The Only Certainty is Change

Just a few months ago, I recieved a call from my emotionally out of control, no boundaries whatsoever manager telling me that I would lose my job in a matter of weeks.  She was crying hysterically during this conversation and although it knocked me out of my chair, she was so upset I was more concerned for her at that time than myself.

I did appreciate the heads up.  It allowed me to put an OH SHIT plan in place that included a budget I hate and some financial goals I have not needed in the past.  Like a COBRA fund. 

We’ve been clunking along since.  Good news came shortly after that call and from what she told  “just in time.”  Our company reorged and the big bad boss who wanted to get rid of her and her entire team had been moved to the cesspool of our company.  She was giddy!  She was happy!  She was now reporting to a new, nice, manager and all would be lovely going forward.

If I took the time to chronicle the issues my dear boss has, I would clog the internet with volumes of information.  I tell the stories of my interactions with her to just a small number of confidantes as those stories are so bizarre I am afraid of being called a bullshitter.  I have confidantes who (with my best interest at heart) get angry and insist that I go to HR.  Going to HR gets you no where, people.  No where.  If you really don’t like something that much, find another job. 

There are confidantes who laugh their asses off and are envious of my ability to think quickly and respond to her leudness and inappropriateness.  Some tell me I am crazy for sticking with the company because of her.  She is unresponsive in business issues, but will call me (and others) crying with her personal issues.  She tries to bully and manipulate by saying she is “taking care” of you/me/the team and that she should be trusted.   She scares her direct reports into being loyal to her.  She demands that no one call anyone over her head.  Only speak to her.  Trust her, she is looking out for YOU.

She is younger than me by 10 years.  It is clear I have more experience and abilities in our field than she does.  She has skills that I do not have – she can data mine to beat the band and find trends, upticks and declines no one else even thought about.  She produces wonderful user friendly pie charts and graphs of her data.  She has value, I don’t want to imply that she doesn’t.

Once I heard this term applied to a out of control young woman and it so fits my manager – she is a “hot mess.”  I have learned over the past several months how to interact with her, how to deal with her and how to get answers I need without involving her.  I have become skilled at managing my manager. 

Back to work –  no one was getting fired.  I took myself off that damned budget, well, not all the way, but a little bit.  I got a couple of manicures.  And I bought flowers for my yard.  Well, and I bought the grandkids a few things – but just a few.

All the employees in my division are remote.  We work in our home offices and travel most of the time.  I happened to be in the city where my boss lives last week so she and I went out for dinner.  This was the first time I’d seen her since the reorg and her new found happiness with a new manager.

We had a great dinner.  Talked a little business and then just talked like girlfriends.  With no boundaries, my boss tells me (and everyone else) things we should not know, nor do we WANT to know. 

I traveled home the next day.  It was after 5 when my cell phone rang and I was at a point that I could take the call, just an hour from my house.  It was my boss.  She was crying hysterically.  Just like she was the day she called to tell me we were all getting fired.  My heart sank.  For the few seconds it took her to find her voice, I thought this was it for me.

But it wasn’t.  It was “it” for her.  She was fired. 

My heart was still in my stomach.  Were they letting her entire team go?  I didn’t think so as I had just been assigned new responsibilities.  Surely they would not give me these key relationships and then let me go? 

I had to think through the situation as I tried to say comforting things to the woman who sounded as if she was having an emotional breakdown on the phone.  As I kept driving, dodging tractors and farm animals on narrow curving back roads with no lines,  I listened to her.  This is the person, the “boss”, whom I was supposed to look to for guidance, support, approval, pay raises, etc and she was blubbering like an idiot on the phone.

I know how it feels to be fired.  I’ve been fired before.  It hurts.  I cried just like she did, but I did not cry to my former staff or colleagues.  I went home and cried to my family and maintained my professional pride.

Although I feel bad for her personally, I understand why she was let go.  If I were queen of the company, I would have terminated her a long time ago.  Out of control emotional employees are a liability to a company.  Put that person in management and you are begging for lawsuits, lost business and staff turnover.

A few months ago she and I were talking about various things and I made a passing remark about Facebook.  I have a Facebook account but I am very selective about it.  I only have 55 friends and that is about all I want.  Those 55 friends are really my friends and family, people I want to keep up with and keep informed.  I don’t “friend” people I don’t talk to on a regular basis, that is not my purpose on Facebook.  I share pictures and stories with my family and friends, not the whole world wide web. 

When my boss found out I had a Facebook account, she had me “friend” her right there in the car on our mobile phones at a redlight.  No boundaries, remember?

Now I need to “unfriend” her but I know she logs on every day to count her friends to see who unfriended her.  So I may leave it alone for a while.  I do feel for her as a person, but I have a job that I like very much, thank you, and do not want it jeopardized by someone I feel is unstable. 

What a hot mess.

It is too early to know how our company will restructure, but I do know my new responsibilities are growing and I have the opportunity to do some really good stuff for my company and my clients.  I am excited about that! 

However, it is time to get myself back on that OH SHIT budget I hate and remember that no job is a guarantee.  I could still get the call any time, but maybe the person on the other end won’t be crying hysterically in an emotional breakdown.  Maybe that call will be handled professionally.

A Day in the Life

Today is not my day.  I know that.  I’ve been reminded of it all day long.

It started last night, Sunday.  My husband and I had plans for an early movie with friends.  I thought we would be home in time for me to pack for my trip today.  We were not. 

I set the alarm for 5:30 this morning so I could go for a run before kicking it into high gear to get everything done before I rushed to the airport.

I walked my warm up laps and my hypochondria began yelling at me.  I knew a run was out of the question if I planned to stand upright the rest of the day.  Instead of running, I did my resistance training.  I watered all my flowers and plants and called it a morning.

Quickly showered and attempted to put my contacts in.  I am still not good at this.  It takes a lot of time and tears for me to get them in properly.  On a trip to the kitchen, I realized I couldn’t see and noticed one I worked so hard to get in my eye was missing.  I started over.

I hurriedly packed up my stuff.  I pack for business trips so frequently that I rarely forget anything.  I know what has to be packed and where it fits in the suitcase.  I got out of sync on one tiny thing this morning:  I was out of toothpaste in my travel bag.  This meat I had to leave the toothpaste out until after breakfast.

I got my work done and due to required errands, left my house at 11 am.  My first stop was to drop off suits at the cleaners.  The next stop was the post office to get a box out to my nephew in Iraq.  Did you know you don’t just pop into the post office with a box going to Iraq?  Oh no you don’t!  I did not know that.  After filling out forms and waiting in a line a second time, I had the ZIP code wrong.  I had to get out of line again and call my brother, who had to then call his wife who had to tell him where the correct address was so he could find it and bark it out to me over the phone and THEN get back in line.  What I thought was a 5 minute stop turned into 20.

On my one hour drive to the airport, I knew I left something undone.  I thought and thought….Dang it!  Our car tags expired yesterday!  I forgot to get the new sticker for the tags!  Oh well, my husband drives that car so I kept driving.  I went back over my rush out of the house and realized I did not make that last trip into the bathroom to make sure I had everything – the toothpaste!  Oh, no!  Not only did I leave the toothpaste, I forgot to brush my teeth…ewwewewewewe…..

I stopped at the bank and checked my suitcase to make sure I put my Rx’s in my travel bag.  I just wasn’t sure of myself any more.

I arrived at the airport with no boarding pass thanks to the Delta/Northwest fiasco.  The lines were long to check in.  I looked longingly over at the Elite/First Class check in line.  No one was there.  That used to be my line.  I used to be Elite until Northwest broke up with me.  I wondered….

I walked over to the Elite check in line and checked myself in.  The desk agent was not a nice a woman, she had just sent Mr. Infrequent Flyer over to the cattle drive line of regular check in.  I acted like I was supposed to be there and she just checked me right on through.

I made a pit stop by the ATM only to discover it didn’t work.  “Unable to dispense cash at this time.”  Shit!  I went through security and broke a nail.

I arrived at the gate where very annoying Infrequent Flyers were holding an Amway rally.  Aisles were blocked with bags of airport shopping crap and numerous carry ons.  I made sure I ran over a few items with my rolling briefcase as I said “excuse me” really loud.

The air conditioning system on the plane was not working.  It was damn hot.  We got a “technical” explanation by the pilot.  It was still damn hot.

Our flying time was 1 hour 7 minutes.  However, the wind was strong and our actual flying time was less than 45 minutes.  That is good, however, that was not good for landing.  In all my years of flying, I can only think of one other time I have been that damned scared landing.  It was bad.  People were screaming and crying.  I was hyperventilating. 

The plane was wobbling from side to side in the strong wind.  I could feel the plane’s automatic whatever-they-are stablizers jerking the plane as we came closer to the runway.  I could sense we were coming in way too fast, but I think we had to because of the 30 mph wind gusts.  We were still wobbling side to side when we hit the runway, first with the left wheels, then we seemed to bounce up and both wheels hit hard.  I was doing the yoga breathing thinking of clover and cottonwood trees because if I was going to die, I wanted to be doing something I enjoyed. 

Once we felt the front wheels hit, the pilot immediate reversed the engines and I was sure the plane would break apart before we got to the end of the runway.

But we did not.  We pulled into the gate in silence other than a few whimpers here and there.

I took my time getting to the car rental counter as I needed to de-stress from that landing.  My rental car was a nice SUV.  I had easy directions, straight up I-71 about 20 miles.  I was cruising along, enjoying the satellite radio and thinking bad thoughts about Budget Car Rental because this SUV had leather seats.  They know better than that.  But I was in too big of a hurry to make them change the vehicle for me so I took it.

I was in the left lane, singing along to Reba on a classic country station when I heard a pop and OH MY GOD, the damn hood popped open on the damn vehicle! 

My autopilot kicked in.  I did not panic.  I looked out my driver’s window and fixed my eyes on the edge of the shoulder.  I didn’t slam on my brakes.  I stopped as quickly as I could, pulling over until I could barely see the edge of the shoulder, hoping I was out of traffic.  When the vehicle came to a stop, I quickly looked in the rear view mirror and judged that I was out of the traffic lane.  I couldn’t find the emergency flashers.  I got out of the vehicle and just stood there.  Then I panicked.

The world still has Good Samaritans and at times like these I believe the King James Version is the literal truth, even the “wives submit” part.  Not one, but two cars pulled over to help me. A woman stood with me asking me if I was Ok and if I needed to call someone while two men shut the hood.  There is a nice dent in it, but it is shut, beat down and will not pop open again. 

I didn’t want to hold these nice people from saving the rest of the world so I said I was OK and we all left.  My heart was racing.  My legs were shaking. 

I thought about how the day had unfolded so far and deduced that maybe I am supposed to meet my untimely demise on this trip and I keep cheating death.  I thought about this for a few minutes and I became very afraid to eat dinner.  Surely I would choke to death. 

I found my exit, number 131. I believe it is the largest truck stop exit in the entire state of Ohio.  And there, just across from the Pilot Travel Center -  is my Hampton Inn.  It is a good thing I developed a fear of dinner because my choices were Arby’s, White Castle and/or McDonald’s.  Determined to make this day get better, I headed toward the nearest “city” 10 miles away.  Surely a city that size would have a Chili’s, Applebees, maybe even a Subway.

I drove and drove.  I found a Taco Bell,  Wendy’s, two Kingdom Hall of Jehovah Witnesses, a Goodwill donation center, a run down Walmart and a Sears hardware.  Turned around and drove 10 miles back and ate at Cracker Barrel.

As I sat at my table, awaiting my Chicken -n- Dumplins platter, I knew that my heart could not take another hit today.  I had used up all my adrenaline and I was still shaking from the events of the day.   I ate slowly and tried to enjoy my meal after all, it could be my last.  I still had to cross the highway in truck traffic to get back to the hotel.

Back at my hotel, there is no room service, no bar for a glass of wine, however, the frumpy desk clerk offered me a chocolate chip cookie.  I now sit in my room, yoga breathing and trying to relax as a violet thunderstorm rages outsideThe lightening is hitting all around and the thunder shakes the walls.  When will this day be over?