So as of late I've been packing the house for the big move... well really packing it for the big showing, the big move is in a couple of months. I've come to a couple of conclusions:
1. I own way too much crap. Seriously, I'm like a proto-hoarder or something. Or I would be if I wasn't currently throwing most of it away. Maybe I'm just lazy. Bringing crap into the house is easy. When it's reached a certain critical mass it becomes too damn overwhelming to go through and throw out. Fortunately a dear friend has been helping me, and has been keeping me motivated and my spirits up.
2. Moving sucks in more ways than I expected, now that I have a job and a life and a kid and everything. This is uprooting on a scale I hadn't experienced before, and it's kind of wrenching. I'm really not looking forward to this at all.
The other thing that's happened as of late happened tonight. It was officially the last night for video rentals at Rogers Plus (formerly Rogers Video). They are out of the home video market, they are selling off all their stock and converting the store entirely into a cable/phone/home phone store. I'm not surprised, I've been seeing this coming for a while. Video rental is going the way of public stables in the era of the car... or music stores in the era of the internet.
I'm kind of sad really. It was like working in a library. We had some great old movies and foreign titles, and no matter what they are saying about On Demand being there to fill the gap, I really doubt that they're going to have some of the stuff we have kicking around our shelves.It made me sad that the collection is going to be sold off tomorrow.
I'm also angry that I've worked there for six years renting movies. That was not the plan. It was supposed to be a temp job until the film career took off. It's what I went to school for after all. Well, we all know how that turned out.
And it was freaking me out, because I'm leaving it three months, I won't even be there when the reno is finished. The Beaches (the neighborhood I live in) is all going condo soon, they're tearing down a bunch of buildings along Queen St. The street I've walked every day for six years is going away. The store is going to be completely different. Even if I come back to visit, it will all be gone. Literally everything in my life is changing. New city, new job (no transfer for me, the Rogers in Windsor isn't hiring), even my relationship with my son is shifting to something new. I'm only going to be with him two weeks out of the month. That's going to be a big change and really wrenching.
On the other hand, I happened to mention to a customer that I'd been up at my parent's farm on the weekend, and she said "Oh? Where?" which lead to a series of more specific questions about where we'd gone to school and when and holy crap you're Michelle. It turns out we'd gone to school together, been in the Gifted program together (still waiting on that gift, thankyouverymuch), I'd picked strawberries for her dad and we'd been on TV together. It turns out people look really different 25 years later, who knew? So if she hadn't come in on the last night on a whim and asked me where I'd gotten the nice tan on my face (woo running around like an idiot with a kite). It also turns out that I could confirm to her husband that she had in fact been on a quiz show when she'd been in grade eight. Ha! Vindication! We also got to relive the moment that the universe truly taught me that you can do everything right in a situation and still lose spectacularly. We made it to the final game of the season on Campus Quiz. I was the trivia and vocabulary guy (not the math guy, shocker, I know). Both teams had racked up ridiculous scores, at the time the highest in the history of the program (I may be misremembering because it makes the fail more dramatic). It came down to a tie breaker trivia question. I was in my element. This was my moment to shine. The question was:
"In the television show Fraggle Rock, what was the name of the human who lived upstairs?"
And the angels sang and golden light shone upon my face, for verily I had watched Fraggle Rock every week, and I loved that show. I knew all the obscure characters, never mind the only human on the show!
I grinned. My moment of triumph! I buzzed in.
"His name was Doc"
"Oh, I'm sorry, his name was 'The Professor'"
Buh...
Wha...
Go check the IMDB right now, I'll wait. Fraggle Rock
The next question goes to the other school, they answer it and win. There's a murmur in the audience. Some of the kids know I was right, but for a lot of them I'm the shithead that just lost us the game. I went up to the Producer and tried to tell him he was wrong, that we'd won, but he dismissed me. It didn't matter to them. I pressed my case with my teachers, and they thought that I was probably wrong, but if I could prove it...
You know, it doesn't really matter in the end. They split the difference and we both got prizes without them admitting they fucked up. People still thought I was the asshole that cost us the game.
And I learned that sometimes being right was even worse. Worse than what? Worse than anything.
Dance your cares away!
Showing posts with label Bosses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bosses. Show all posts
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Work Related Trauma
I've had a couple of days off so I spent them in the increasing death grip of my son, who seems to be going through some sort of separation anxiety. I don't know what's going on in his head, and he can't tell me, but I suspect that as he's forced to explore more words and concepts, use more language and has labels for things like emotions, he's having some sort of existential crisis. At least it seems that way to me. Great, now he's been kicked out of the garden and he's aware of his own mortality. Father. Of. The. Year! :)
Seriously though, I ran across a great explanation of the Genesis myth, and why it has such resonance, years ago (I don't remember where), but it ran something along the lines of "Being cast from the primal garden wasn't a punishment per se, but a consequence of gaining sentience. It was a way of expressing our utter aloneness in the animal kingdom, where we seemed to be alone in our knowledge of mortality and our sense of self and memory. When you look at nature, even the creatures that suffer and die seem to exist in a state of grace, but Man has no home, he must build one, and he dwells in the past, and ponders the dreaded future, knowing that he must die one day. He knows shame and guilt, and he must find a way to understand how this came to be, and so he looks back to a time when we were animals as well, and wonders what horrible thing we must have done to be cast out like this, into a world that we must shape around us to survive in. It must have been when we gained knowledge and understanding, and we were somehow pushed out into a world we don't fit in. We must have been tricked, because no one would willingly give up paradise unless there was deception involved, and it was probably a woman's fault, because look how they suffer to bring more of our accursed species into existence (a fact mentioned in the story as Eve's special punishment. You want giant brains? Have fun pushing one through your narrow upright pelvis!).
Sure it seems like a dark and cynical take on humanity, but I understand it works as a metaphor for childhood too, and it speaks to me as a profound insight into the melancholy plight of humans. We are at once uniquely alone in this world, despite what dolphin nuts may tell you. We can't even talk to our closest relatives. We have trouble even talking to each other, even if we're from the same country; hell, we have trouble talking to people from our same family with a set of common experiences and history.
No wonder the Boy is upset these days, he's being pushed out of the garden into a world of chaos and complexity and levels of though he's been unaware of until now. Poor little guy.
Now then, work related trauma, specifically boss related trauma. I've wanted to talk about this for a while, off and on, but it's one of those things that only bubbles up occasionally when something triggers a bad boss memory in a T.V. show or similar. I think I've got a handle on what is making even the best work places so fucking dysfunctional, and it's similar to the process that makes so many relationships dysfunctional (a process that in my younger days I referred to as "Broken Toy Syndrome"). To wit, the ingrained trauma of having worked for some truly appalling bosses in your earlier career. Possibly also dealing with the power structure in high school, I can't discount that one (bad teacher/principal stories another day).
We have all been there to one extent or another. Dealing with a boss who plays mind games, or has a Jeckyll and Hyde personality, or is a raving psychotic who should never have attained a position of power, or my least favorite the Boss who is generally okay but completely blind to the utter asshole supervisor under them and over you.
I remember a sit down I had with a former boss who was doing my six month review, and had a general "well you seem to be doing okay, things are going well" back and forth and then asked "Is there anything you think could be improved or concerns you have? I've noticed that there's this weird tension going on in the shop and I can't figure it out.", and in a moment of insanity I said "Yeah, you could fire the assistant manager, she's the reason that people are at each other's throats. No one wants to work with her." He sort of blinked for a moment and said "Is he that bad?" I nodded back and said "Yeah, she's completely toxic. She's rude to customers, she's an utter shit to the people she works with, and it's gotten out of hand." More blinking "Then why hasn't anyone said anything to me about it?"
"Because you're the Boss."
"I don't understand. I thought I was approachable and easy to talk to?"
"Well, you are, but no one really believes it. See, we've all worked for Bosses that seemed like that, and as soon as you made a real complaint, you got to see their darker side pretty damn quick. Now, I know you're actually a nice guy who has no real agenda except seeing the shop run well, and that's why I'm telling you this, but seriously, haven't you noticed the way the employees flinch sometimes when you talk?"
"Yeah, I don't get that. So people think this is an act and I'm just waiting to pounce?"
"Yep, that's pretty much it. I don't think it's even conscious for most of us, we've just been conditioned to think like that. Surely you've had similar experiences. The only reason I'm telling you this is my last job gave me a bleeding ulcer from the stress of dealing with a bad boss, and I'm going to simply be honest with you. If you fire me for that, then bullet dodged and I'll go on to something else."
He got real quiet like for a while.
The whole thing is like some sort of sick relationship where even if you've finally found someone who is nice and stable and willing to work things out, the past twelve relationships you've had have so damaged you you're no longer willing or able to trust the person you're with.
Seriously though, I ran across a great explanation of the Genesis myth, and why it has such resonance, years ago (I don't remember where), but it ran something along the lines of "Being cast from the primal garden wasn't a punishment per se, but a consequence of gaining sentience. It was a way of expressing our utter aloneness in the animal kingdom, where we seemed to be alone in our knowledge of mortality and our sense of self and memory. When you look at nature, even the creatures that suffer and die seem to exist in a state of grace, but Man has no home, he must build one, and he dwells in the past, and ponders the dreaded future, knowing that he must die one day. He knows shame and guilt, and he must find a way to understand how this came to be, and so he looks back to a time when we were animals as well, and wonders what horrible thing we must have done to be cast out like this, into a world that we must shape around us to survive in. It must have been when we gained knowledge and understanding, and we were somehow pushed out into a world we don't fit in. We must have been tricked, because no one would willingly give up paradise unless there was deception involved, and it was probably a woman's fault, because look how they suffer to bring more of our accursed species into existence (a fact mentioned in the story as Eve's special punishment. You want giant brains? Have fun pushing one through your narrow upright pelvis!).
Sure it seems like a dark and cynical take on humanity, but I understand it works as a metaphor for childhood too, and it speaks to me as a profound insight into the melancholy plight of humans. We are at once uniquely alone in this world, despite what dolphin nuts may tell you. We can't even talk to our closest relatives. We have trouble even talking to each other, even if we're from the same country; hell, we have trouble talking to people from our same family with a set of common experiences and history.
No wonder the Boy is upset these days, he's being pushed out of the garden into a world of chaos and complexity and levels of though he's been unaware of until now. Poor little guy.
Now then, work related trauma, specifically boss related trauma. I've wanted to talk about this for a while, off and on, but it's one of those things that only bubbles up occasionally when something triggers a bad boss memory in a T.V. show or similar. I think I've got a handle on what is making even the best work places so fucking dysfunctional, and it's similar to the process that makes so many relationships dysfunctional (a process that in my younger days I referred to as "Broken Toy Syndrome"). To wit, the ingrained trauma of having worked for some truly appalling bosses in your earlier career. Possibly also dealing with the power structure in high school, I can't discount that one (bad teacher/principal stories another day).
We have all been there to one extent or another. Dealing with a boss who plays mind games, or has a Jeckyll and Hyde personality, or is a raving psychotic who should never have attained a position of power, or my least favorite the Boss who is generally okay but completely blind to the utter asshole supervisor under them and over you.
I remember a sit down I had with a former boss who was doing my six month review, and had a general "well you seem to be doing okay, things are going well" back and forth and then asked "Is there anything you think could be improved or concerns you have? I've noticed that there's this weird tension going on in the shop and I can't figure it out.", and in a moment of insanity I said "Yeah, you could fire the assistant manager, she's the reason that people are at each other's throats. No one wants to work with her." He sort of blinked for a moment and said "Is he that bad?" I nodded back and said "Yeah, she's completely toxic. She's rude to customers, she's an utter shit to the people she works with, and it's gotten out of hand." More blinking "Then why hasn't anyone said anything to me about it?"
"Because you're the Boss."
"I don't understand. I thought I was approachable and easy to talk to?"
"Well, you are, but no one really believes it. See, we've all worked for Bosses that seemed like that, and as soon as you made a real complaint, you got to see their darker side pretty damn quick. Now, I know you're actually a nice guy who has no real agenda except seeing the shop run well, and that's why I'm telling you this, but seriously, haven't you noticed the way the employees flinch sometimes when you talk?"
"Yeah, I don't get that. So people think this is an act and I'm just waiting to pounce?"
"Yep, that's pretty much it. I don't think it's even conscious for most of us, we've just been conditioned to think like that. Surely you've had similar experiences. The only reason I'm telling you this is my last job gave me a bleeding ulcer from the stress of dealing with a bad boss, and I'm going to simply be honest with you. If you fire me for that, then bullet dodged and I'll go on to something else."
He got real quiet like for a while.
The whole thing is like some sort of sick relationship where even if you've finally found someone who is nice and stable and willing to work things out, the past twelve relationships you've had have so damaged you you're no longer willing or able to trust the person you're with.
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