Chapter Thirty

Two more days down at work. One foot in front of the other. Celebrate the little successes.

Yesterday on the way home I passed a cop going 85. I figured I was finally going to get a speeding ticket. All in all I've been driving since I was 16, I'm now 52 so...you do the math, I suck at it. Anyway, I thought there was no way I was getting out of this one. I hit the brakes, pulled to the right preparing to stop and he blew right past me like I was standing still. He did shake his finger at me, and he was laughing. I went ahead and pulled over and just sat on the side of the road for a while. It appears I missed some signs that perhaps I was anxious. Yep yep, elevated heart rate, itchy skin, shaky hands. I don't know what set me off, but I do remember watching the clock as it got to 11:00 and running out of the building. Breathe in two three four, breathe out two three four. I am calm, I am in control. Nothing they do is actually going to kill me. Driving oblivious WILL kill me or someone else. Breathe in, breathe out, calm, calm.

Leslie and I discuss my near ticket. We make a plan that when leaving work, I will simply drive around the corner and park. Do a self assessment and if needed take a quick walk in the park, maybe sit and meditate. Good plan.

One of my coworkers was selected to attend the new Leadership Academy at work. I of course was not allowed to apply due to my written reprimand. Larry attended his first class when I was out being crazy. I want to pick his brains. I would love to hear what my company thinks it is doing with leadership and contrast it with my experience. I hear all these wonderful things, but it's just not translating to what I've been going through or have experienced. A company that lacks a basic appeals process does not have a leadership program. A company that denies it's helpdesk support team training in the very programs it is suppose to support, does not have leadership.

Today I survived our first departmental staff meeting. I was welcomed back with "we will take a minute to welcome Tamara back, yeah, now we can all go pee." Where does that rate on the professional scale? This is the woman who thinks I said or did something (which as of this date I have still not been provided ANY details of) unprofessional enough to warrant a written reprimand? If the reprimand was all it was it wouldn't be so hard to take. It's all the fallout from being reprimanded. I will not get a merit raise. I am ineligible for promotion. I can not apply for a lateral transfer for a year from the date of the reprimand. I was not allowed to apply for the leadership academy. I have no appeal. I have no voice.

I have a mortgage.

One thing I have to stop doing is trying to make this all make sense. You can not rationalize illogical, irrational behavior. That's how I get into crazy brain. I go over it and over it and over it in my head, trying to find the logic. Trying to find the reasoning. And down I spiral. There is no making sense of their behavior. I will never "get it." Perhaps I am not the crazy one. It's their party. I don't want to play. At this point I am just trying to survive until a certain amount of debt is gone and/or I can get the funding for my own business. I have come to a new level of acceptance that this is indeed not my career. This is funding.

If my boss asks me to change the wording in a helpstar to something that absolutely makes no sense to anyone who understands basic computing, so be it. I can just add a "per so and so" blah blah blah. If someone calls the helpdesk and cusses at me because I can't answer their question I can transfer them to someone else, like my boss or my manager. I do not have to take the punishment for things I did not decide. I have learned to document my conversations, and I have a recorder to help me with the short term memory issues I'm still dealing with.

Today when I left work, I pulled around the corner, did my self assessment, and then drove home. Cruise control is my friend.