I've been thinking about my job history in terms of my mental health, along with my ability to grow, handle things well, and thrive and I realized that environment has been everything for me. My current office is generally quiet. My co-workers are polite, kind, and mostly considerate of each other. They all have good and bad days, sometimes their personality quirks come out strong, sometimes they are muted. My current bosses are understanding and respectful. I have only had two times where my bosses were super "bossy" with me, and they paled in comparison to some employers of the past.
My weird, albeit interesting realization was, coming out of new phases in motherhood and back into the workforce some 6 years ago, I stumbled into situations fraught with forms of bullying. When I look back now I accept that not only was I just so desperate to better my situation that my outlook was cloudy, but I also I had no self-esteem to stand my ground and stand up for myself. Looking back, when I was backed into a corner with a co-worker or boss, I always waved the white flag of surrender, even if I knew better because it was easier to stay away from confrontation.
When you're struggling at home and in life painting work as your escape, you can easily enmesh yourself in workplace drama, gossip, co-worker "friendship"s and anything to keep you from dealing with your own problems. Such was my life for almost 3 years. It was when I was at my worst, at my lowest, that I "hit-bottom" per-se, was mentally beaten down and bloodied for the last time, that I decided to get out while the getting was good.
It was a good decision for me to leave a place where I was drowning. The job I chose to replace it, was actually a bad choice, but now, I realize it brought me to where I am now so it served it's purpose.
I had spent nearly 4 years under the reign of bullying in some sense or another. Maybe one afternoon it was a boss. Maybe another day it was a co-worker, or at time even a customer, but while struggling at home (which I knew better than to ever share about at work), I started mentally collapsing at work. Ironically, my job performance didn't suffer noticeably, I just started alienating myself and trying to find a way out.
I had found a handful of good people in my workplaces to keep me afloat but I was very much not okay and extremely desperate to prove on the outside I was beyond okay. It was a crazy world to live in. After the car accident I really saw the light and started to dig my way out more and more. The detour I took from there was rough and definitely a set back, but again, it brought me to where I am now so it wasn't all for nothing.
Looking back, sure I worked with some characters, but mostly I feel like I worked with grouchy, mean, and angry people that fed my negativity and shoved me deeper into my depression in the past just by being immersed in that environment. Now in my current place of work, even on their grouchy days, I see the good in all these wonderfully unique souls I share an office with.
You don't actually have to LIKE everyone, but you have to co-exist, which is tough to manage in a gossipy-behind-the-back, competitive workplace, which I have unfortunately experienced the hard way. You don't have to agree with everyone, but it's tough to see someone else's point of view when you are constantly told how it should be received.
Let me clear something up, I'm grateful for all of my jobs and all of my negative experiences because they have made me the woman I am now, sitting here, writing this. Above all, the good people I have met through those places, have made my world whole, and forever changed me, no matter how short their visit in this thing know as my so-called life. This isn't a bitter diatribe about my resume or bad jobs, but rather a reflection on how I've discovered that I can't be my best self, if I'm not near people who WANT that from me and for me. In some work-places, that's not part of the employee handbook, unfortunately.
Where I am now, I can have my peace when I need it. I can listen to music and podcasts and answer texts without judgement. I can have authority over things I've become proficient with. I CAN MAKE MISTAKES without any serious detriment or punishment. I can be Alison without fully filtering myself beyond recognition. I can live my life and have my job; one doesn't overturn the other.
When you have lived without this, that kind of freedom is as close to "relaxing," as I can get, and I that is why I rarely complain. I work in an environment where I never feel as though someone is "out to get me," or "will hate me tomorrow," or "will fire me, because I suck."
At one of my previous jobs I had met someone that worked for my company but as an independent contractor of sorts, if you will. He once made a comment to me about telling my supervisor I could do more and showing them how great I could be in a new position. I remember telling him, "No, I can't draw too much attention because then the expectation will be too much. I have to stay just under the radar. I have to do well at what I am supposed to and not fuck up anything else, but not make them think to give me too much and then fail. Just under the radar and not messing up." I will never forget he looked at me deadpan and said, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You can do better."
In that moment I shrugged it off. Now I feel sad that someone else saw that potential in me, but the people I had worked with just didn't at all, or it least didn't make me feel as though they did. I was too busy using the Jim Halpert work ethic, which I quoted often when I worked in there:
I look back at Facebook posts of how grateful I was even in my misery; how much I posted I loved those jobs. Then I look at the Pinterest posts of memes and quotes of how sad I was as a person and how much I just couldn't get it together around the forced gratitude for not working at McDonald's. I was very afraid in general and didn't work in a place where I had the support to do what I needed for myself and my family without suffering financially, mentally or just as an employee.
Where I am now, I have been able to do what I need to be my best Alison, in and out of the office. I can schedule doctor's appointments on lunch breaks, with no argument. I can schedule therapy on lunch breaks, no questions asked. I can leave early to pick up my child, with no eye roll or need to "make up for that time." I can show up late because of bad traffic, with no scolding. I can take a vacation and not be worried about coming into a pile of extra things left to remind me that I shouldn't take time off, and I can even go away and not worry about missing a paycheck or being docked because of my absence. These are all game changers.
I realized that I spent too long surrounded by meanness and negativity. I spent too long trying to please people who were just generally displeased with most of life, not just my contribution to it. I realized I worked in proximity to people who didn't "get me" and who didn't know me, but knew "the image I was supposed to emulate."
That's sad, isn't it? I remember during another "hit bottom" period I revealed to my best friend some of the darkness that plagued my home life and she just said, "I'm so sorry you ever felt that. I'm so sorry you ever had those bad moments and I wish you didn't have to go through that." That was an a-ha moment for me of...and if I walked in to my boss' office and laid out that this is where I was and I was deeply struggling,there would not be a response with that kind of understanding, ever.
My affirmation for that assumption came when I quit. I'll admit I had left abruptly but I wrote my boss and the family and note, not thanking them for the employment, but rather thanking them for inviting us to some out of work activities that connected us with people that were helping us thrive. The response to this was being blocked by most of them on social media, and spoken to only under duress in any social situation where we happened upon each other since. It doesn't make me sad or upset. It gives me reassurance that I did the right thing.
I am surrounded by quirky personalities that speak in cliches and small talk strange things. I am surrounded by people who march to their own beat and are even incredibly weird sometimes. I am in a positive work environment where in two years I've never felt attacked, never felt anxious, never felt berated by even a boss on a bad day. Every day I'm grateful for not being surrounded by mean attitudes and perpetual grouches that make Oscar on Sesame Street look like an optimist.
It's the people, places and things. It's the cliche that they encourage in AA, NA and such that your triggers can come from people, places and things so once you change those, you're proactively working on the problem more constructively. I've never embraced that more.
Ironically I'd watched this with other people. Everything I had gone through I had seen in the past with friends or family but couldn't recognize it within myself until now. And what a revelation.
