ever.

I was petrified – I had to talk with 2-3 different people to pump me up before I did it. Once everyone in our department heard that I finally realized what a witch this woman is, everyone came out of the woodwork to tell me horror stories about her. How horrible she is to her employees, her husband, her kids, how unreasonable she is, mean, nasty, spiteful. I had heard rumors before I accepted the position but with my old boss there, she must have been the buffer between me and this woman and the funny thing was, they appeared to get along famously. They loved each other, hung out together, went to lunch together. But I guess this woman pretty much hates everyone else, for whatever reason. She thinks everyone is beneath her, stupid.

I felt better knowing that it wasn’t just me – everyone agrees with me about how she acts but it certainly didn’t comfort me about having to confront her to apply for this job. It made me even more nervous. But, Friday morning, bright and early, I went into the office, prepared to do what needed to be done. She had sent us an E-mail from her Blackberry, saying she was going to be working from home all day so unfortunately, the only way I had to contact her about applying for this job was via E-mail. I kept it short, sweet, to the point and basically said that I wanted to check out the job because come April 1st, our department is going to be dissolved, they still can’t say where we will ultimately end up and with all of the changes in our department since I took this job (i.e. Lisa leaving), I wanted to check out this opportunity to see if it would be a good fit for me.

Within 5 minutes, my phone rings and it is her. And she proceeds to berate me and yell at me for about 20 minutes.

“I TOLD you that you would have a job come April 1st, over and over again. Don’t you believe me? Why don’t you take me at my word?”

“Why do you think you won’t get the same experience with me that you will with Lisa? Do you have a problem with me?”

“I don’t think you understand what is expected out of a manager. You really disappointed me in our meeting yesterday. You were so unprepared – you should have done your homework before the meeting and come to me with solutions, not questions.”

And on and on and on and on. I wanted to keep the conversation professional and away from the fact that I wanted to leave because of her and just focus on the reorg. She would have none of it – she pushed my back up against the wall and kept hounding me about why I wanted to leave, what about her didn’t I like, etc – so eventually, I told her. In the most basic and tactful way I could. I told her I didn’t think she would have time to train me like Lisa and rightfully so because she was an executive and she was very busy, had a lot of meetings and other responsibilities and couldn’t be expected to be available as much as Lisa would have been. That is when she got shitty with me about not understanding what is expected of a manager, saying that I shouldn’t expect someone to hold my hand every step of the way and I would have to do a little work myself. I told her I didn’t expect someone to do that – just give me a the general outline of what needed to be done, point me in the right direction and yes, with my experience and education, I would do a lot of work on my own – as any manager should. But, I am not a mind reader – having NEVER done this before, there is always a learning curve and no matter what your level, you will always need someone to give you information you need to do your job.

I finally got her off the phone but not before she said she wanted to meet on Monday to discuss the obvious expectations gap we have and what she feels someone of my level should be doing. She did agree, however, to call the senior manager in charge of the open position and let her know I was interested in applying. So, in short, I finally had her blessing to apply. But I feel like I had to sell my soul to get it.

Toward the end of the day on Friday, she IM’ed me and said she was sending e some materials she wanted me to review before our meeting on Monday. She basically send me our company descriptions of the duties of a senior staff and a manager and the different contribution levels expected of each. A senior staff is working at a level 2 and a manager is usually working at a level 3. I am sure, on Monday, she is going to go on and on and on and ON about how she feels I am operating at a level 2 right now and that is not acceptable for a manager. BUT – I attended this same training with our firm, I have been working with the company the same number of years she has been and I have been a manager this whole time – and the training also says that you operate at those levels in a seasoned position but when you change roles or jobs, you will go back a level until you learn your new duties. She has conveniently forgot that part. I am going to E-mail HR on Monday, confirm that this is the company training and have that as backup for our meeting. I will NOT be taken advantage of, I will NOT be made to feel stupid, I will NOT let her make me feel like I am not doing something I should be. She may be able to push other people around but after all the shit I have been through over the past 6 years, it ain’t gonna be me.

So, come Monday around 11am, I might be without a job. I hope and pray it doesn’t come to that but I have been pushed around long enough. I am sick and tired of it. I just want a job – a job where someone above me supports me, want to help me learn, excel and progress in my career. What is so wrong about that? I formally applied for that other job online this morning but there is no guarantee that I will get it. And even if I do, there is no guarantee that it will be the right place for me to be either. Same shit could happen there – this 2 women I would be working with that I like, they could quit just as easily as my boss here just quit. They could try and make me work a ton of hours, my employees could hate me and try and make my life a living hell. So many unknowns – and I am so tired of it all. I have felt so overwhelmed this past week – pneumonia, boss leaves, cracked rib, new boss is a bitch, job in jeopardy . . .I have seriously thought about getting back into therapy because how much shit can one person handle at one time? I am weak, I am tired and I just want to be left alone. But that isn’t going to happen anytime soon, I guess.

I am just going to try and make the best of the weekend – rest up, have fun with Brian and some of our friends and family and try and put the whole thing out of my mind. The chain of events is already in motion and there is nothing I can do to take it back. Come Monday, whatever happens, happens.