The lies we tell ourselves
On Monday I attended a meeting in which we discussed my boss leaving. I sat there with my best poker face and listened to corporate BS. People saying all the right things which is only believable if you haven’t been about the block a few times.
I unfortunately have been around the block. So often that I am tired of the games and machinations.
To me office politics represents the pinnacle of idleness. “I have nothing else to do and therefore I go after people at work.” People in their 40’s and 50’s seem to enjoy it when they have nothing else to strive for, they are comfortable in their jobs, their kids sleep well enough and they don’t feel the need to chase their spouse round the kitchen table anymore.
It is the principal reason of me getting out of the rat race. Much prestige as being an accountant brings me, I refuse to take one more day than I have to of stress and manufactured problems. You would think that there is no war going on in Ukraine and that there is no cancer, or world hunger. But instead of focussing our energies on worthy causes, we have middle aged white men finding problems that they then fix.
I didn’t notice this until I worked at a company coming out of my abusive marriage. I was fragile, my mental health was shot to pieces and I needed a job to get some income coming in. I worked at a place that was my nirvana. Everything I asked for. Young team, relatively easy work, good hours and good pay. The only thing I didn’t ask for was a good boss. And that came to bite me in the ass bigtime.
The man was a sociopathic monster with poor grace. A colleague who I knew for 4 weeks was leaving after 2.5 years of a company that had only been around 5 years and he, as her line manager wouldn’t go to her leaving party because he hated her and blamed her for all his problems. I left a month after, essentially because I was the only one who did go to her leaving party in the finance team, that put a target on my back to become the next bullying victim.
He disliked me because the person who hired me was the old Financial controller. He hired me on a Thursday before Christmas and was fired the next day. I started after Christmas and his replacement started the day after me. I should have seen the red flags flagging. But I needed the job, for my self esteem and for my finances and I was too ill to question it.
In the end, leaving was the best thing that I could have done. I couldn’t live under his bullying, and terrorising any longer. I started the first working day after Christmas, by February I had debilitating anxiety and depression that meant I couldn’t even enjoy weekends. Horrible. After me, his problems did not cease, showing that I was not the problem, he was. Staff continue to turnover at the rate of knots and he continues his brand of divide and conquer. Until he and people like him go to therapy, get help to slay their demons, they will continue to go slaying the outside world. For them they may see it as how they become successful. But its also how they can end up being sued.
Grace and Courage.
Annetta Mother Smith.