I will never see you again in my life.
Something to think about that has really opened my eyes about my life. I told a guy I am talking to that I dance in the street when the tunes “hit” I do. Why? Because I can. What if someone sees? Don’t care, highly probable I will never see you again in my life, and if I do, why do I care that you saw me dance in my own neighbourhood?
I have had a distinct lack of caring in my life recently. In my job someone has been rather vile towards me…water off a duck’s back. I’m leaving boo, write whatever you need to feel peace. I kind of feel bad for you. Can you imagine cussing out someone when they’re already walking 20 paces in front of you? It’s really sad. He is doing the work equivalent of a man trying to pick up a beautiful woman who isn’t interested in him and when he gets rejected and she walks away he shouts to the entire street “you are an ugly slut anyway, I don’t want you!” He clearly does, and it doesn’t matter because everyone on that street knows she isn’t ugly or a slut. In this scenario she keeps walking with her held high. That’s me. I’m the beautiful woman walking away. My workplace is extremely toxic and I believe my race didn’t help (as opposed to being openly racist this is subtle racism.)
The situation is as such.
I started a new job, a promotion the week my dad passed. I was not fully emotionally ready to go back to work, but I did.
My job changed the strategy from something I passionately believed in to some utter nonsense.
“Destruction” became cool. People forget, it take 3 seconds to light a match and burn someone’s house down, it may take 5 years to build that house. When destruction became cool, chaos descended. And I wasn’t cool with the chaos.
When I say chaos descended, ordinary, decent people submitted to their worst impulses and started to behave in ways that they didn’t usually. This was a vital lesson in culture. I always say, you don’t rise to the occasion, you sink to your standards. Therefore, this was always in them. They just didn’t know it. That disappointed me because I thought them genuinely good people.
But then people started going from “tough guy language” to actually harmful, dangerous. I panicked. I was/am too inexperienced to deal with what was in front of me. It was genuinely problematic.
I made some mistakes thinking I could correct them, and the people I was working with. This led to an absolute decline in my mental health. People exploited my age/inexperience/mental condition to do even worse things and then things really started getting bad. Then the terrorising began. I won’t go into detail/specifics, but know enough that if I told their mothers what they do at work and how they treat other people who aren’t in their “gang” then they’re mothers would be ashamed of them. Doesn’t matter how much they earn.
But I will never see these people again in my life. Everyone was in the wrong in that situation. I wasn’t my best, I didn’t have good leadership (which I now understand the value of) and then they did genuinely bad things. If I had stayed, I’d have to be okay with their attitudes towards other people and I can’t be okay with what they are doing and who they are. Hence me leaving.
It has taught me a number of important lessons.
Don’t wait until you are drowning, ask for help when you get your feet wet and don’t like it.
Don’t choose peace, don’t choose the easy way out. Always choose war. Fight every battle so everyone knows your standards. If you let one thing slide, people will think they can take advantage of you.
Be beyond reproach, if there is so much as a speck of dirt on your name, they will make it look like you are a grubby homeless person and they will use it to drag you down. I made some mistakes people are still colour blind and only see victims if they fit the “Perfect victim” bill. There’s no room for nuance in anyone’s headlines.
Grace and Courage.
Annetta Mother Smith