[SuzeQuze]

I can identify with what’s happened to folks here. I was at a job for 11+ years and it ended badly for me. I had those old familiar feelings and quite a setback. I had a period of about 6 or 7 years where I functioned very well on the job but as they started treating me worse my performance worsened. It still wasn’t too bad since I had produced A+ work up until then and was the boss’ ”favorite.” But I got so sick of the extra demands he placed on me because of my level of competence. And he was also going insane. He became a MUCH worse boss when he went from a team lead to a ”manager.” It turned him into a pompous little tyrant. He’d been a ”friend” for years or so I thought but after that behavior he was demoted in my mind to ”enemy.” I am not one to even have enemies. He was so bad I was having a huge problem with anxiety.

About a year before I left he started giving half my work to ”satellite testers.” These were people who were supposed to get the extra work if we had too much. One of them included a team lead’s fiance! I kept thinking that I must have done something wrong and becoming more and more paranoid. I was working about 24 hrs per week and barely making ends meet sinking more into debt I was afraid to do anything on my own behalf as my boss had called me ”selfish” and had said ”he had to think about what I was capable of.” He’d told me he would give me some next-level work, which paid a lot more, but when a job came along he manipulated me into turning it down. He asked me to recommend someone, which I did, and my gut was churning thinking, ”He’s going to give the next job to her, I should just take this one.” But then I thought that was crazy and he wouldn’t do that to me after our history. Guess what? He did it! A few months later he gave her the next job.

When I finally confronted him on these things (after nearly getting fired for entering too many hours on too little jobs ) he told me he was only human and makes mistakes. He told me he was ”saving me” for the Office books that were coming in. I would rather have taken a hot poker in the eye than do another revision of the Office books (probably the 5th round). The books never came in. I went nearly a year with the 24hr/week average. I felt so frozen and didn’t even file for partial unemployment because I thought it would make the company mad. Then the company filed for bankruptcy. I started to feel better about myself then because it was validation that I was not crazy and the company was falling apart. I had seen this over the last few years but my boss kept telling me everything was fine.

I was so confused with the anxiety/depression/ADHD cycle. Plus I have another illness which causes brain fog and fatigue. The job triggers made all of these worse. He kept telling me the work was coming and I am so bad with linear time but I finally woke up after about 10 mos of this and started looking. I realized he was never going to be true to his word. I got a job quickly, although far below my abilities. I did them both part time for a while and then quit the job with the crazy boss. I sent him a two sentence neutral email when I resigned and I did not answer his calls. He sounded like some alien with his nice tone but of course his message was all about him with an ”oh yeah, congrats” thrown in. If he doesn’t know why I left he’s a bigger idiot than I thought.

The job I took was sort of menial but I was paid well for the work and really did not mind. The people there were so nice so I continued to crawl out of my hole of depression and anxiety. In the beginning I was still sobbing every afternoon. But as I continued to work in a supportive, positive, friendly environment I continued to get better. I was grateful for the opportunity. Unfortunately after 5 mos I was let go because the company was not profitable and they had to be to meet their contract with their new parent company. They did not want to let me go but they were forced to by finance. Unfortunately I didn’t get the training there that I was pretty much promised in the beginning. But the manager was bummed about the layoffs (I survived them at first) and I think that impacted his motivation to go above and beyond.

I just finished a 3 month project which was also below my abilities. The pay was stupid. The ”manager” was completely incompetent. But this didn’t really impact my self-esteem as much. But now I am again in transition and have had such trouble staying focused on resume and cover letter writing and applying for jobs. I have had recruiters helping me but they see to miss details about this jobs which are important for me to know for the interview! I had two interviews which went really well but I didn’t get the jobs. Such a bummer and it took me some time to bounce back.

I am not sure what I want to be when I grow up. This is a big part of the problem. My credit was impacted by what happened in 2013 which is a further hit to me. I did apply for unemployment and got it for Feb & March. I just reapplied too so hopefully will get it again. But I also have to pay for my health insurance on top of the lower pay. My taxes are late which I owed a lot for because one of my jobs took no taxes out but I had to use all the money to pay my bills and get new professional clothes that fit. I had been working from home for years.

Anyway, I am trying to rethink what I want to do but it is so hard with the ”Look, a squirrel!” thoughts bouncing around in my head. I have identity issues from AD/HD and from self-absorbed parents while growing up who pretty much saw me as an extension of themselves. So I need to figure out who I am and what I want to do. No small feat!

I am wondering if anyone has taken this journey to switching careers in about mid-life (I am 43). I was working in textbook editing for 11 years and then QA for the last year. I was very good at the book editing but so spent at the end of the day. I would like to find something that is not so draining! I love bibliotherapy so if anyone has any book recommendations that would be awesome.

Also, for anyone who has had a similar experience with a boss, know that it is not your fault. (Even though I knew this I still ”lost it” because I had to leave but felt paralyzed…) There is an excellent book about this phenomenon called ”The No Asshole Rule.” Companies who have such a policy are more productive and profitable. Happier employees = better output. Bullying is a huge problem in the US. Something like 85% of companies do a poor job at weeding out people who are causing others emotional harm. This impacts their bottom line in decreased productivity as well as increased healthcare costs!

I have been trying to target this15% of quality companies but it is so hard because making decisions is so hard. Plus these jobs are harder to get because people want to work for the good companies.

Anyway, now that I have written a book here I will save any more for later! Thanks for reading.

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[SuzeQuze]

I grew up in a small, dumbed-down town that valued football and cheer leading (oversimplification). I was made fun of for being a “nerd” or a “dexter”. It didn’t stop me from being an excellent student though (until later) because I loved learning so much. What I got out of learning was far more rewarding to me than the peer acceptance seemed it would be. That is, until puberty and we girls were told we were supposed to be a certain way to be desirable. In the 80s that was confusing and complicated in its own unique ways. Anyway, whatever the circumstances, I decided to work on NOT being a nerd. I wish I’d never done that and am re-embracing my inner geek. After all, haven’t geeks changed (taken over?) the world with the very technology I am using right now to communicate with you fine people? 🙂 Not being a nerd lead to some acting out that never has a good outcome. But I’m not there anymore.

I recently have experienced a demoralizing setback at work. My boss minimized my skills (threatened?) and squashed me like a bug. He promised to help me get into the next level job but instead he has thwarted me at every effort for a few years now. It’s sapped my motivation and confidence. I no longer performed at that A++ level.  I was beating myself up, having trouble seeing a way out. I’ve been stuck in the same old same old. I was blaming myself for what was going on in the environment, or not being able to figure out how to fix it.

However, everything came to a head last week and my boss and I finally had a heated discussion (not quite argument) about it and I was brutally honest with him and told him that he’d promised to help me advance but then he did the opposite. It seems he actually heard me because he came back to me a few days later and told me I was right, he had promised to help me progress, but he did not help me with that, he had no good excuse for it, and if I wanted to do that now, I could feel free with his blessing and recommendation. I was tied by not wanting to burn a bridge since he has a strong relationship with everyone I would work with in this next role. But I no longer have to worry about that and can move on and get out of this unhealthy situation.

It’s important that we recognize our strengths and stay with them. In this case my job requires a lot of brain power. It’s hard when there is no support or encouragement, especially from folks with any power over you. A parent, a boss, a teacher, clergy, etc. He was being hypercritical of any “mistake” (or perceived mistake) I made. I had an opportunity to do this more advanced job as sort of a trial, did a great job on it, but he never said I did. I was convinced that the company didn’t htink I did a good job since NOBODY said I did.  All they said was it took longer than others take. I was new at it! I am very thorough! I wasn’t even given an opportunity to talk about the job when it was complete. Any time I tried to talk about it, I was dismissed. I found that staggering. But it seems the way things go a lot of times, you hear it when it’s bad, no news is good news. Still from him it sucked because we’d been working together for many years. And similarly to my parents, teachers, he was in a position of power over me and so I thought he must know or see something I don’t.

Hopefully going forward I can recognize these things sooner and be more proactive. It can just be so terrifying as my fear was that no matter what I did I would make it worse. But that wasn’t true in this case. So a well thought out plan is a good idea. Which is what we don’t “feel like” doing. But we are worth it.

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[SuzeQuze]

Yes I do have this issue as well. I try to use other creative words in place of the f-bombs and whatnot because I don’t have a discernment for environment. If I am in the habit of swearing in one place then I will do it in another, around children for example. And I hate that. It reduces stress, there was actually a recent study on this. It can be okay in certain settings but it can be a tough habit to break because it really does give that release. It can also be funny to others, I used to say “Oh for f*ck’s sake!” often because dumb frustrations drove me nuts and it would also make people laugh. It’s a punchline!

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