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This is loosely based on something I posted elsewhere (I am renowned for my rants xD) and upon matters I obsessively turn over and over and over...and then over some more in my thought-bubble (or, as normal people call it, my brain).
I will warn you now that what you will click on to enter is long-winded, rantalicious and should be kept in said thought-bubble but writing makes me happiest, helps to untangle the knots and often clears the fog I am wandering about lost in. So read on if you want but don't feel pressured to- really, this is more an act of greed then anything else. I feel at peace when writing and I love this place, so most of my mental-meanderings find their way onto Gaia in one form or the other.
But if you do read...thanks. I find myself hard to follow most of the time so when anyone else bothers to it makes me beyond happy. heart
<span id="test33348399">. . .</span><br/><div id="post33348399" style="display:none; margin-right:75px;">
I let out the secret in here a few entries ago how I stepped down out of management in the bookstore I currently work. That was a brilliant move for my emotional state but to others, as most things I do end up being, it has blown into an Issue.
As more and more time has passed said Issue has grown to the point of where it is very obvious that my decision has very negatively effected other people where I work, for many a reason but very few reasons which are in my control.
I work in a very small store- there are just three managers and (usually) four booksellers. So during a good stint we have at least seven workers taking care of the store. But this is not a good stint. Since I stepped down and became a bookseller once more we had a bookseller step up into my place...and then take the bullshit I had taken for nearly two years until he snapped after roughly two months (less then that if you count the large amounts of days off he requested) and quit. Since he left we hired in a person that quit after the first shift she had and another quit after a few hours of their training.
Yes, the place is that bad.
I keep hearing stuff about the economy and how every little job is important and how people need jobs...so it says even more about this issue that we can not keep anyone for more then two months; bear in mind I am on year five (officially working towards six years there at this point) of working there with nearly two of those years in the position that three other people have walked out on, one within a few hours.
It is because of a handful of factors- the company I work for is not a fun, easy company to work for, the store's customers are not the best in the world and there has always been way, way, way too much personal drama going on behind the scenes that make an already difficult job almost impossible. I say "almost" because there are two of us there who have only stuck with it as long as we have because we take things like this personal and have viewed quitting as losing. That person made it easier for me there for a while...but she is pregnant and leaving soon (very soon!) and when she goes...
Oh, yeah- and she is the only other manager left other then the store manager. That's right- since I have stepped down and the other person quit the store has limped along with only two managers and in a few short weeks it will only have one.
Unless I step back up. Officially step back up, not this joke I have been part of (I now play manager for two or three shifts a week...have been for a few weeks now; that is an entirely different story, however); the good news is it looks like we have found a manager to take the place of the lady who is leaving to have a baby but already there is rumblings she will not possibly make it there for very long. I personally wish her the best but I know what she is walking into and will not blame her (or be surprised) if/when things do not work out.
You see, when I think of work I feel like I will vomit. It is reaching a critical point and just keeps getting worse and worse- what little I have laid out is nothing compared to the details. I have just given you a pretty, cleaned-up and glittery version of an ugly tale.
Making it worse is that on the one hand I feel incredibly, incredibly guilty about a lot of things- like either sleeping through calls or missing them entirely, like stepping down out of the mess in the first place, like putting my foot down about being everyone's mother/therapist/Supergirl, like not being completely there for everyone all the time, always, no matter what is going on with me or what is happening in my world.
On the other hand I am incredibly tired of being everyone's Momma Wendy, at having no time for myself unless I get mean with people because there is always someone who wants me to do this or that at this or that time no matter what. I can not be at everyone's beck and call. I am sorry that is making so many people angry and letting them down, I really am, but I am not sorry enough to go back to being a damn welcome mat, to go back to being on the phone all the time and constantly going out of the way for other people's comfort-levels when my own are suffering. I am tired of having my kindness taken advantage of so I withdraw. I am truly and deeply tired of being kind and nice and patient and good only to get punished for it which is exactly how I have come to feel about it- the better you are, the nicer you are the more people will expect and the harder they come down on you when you are not Little Miss Sunshine even for one little second.
Yeah, I know it sounds incredibly selfish and greedy- and that is the damn trouble. Even though I am learning to put down my foot, to say no and turn things down, to put boundaries up and respect them, I still do feel like utter s**t that I am putting my needs first even when it is logically obvious I should not (case in point: the situation where I work). Even though I am tired, angry, jaded and bitter I still feel bad about self-soothing even though if I do put my needs second to someone else's for even a moment I am doing both of us more harm then good.
It is almost as if people are unable to process the fact that what they are wanting from me is not going to do either of us any favors. Yeah, it might look as if by my doing whatever it is they want from me will help them, in the long run it will not because I will eventually just turn my back on them completely. No more Supergirl then. Not even a little bit sometimes. I have a list of people I can pass on if someone needs or wants proof of how easily it is for me to move on and cut someone out of my life once they finally go too far with things. I will take a lot until I suddenly will take nothing more ever again from a person. I used to not give warnings but in the essence of fairness I now do warn people that I will only take so much before I close the door on someone.
Cruel? I am sure to the people I did it to that it very much was. But I am not a damn martyr and I am not Mother Teresa. My patience and kindness does indeed have a limit. The older I get the shorter that limit gets. When you add in blatant asshattery the limit grows even shorter.
But the issue at work...it is really eating me alive. I feel really, really bad for distancing myself from an obviously toxic situation but the guilt I feel is almost as bad as the situation itself. The entire thing is a giant total clusterfrak. So while I logically know I am doing what is best for me I emotionally feel like a total immature d**k and it makes me feel bad I am not contributing more "for the team" even though I could if I dug down deep and really tried. The problem is I am tired of having to dig down really deep to pull more out of myself when I am already this depleted. I am already barely scrapping by. I already spend way too much time day to day feeling dread about the place. I am getting to where I never answer the phone at all- if it is not my fiance calling I don't answer it. If I withdraw anymore...
I have pushed people away to the point where I am shocked when people continue to tolerate me. I find that even dealing with people I love drags me down and wears me out (not their fault- I don't like spilling my emotions on other people despite my having problems with my temper so when I am really tangled up in an emotion I will just not interact with the people I love instead of lashing out at them; not healthy, I guess, but certainly better then taking out my anger, frustration or grief on the ones I care about the most). Add on to the subtle digs at how I never answer the phone, how unavailable I am and blah blah blah...It makes me want to stop bothering. Completely. Totally.
I can hear how whiny and emo and mean all that sounds- I can hear how big of an a** I must be coming across but to any fellow introverts out there who have ever stretched themselves way too thin way too many times...You will know where I am coming from. You probably were not as angry as I am about everything...but you will know where I am coming from.
I just don't know what to do. I feel really bad about the situation at work but I can not tell if this is just the old people-pleaser side of me feeling bad because I am putting my foot down or if this is something I should genuinely feel sorry about. At what point is taking care of yourself over the needs of someone else just being cruel, greedy and stingy? I am not talking about the obvious points where someone is being cruel and greedy (like how there are people starving while you have fat millionaires lounging around on their fat, sorry asses) but the more subtle events like this- how much am I supposed to sacrifice for these people, for that damn store and the sorry corporate who owns it?
How much of my now do I let go to hell for a tomorrow that no one can guarantee me? When worded like that the answer is easy...I guess I am just beyond tired of being the villain. When I push myself to such extremes to only be told I am still being the bad one...it just makes one not want to bother at all. And that is where I am at with that damned place. Yeah, I need a job...but it is not worth all of this.
I mean, I stepped down for a reason.
But I still feel like a p***k.
For the biggest part the current mess exploded into full-tilt shirtstorm status when I woke up one day to realize that not only had I not written anything in months...but that if I kept up at the rate I was going I would never get my first book out (bear in mind my writing serves many, many purposes beyond dreams; my story-telling has been the one constant state of peace-of-mind since I was a child and started to form the ability to tell stories...then draw them...then putting them to paper with the lovely written word- it is poorly understating it to say writing has been my one and only coping mechanism all these years so when I stopped being able to write...). My dreams of being a writer was being completely shoved out of the way because my issues with being a Momma Wendy and practically living at the store was leaving me too tired and aggravated to unwind between shifts...let alone write.
And it was around that time that Candle started to get sick.
I knew she was sick and there was something wrong months before getting the official, test-proven news. I dealt with the hardest, most heart-breaking time in my life by working to the point of exhaustion at a job I could not stand but felt driven to not let beat me, being upbeat and cheerful to everyone...and not writing.
By that morning that I let Candle sit out in the lovely morning sunshine one last time in her physical form I knew I was going to step down out of management because working as I was had negatively impacted too much in my life. My health, emotional well-being and even my relationship with Asai was being compromised...and I was watching every dream and hope I had ever hope for myself completely die.
So I stepped down.
Now these past few months have been the best in a long while. I needed the time to deal with not being around Candle (I sincerely can not stress how much she meant to me; I think people have a tendency to think a pet is just a pet but I have never had luck with humans, with it being very rare that I have not stumbled out of a relationship/friendship with someone wondering why the hell I even bothered; not everyone does the family thing or is raised in a setting that lends one to easily and gladly put their faith in the people around them...so when an introvert like me finds a source of pure, honest, non-parasitic, unconditional love...Yeah. She was named Candle but the light she emitted would put any star to shame.) as well as deal with other things I had attempted to never have to deal with. I was also trying desperately to deal with the fallout of admitting to myself that, as an introvert, I had written a lot of emotional checks to people I had no way to cash.
All in all the perfect storm that I had to weather all by myself...the last thing I needed was thirteen hour shifts, twelve of those spent being bitched at by people who were mad that I could not return the Playboy with sticky pages or got mad at me for not wanting to hear about their bowel movements (yes, both things I have had to deal with- more then once from different customers!) between the bull we were getting from corporate. So out of a need to preserve the crumbling bit of sanity I had I stepped down and as gently as possible began trying to unravel myself from the situation and the people in the situation who were...not part of the problem, not on purpose, but who were...tools with which my tattered emotions used against me.
...Yeah. I think that is a nice, PC way to word that.
I want out of there and quickly but I am not jumping ship until I know that my doing so will not add more stress onto Asai or impede my writing career. It is just the two of us doing everything, no family or help in paying our bills (I retain my right to be a self-sustaining p***k, thank you very much xD) and I am very proud of that; I will do what I have to do to make sure we keep what we have but my eyes are trained on the future with the intensity of a sniper. I never gave up on being a writer for a living and I refuse to let a stint at a bookstore (oh, the irony!) or any other place kill that joy for me. I may never make it but I intend to die trying- the last thing you will find covered in dust around me will be my books, notebooks, pens and papers, nor will any of my keyboards be dusty from disuse.
I was born a storyteller. I have worn other masks through the years, donned a few other titles as I went along (b***h, fiance, confidant, loner, introvert, goofball...) but I remain a storyteller. Even if the world burns down around us and this world as we know it ceases to be I will still be found sharing and reveling in stories, fictions, and what if's. Even if I just have the stars above as witnesses I won't stop.
There are a few things I will never be; a few things I will never do. I will never be a quitter when it comes to this one dream and I will never stop going for it, no matter what is thrown at me.
To quote one of my favorite songs of all time: I will make it to the moon if I have to crawl.</div>
 RadiantFlare · Fri Jul 29, 2011 @ 06:29am · 0 Comments |
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