The Old Supervisors

2005-02-25 - 12:03 a.m.

I was sleepy, until about 30 minutes ago when I went to bed, and now I'm not.

Tonight, as usual, I'm obsessing about the old workplace, specifically about all the anger that I'm still carrying around toward my old supervisor and her assistant supervisor.

The other day, I was going through my old deleted entries that I've saved, and I realized that for whatever reason I haven't saved any of my deleted entries about work. I know I wrote an entry immediately after my terrible review two years ago, but when I deleted it (out of fear for my job), I must have deleted it for real. All of my deleted entries are about Pookie, and I'm not currently angry at him. I think I can safely say that Pookie will be spared any long-term grudges on my part. Though, I should probably change his pseudonym to something less boyfriend-y, now that we've been successfully broken up for almost a year and a half. Does "Pook" work for you?

I wish I'd saved what I wrote about those reviews. Sometimes when I get angry it's helpful for me to have some details, some fragment from the event to keep perspective, to give some reality to the raw emotion. Instead, I just think about those key moments and all I know is how I was hurt. I remember being frustrated, feeling willfully misunderstood, and feeling betrayed.

At one of the last meetings with the supervisor and the assistant supervisor, the assistant said something about how he knew I often felt like a maverick, the implication being, maybe, that I saw myself as a freedom fighter in that office, struggling against corrupt forces. Or maybe that I'm such an individual that I can't be contained by any authority, and my spirit has to burst forth. When I last spoke with the supervisor, she used the word "passion" to describe how I quit, perhaps thinking something similar, that I'm a being of Pure Emotion who cannot survive in a healthy office environment for long.

The thing is, I'm not some guy who wants to tear down the walls of power just because they're there. I like rules. I need them. I put a huge amount of faith in people who have some authority. Whether they know more about something I don't know, or they just happened to be working someplace longer than I have, I look up to them. I want to look up to them. I'll ignore or rationalize a lot of bad behaviour from someone if they're in charge, not because I want to curry their favour, but because I have a genuine need to believe that the people in charge are good people, who are just doing their best.

Something happened, mostly in that bad performance review, but also in bits and pieces before and after that, that made me decide that my supervisors weren't trying to do what was best. I was being hurt, and I saw people I worked with being hurt, and it seemed like my supervisors were being intentionally dense about their responsibility for it. It seemed like sometimes they forgot that they had this power over me and others, and by forgetting they allowed themselves to act carelessly, and people got hurt.

And maybe I just nailed it, at least for tonight (so I can get some freakin' sleep): I want them to remember that they both had real power and authority over peoples' lives, that even a few comments from them could cause real and measurable harm. That telling themselves that their employees "choose" to work there each day doesn't change the measure of their responsibility. When you lead someone, your first priority is toward the people that you lead. Not to the company, not to how you're feeling that day. A good leader will have bad days, but that doesn't make it okay to take those frustrations out on the people below you. They sometimes can't fight back, and because you have power over them, you might never know how you've hurt them. People have died, in extreme situations, before they questioned or challenged authority.

I was sobbing during that performance review. I know for certain that I am not the only person to leave their private office in tears. Maybe they tell themselves that they're stronger than us, or more emotionally stable than us, but the truth is that they entered a battle that they could not lose. My emotions didn't mean that I was weak, they meant that I was wronged.

I want an acknowledgement from them, some inkling that they know, now, that they've misused the power they've been given. I want an apology, and for them to know that they were in the wrong. I'm not likely to get any of those things.

After more than ten years, I'm able to look back on the bullying I received in junior high, and I don't feel angry like I once did. I feel anger that there are kids being bullied right now, but that emotion is different. It works within my psyche; it helps to make me a more balanced person. It's natural and healthy to be upset at injustice and to want to correct it. The feelings I have toward my old supervisors aren't balanced, not even close. It's too soon, maybe. I'm still too hurt.

I never got an apology from my teenaged tormentors, and I still grew up enough, grew through the hurt to make those experiences a valuable part of who I am. I know that, with time, I'll do the same with my old work place, even if I won't get everything I wanted.

In other news, I'm feeling okay and I'm not overly anxious about anything. I just can't sleep. But I'm aiming to change that last bit right now.

Cheers,

The Magus

previous - next