ME TOO

I have been thinking a lot about Harvey Weinstein, how he sexually assaulted or sexually harassed all those women for all those years. The whole situation is absolutely disgusting to think about, but to think this only happens in Hollywood would be ignorant. I say that because it happened to ME TOO.

I was working events for a local radio station when I started getting text messages from one of the male sales reps. What started as friendly messages turned into words that were more aggressive. First, the rep started asking me out. When I would politely decline his invitation and tell him that I did not date my fellow colleagues, it turned into more. I received text messages that stated he did not want to “date” me but “give me multiple orgasms on a beach somewhere.” I was very uncomfortable reading that. Then I would get messages stating that the way I dressed “really turned him on.” I became very insecure in my own skin, questioning constantly if I was bringing this upon myself. Was wearing my leggings with a t-shirt asking for it? Should I change my clothes to make this stop?

Before you say, “Why didn’t you report this sort of abuse if you felt so uncomfortable?”, the short answer is: I DID, and I feel that I was fired because of reporting it. 

For some of the events my team and I were working, we had to spend the weekends together at ski lodges. One of the weekends, the team was arguing about what day to go up. My boss’s boss said I could go up a night early with the sales rep. At the time, my boss’s boss had no clue what was going on because I kept things quiet for fear of losing my job. I made a comment to my boss’s boss and told him I would be I was afraid of what would happen to me if I spent a night alone with this sales rep. Finally, the whole situation came out.

I was told numerous times that the sales rep had been talked to, but things did not stop. In fact, they got worse for me. The more I talked about the situation, the more it came out that the sales rep was speaking to the other girls in this manner. What shocked me was that these other girls were just okay with it. Again, I began to question myself. Why was I not okay with this? Am I being a drama queen for thinking this sort of behavior was not okay?

Days, then weeks went by and I was forced to work with this sales rep and pretend that things were “okay,” when deep down I knew that they were not. At some events, I would sit with my boss and we would talk about what was going on and the next steps. I would also overhear the other girls talking behind my back saying I was being way too “dramatic” about being treated as a piece of meat.

To make matters worse, one of my other managers told me I was “slandering this sales rep’s name and needed to be quiet about the situation.” When I refused to do so, I was called into the boss’s office and told, “The radio station is going in a different direction” and I “no longer fit the direction of the station.” The old “it’s not you, it’s me” line.

I was absolutely crushed. I had put up with all this abuse and then got let go from my job. I began to hate the radio industry and found myself, more often than not, drunk and crying about the matter. I thought, “Why did I say something? Is this what it is like in radio for women? To be treated like a piece of meat and then let go if you say something?” I never sued or pursued the matter further because I was young and did not want to be blacklisted from the industry.

As I began to rebuild myself and realize my self-worth, I realized all those men were in the WRONG for allowing that kind of behavior to go on. On several occasions after I was “let go,” other members of the station approached me and reassured me that what happened to me was wrong. It took a few years after that to even want to be in the radio industry again.

I can honestly say that I am still affected when it comes to certain things at work, and I definitely put my guard up when a male employee tries to belittle me. The only regret that I have is that I did not believe in myself to fight harder against this sales rep. 

The Practical Life

I am a person that believes in signs. I feel that if you truly look you can find a sign to point you in the right direction and lead to the path you are supposed to be on. I recently found a small sign from the comedian Jim Carey. Pretty funny that I am making life decisions based on the loud words of a comedian… but you don’t ask for what the sign is, you are just grateful to have found it. Jim Carey was doing a commencement speech and I stumbled across it on YouTube. Jim Said “So many of us chose our path out of fear disguised as practicality”. As I listened to those word “fear” “practicality” I realized that I was one of those people, and the path that I was on was not that path I was supposed to be on…

I figured I would catch you guys up on my crazy blonde life... After being fired from the radio station and working on the importance of forgiveness, I got a job as a corporate recruiter in Boston. My job was to help people find jobs! Sounds pretty neat, helping people find their dream, but the reality of this job was far from that... My job was actually forcing people to choose a life of practicality. I needed to convince people to take the jobs that I had for them because they had nothing else and I had to rely on people who didn't want to work, to show up at these jobs in order for me to be successful in my job. My job was very difficult and even less fulfilling.

To make matters worse, I was thrown into a high stress environment where my coworkers were stressed out and frustrated all the time. I was told I needed to earn friendships and prove myself. I was yelled at for laughing and for being too nice to people’s needs…  I was meeting new people every day, but felt all alone.

My life was this…Wake up at 5am. Leave the house before 6am. Work 8am to 5pm. Drive home in rush hour traffic. Get home at 7pm. Go to the gym to burn off the stress of the day. Got to bed. Start all over. I was trying to convince myself that this is what adult life was like. This is what "successful" people do. In reality, there are two kinds of successful people: the kind that make lots of money, and the kind that are happy. I was neither. And I was settling for the practical path because I was afraid I would not get anything better…

I hated the person I was becoming, and worst of all, I felt trapped. After a few months of going through the motions, having many meetings with my boss about the job, and finally having a full blown anxiety attack, I decided to choose happiness.

If you have never experienced an anxiety attack, by the way, let me describe it to you... Small ones feel like you are drunk. Your head is constantly spinning and people are talking to you, but you really cannot comprehend what's going on. You feel like you might pass out at any moment, and you have little control of your body.

A real anxiety attack is much worse! Your lungs fill up with air and you feel like an elephant is sitting on your chest. You try and you try but you cannot seem to catch your breath. You feel at any moment your life could end and you have absolutely no control. It was after a moment like this that I realized corporate life was not worth risking my health.

After leaving work that day and finally getting my breath back, I quit my job. I didn't feel sad or scared, but relieved. I knew I would get another job and had made the right decision. For the first time in months, I felt like me again... And that is how I landed in the island of misfit toys a “practical” job for now until the right opportunity to follow my dreams come along..

Sounds that Change Lives

~Sound~

  The sensation produced by stimulation of the organs of hearing by vibrations transmitted through the air or other medium. Sounds are shocks of waves that can cause some of the best and worst feelings. It is funny how an ordinary, everyday sound can bring back some of the worst, and best memories of your life. I will never forget the sound I heard the night my life changed forever.

The phone ringing is an ordinary sound for most people. When you’re a child it is an exciting sound. You never know who is on the other end. But as you grow it can be a sound of longing. Will that person call me and ask me out? Will the phone ever ring? The sound of the phone ringing can mean a number of possibilities, both positive and negative. If you had asked me before, I would say I always got excited to answer the phone. Always wanted to talk to people, but now, the sound of the phone is piercing. It stops me dead in my tracks.

 It is not the tone of the ringing that began my thoughts of the unknowing news on the other end. It is the time the phone began to ring, late on Saturday evening. Ring. Ring. Ring. Who on earth could be calling on this night?  Ring. Ring. Ring. Nothing could possibly be wrong, because bad things do not happen to me and my family. Ring. Ring. Ring. It is probably him calling to say that he is going to be later than he expected, which will make mom made because tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Although mom hates Mother’s day, we still have to be up early for church, we have to stay awake for the long mass, and we have to see the whole family. Ring. Ring. Ring. Just an ordinary sound that never meant anything to me until… until I heard the next sounds that followed. Ring. Ring. Ring. And silence.

            “The ringing was nothing.” I thought, “Nothing wrong is going on, everything is going to be the same and nothing is wrong”. Then came the next sound. Knock. Knock. Knock. It was ever so silent; I almost didn’t hear it, “was that a knock or was it the wind?”  Knock. Knock. Knock. Ever so soft,” it is probably sound of something falling, or the cat getting into something?” Knock. Knock. Knock. “It was nothing just a figment of my active imagination.” Knock. Knock. Knock. An everyday noise that on an ordinary day would mean nothing to me but on this day, the soft knock would soon become a loud bang that I would never forget. Knock. Knock. Knock, soon became Bang. Bang. Bang. An abrupt noise that would become the people who were crashing into my life and destroy the only world I knew.

            Then I heard an unfamiliar sound from a person I knew all too well. A sound  which can tell a person two things, something terrible has happened, or some sort of excitement. This was the sound of a loud scream. A scream so loud that it penetrated through my body, the screeching noise paralyzed me. The only thing that could move was the thousand thoughts racing through my mind. “Maybe it was just my brother sneaking up on my mom and giving her a fright so that why she is screaming.” “Maybe my mom just found the mess the cat made, that would explain the knocking sound. Maybe something it is something else, and something is terribly wrong though. Whatever I had imagined the sounds were, I was wrong in every way. For I could not imagine the next sound that that I would hear.

            I thought about not going out to the front room. What if I went out there and nothing was wrong. What if my mother decided to yell at me because I was supposed to be in sleeping? What if? What if? What if?  Finally, I let my curiosity get the best of me. I had to know what all the sounds were about; I had decided in a moment that my mother yelling at me was worth me finding out what all the noise was. It was worth knowing what caused the scream. So I put on my brave face and walked down the long dark hallway. The hallway that had once seemed short to me but not on this night, no this night the hallway was long and dark; the bright colors of the hallway seemed dim, and the floor seemed cold. A cold that once your bare feet touch it, it sent shivers all over my body. I finally made it to the end of the hallway, and what I saw and heard was not in the least bit what I expected. Despite my negative thoughts and feelings, I was hoping to find my brother standing behind my mother laughing because he had frightened her.

            At the end of the hallway was my mother barely able to stand, tears rushing down her face like the water flowing down Niagara Falls. Standing next to her was my father. A man who rarely shows emotion unless he is smiling or cracking jokes. My father was not cracking jokes on this night though. Instead of that familiar smile, there was an unrecognizable expression on his face. An expression filled with sorrow and confusion. His eyes were bloodshot from the pain he was feeling. While standing frozen at the end of the hallway, registering the sight in front of me, I must have adjusted my weight because the floor creaked beneath me. My mother turned around to look at me, as I walked out of the dark hallway into the light of the front room. I stood still as I heard the sound of her screaming the words that would forever change my life…”YOUR BROTHER IS DEAD!”

            I stood for a moment paralyzed by the words that had been shouted at me. My body was frozen unable to move. My mind was racing and unable to make sense of the words that have been screamed at me. As I finally gathered up the strength to move, to put one leg in front of the other, and made my way to my mother I noticed something that I did not see at first. Two police officers were standing in the room. I honestly thought it only happened in the movies or to families with members in the military. However, it happens in real life, it happened in my life. The cops knocking on the door to deliver the news that will destroy you and the innocence you once had. The news that you never want to get, that your family will be forever broken, that a loved one is not coming home.  

            Suddenly the familiar sounds that once had no meaning, held so much meaning to me. It is funny how the sounds that you hear everyday can one day change your world and you do not even know it. The ringing of the phone had been his friends calling us, asking if he had come home. The knocking was the sound of the cops coming to the house to say there had been and accident. Dan had lost control of the car, after dropping a friend off. The screaming was my mother unable to control her raw emotions of finding out that her first born, her only son was taken from this world and she would never see him alive again. I will never for get the sound of my mother’s voice that night yelling, no screaming at me “ YOUR BROTHER IS DEAD!” those words will haunt me for the rest of my life. “YOUR BROTHER IS DEAD”. “YOUR BROTHER IS DEAD”!

            Sounds; ordinary sounds that change your life. sounds that push you in another direction. Sounds that can take you from one life stage and push you into another stage of life. The stage of my life that once was innocent would now enter the 5 different stages of the grieving process.

Picking up the Pieces

“The only way to get off the stubborn path you are on is to allow yourself to run smack dab into a detour. ”Boy, did I hit a HUGE detour. 

I had never really gotten along with The Boss. He and I did not see eye to eye on many things. I am a planner, I like to plan out every detail and have everything ready a head of time. I like to ask questions and learn. I am very hard on myself when things don’t go a certain way, something I learned from interning with a major corporation. He, on the other hand, planned nothing out, waited until the last minute and lived his life by the notion, “It will all work out.” 

Well needless to say, 9 times out of 10 it would all work out, but not without a lot of stress and unnecessary aggravation. I can remember countless times when The Boss would make me question my abilities as a worker and question my own communication abilities. Most of the time trying to talk to The Boss, I would be feel very insecure about myself, which is not very good as a worker. I also felt bullied the majority of my time at work. 

I know that is easy for someone to say, because I do have bitter feelings towards him, but I can remember one time in particular: we had a holiday show and I wanted to go to hang out with people from work and show my support for my job. When I asked The Boss for tickets, and even offered to work the show, he said he did not need me, and there were no tickets available. I later found out there were about 100 tickets for the show. This wasn’t the first time he intentionally left me out of things, but it was one of the most direct. 

I tried to not let him kill my dream and just overlooked the mistreatment and the bullying; I even tried to convince myself that I had respect for him. But as my grandfather pointed out, you can’t have respect for someone who doesn’t respect you. To solve this issue, I decided it was time to be an adult and have a talk one-on-one with The Boss. This talk was not the easiest to have, but necessary. One of the things I took away from the talk was his words, “If I didn’t like you, you wouldn’t be here.” 

 After that day, things were better. I tried to be better and little by little I began to respect The Boss. Not fully respect him because I knew he overlooked me for so many opportunities, but respect his decisions. I did however, begin to see him disrespect other co-workers, and as much as I tried to overlook it, and talk him up, it all backfired on me when I got the email, “We need to talk.”

I knew as soon as I opened the email I was done. I kept telling people I was fired, but no one believed me. How could a boss fire someone who worked so hard and was liked by so many? Well like he had told me before, “If I don’t like you, you won’t be here.” Unfortunately, whether it was who I was hanging out with or something I said, I made him hate me and I was dunzo!

On my way to get “let go,” I was so upset I began crying in my car. I was about to be kicked out of a place I genuinely liked working at all because of personal differences. Because I was so upset, I got in a car accident on the way to get “let go.” I called The Boss to let him know I was going to be late, hoping he would take pity and rethink his decision, but he didn’t. In one day I had lost my car and my job. This detour I hit destroyed me. I now had to figure out what I was going to do with my life and how I was going to get there. 

I kept trying to find the positive in such a negative situation. Shortly after, I met Wendy, who gave me some clarity and taught me to look for the lesson. The lesson was, although I have no idea what I want to do, I do know I do not want to work for a person who breaks people down to build himself up. I was finally free of feeling like I was not good enough or capable enough to do the work I loved to do. I had received and outpour of support from co-workers who helped put together the pieces The Boss broke.  And the impact you have on others is the most important thing. 

The last thing I want to point out is that The Boss is not a bad guy, he was just a bad guy in my story. I have seen him do some amazingly nice things for others, and I know, that despite our differences there is a ton of good him.

What Makes You Different

“If everyone was the same, then no one would be special.” You never really know how true this quote is until you meet and incredibly special person who is just a little bit different from everyone else.

I first met James when I was working at a local radio station. Right off the bat I knew he was nice, and a jokester. I did not know when I first met him what and incredible friend and inspiration he would become in my life. 

James is in a wheel chair. He has no feeling in his legs, due to a surgery gone wrong when he was a child. But that does not stop James from living his life to the fullest and inspiring the people around him. James is the type of person who does not see his wheel chair as a disadvantage, but as an advantage to inspire people. 

I was very privileged to witness James inspire people, when he decided to ski down a mountain. Yes, a kid with no use of his legs skied down a mountain as part of the Adaptive Ski Program, not only for himself but to show other people it could be done. This blew my mind, considering I am scared to ski down a mountain with two functional legs. But James taught me to be fearless in life and to take chances. 

He also taught me just because people are different we are still the same. We go through the same shit in life: Love, loss, friendships, work and most importantly adventures.

James and I have had many talks about Energy Pirates and other issues that arose at work, and also about life. One of the most meaningful issues that James brought to my attention was the issue of his wheelchair. Sure I noticed that he was in a wheelchair, but after hanging out with him and getting to know him, I noticed him and not his chair.

 James had asked me one night, “Would you have come to talk to me if we were just in a bar, and not co-workers?” As I really thought about my answer and as I was truthful to myself, I said NO. It was hurtful for me to think that I would have never talked to James if we met in a different circumstance. It was also hurtful to me to think that I was so judgmental to people who was different. James inspired me to write this post, to bring attention to people being different, and how we judge people based on their differences. This question really made me think, I would have never gotten the opportunity to meet James if we were not co-workers, and how many other people was I overlooking based on differences?

James is an incredible human, who I am lucky enough to call a good friend. He inspires me to be better and less judgmental to people who are different. He also encourages me to keep smiling, to stay positive no matter what the circumstance. James is moving, to follow his dream and I wish him nothing but the best. I know that he is going to be inspiring other people and changing the world one person at a time.

I hope that sharing this story about James inspires other people too look past differences and give people a chance. Get to know people for who they are, because you wouldn’t want to miss out on a special person just because they are different.