Definitely Time for a New Beginning

I don’t recall crying this much after I left my last job, a job that I absolutely loved and was completely conflicted over leaving, except for the fact that I was completely burnt out. Non-profit work can do that do a girl. Tonight, though, I came home after a lovely, small happy hour and just sobbed uncontrollably for about an hour.

Never before have I been so disliked by so many of my colleagues. It does make me take pause, wondering if I really am the biggest asshole in the room and whether everyone would be better off if I just overdosed on sleeping pills right now. And, while that could be true, I don’t think that’s an ideal solution. I know I morphed into an impatient, frustrated jerk after one year on the job, but this was after one year of a colleague consistently holding court with both my manager and director, oh-so-very concerned that I wasn’t able to provide clear instruction and direction for a major project.

Nevermind the fact that I walked into the project without much documentation about what was done in the past or that the project was a complete mess years before I even accepted the job offer. Or the fact that, over the past 5-10 years, no one has been able to last in my role for longer than two years or that I took that project further than it has ever been in that organization. Still, she spent so much time talking up her concerns and anxiety about my work to my manager and director that, no matter what I did or didn’t do, I just looked bad and was disregarded at every single meeting. EVERY...SINGLE...MEETING. This colleague took over my meetings and their agendas and took over the direction of the project. For some reason she expected me to be grateful for her initiative.

Today, on my last day with this organization, she decided to stop talking to me altogether because I got upset with her for messing up the work that I was trying to wrap up before I left. And, of course, she made sure to complain about me and the status of the project to my director and then made sure that folks in another department sent me emails with the work-language equivalent of “kiss off” on my last day.

It was swell. Really f-ing swell.

I’ve come to accept that I will be blamed for everything that goes wrong with this project and that my colleague will be esteemed with anything that goes right with this project. I get it. That’s how they all roll, but I don’t think I can go through this again, at least not in the next 2-3 years. This was so senselessly brutal. It was so high school.

Fortunately, Joe and I are heading to California tomorrow. I’ll have one week in sixty degree weather to rejuvenate and turn over a new leaf. So, if anyone has anything nice or remotely supportive to say about me, now would be an excellent time to tell me.