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.