The Big Update

This post has been a long time in the making. It has been festering for some time. This is an update on my situation. Let me begin in February:


The first half of February was awful at work. My boss went so far as to warn me that she was close to putting me on notice (meaning she was considering the procedures for firing me). Great.


The second half of February and all of March went extremely well for me at work. My boss and I had virtually no problems. In fact, she gave me a raise at the beginning of March (yes, about 2 weeks after telling me she might fire me). This was due to the fact that I had been there for a year (and because she also knows she doesn't have to pay the full thing because I will be leaving in the fall). She however wanted to make it very clear that this was a "we know you try hard and you are appreciated" raise, and not a "we want you to stay here raise." In fact, she continued to say "this is not a permanent job." Okay, so whatever. Not sure how to take all of that. I should add that the reason I think she was nice to me for those 6 weeks was because we had a lot of people come in from out of town. These people like me. In fact, everyone likes me and thinks I do a good job except her. And when they tell her this, she feels obligated to be nicer to me.


This changed about 2 weeks ago. I always know when she has had a mood swing because she will try as quickly as possible on a Monday morning to get angry with me. And she did. Fortunately, I was going out of town, so I only had to deal with her for 3 days, but the second day involved this little incident:

I was asked to watch a hearing and write a report. I do this somewhat often, and I am afforded the luxury of watching it on my laptop in someone's office so that people do not come ask me for things and cause me to miss important parts of the hearings. I was positioned in such a way in an office that I could clearly see my desk.

I should also point out that my desk/cubical is U-shaped and no body walks behind it by chance. The only reason you would enter my cubical or even be able to see into it is if you deliberately walk behind it solely for that purpose. Anyways, I was sitting there, and I see my boss walk behind my desk. Now before the hearing, I had received the mail, which included a check from headquarters. Not having time to do anything with it, I placed the check under some of my papers (I did not want to leave a large check sitting out in the open on my desk). It was completely hidden from view under some non-essential papers.

So, my boss enters my cubical and starts looking through my things. She opens drawers and moves around papers. If there was something essential that she needed, she could have asked me. I am a little appalled. While she has the technical right as the boss to look through my desk, it is extremely rude, especially when she knows I can see her. She finally finds something and leaves.

When I finish the hearing, she angrily calls me into her office. She holds up the check and says in a very accusatory tone, "did this check arrive yesterday?! You should have already deposited it." I retort back immediately with a firm, "No. It arrived this morning." She then tells me in one of her "I'm embarrassed that you caught me being unreasonable and falsely accusing you of something" tones to go deposit it immediately. I should note that 1. she has no clue when the checks arrive because they are rather irradic. She would not have known it was even coming, and 2. because we only write checks when the accountant is here (and because I do the bookkeeping), there is absolutely no danger of us overdrawing our account. I could have deposited two weeks later, and it would have been fine. I know this. She knows this.

You see, that day, it became very clear what was going on. She was looking for a reason to get angry with me. It was one thing when she was overreacting and being unreasonable...that is...being passively a bad boss, but this showed me that she was actively being one. She felt she needed to dig through my things to find an excuse to be angry. I don't know what's wrong with her life (and frankly, despite all of the access I have to her personal life, I seriously don't see anything really wrong), but for some reason she gets in bad moods for weeks on end and decides that she is justified in blaming me for everything and abusing me. This was also the day that I saw the over 20 point spike in my blood pressure. That incident was rather mild because I was able to clearly and easily win the situation. Much better than other days. But still...my blood pressure was up...and I am scared to know what it is when things are really bad.



So, this is where I find myself with my job, but there is some good news on other fronts.

I have basically decided to go to Cambridge after considerable consultation with many parties. So, now that I have made a decision (only to change if someone at Cambridge says, "hey dont come here"). I have some closure to that.

My decision with grad school and this new realization at work has caused me to conclude a few things:
1. I will not be going to Sewanee very much anymore. I will go for grad week, and probably the 4th of July. After that, I would be in England. When I get back, no one I went to school with will still be at Sewanee anymore, and I think that is a good sign to move on. I might be there for the occasional homecoming or lessons and carols, but I don't believe I will be there much. This might also depend on where I get my doctorate and some other factors.
2. I don't feel as much of a need to go to Sewanee. I love being there and seeing people, and I think the break from my awful situation right now really saves me from going insane; however, I also believe that the knowledge that I actually have a plan and am on a definite path has given me that "I'm ready to move on" feel that so many people get their senior year. I am ready to move on and want to get started with it. My senior year in college, I doubted for the first time my career choices. In fact, my junior year (when I was very sure of my career choices), I was ready to move on. The came the doubt, followed by a shitty year and a half. This all made me want to hold on to the only meaningful period of my life. But now that I have the option and plans to move on, I would like to do that.
3. Knowing that I have definite plans to leave in 6 months and the knowledge that my boss is actively trying to make life difficult for me (and that the 1.5 months of things going well is not permanent) has made me realize I cannot stand to be here for 6 more months in this job. I just can't do it. I care less and less, which is going to make me do worse and worse. I also think my boss will be more critical because she will expect this. I really just don't care. I have an entirely different life unrelated waiting for me. I am just waiting. Other than my salary, I don't give a shit about anything here. So, I will earnestly look for something else. I should add that I think my boss would be delighted if I left. I know that I have mentioned doing this a lot, but this is different, and I am really over the edge. Also, I finally have the time to do it.


So this is where everything is. This is the past 2.5 months.