Before…..there is slamming of draws. (continued from the article The Calm before….)
She is angry. I can feel the tension radiating through my desk and to my body from her office like fire in the California hills, near the million dollar homes, in gated communities. But I was in no gated community, I was looking out from under ‘the hem of his garments’.
“Playing lick and run like likkle Jamaican picknie afta dem lef school.”
As for her, the wildfire, she was beginning to build and when it comes close to me, I am going to be the ‘Perfect Storm‘. I am going to dowse those flames with torrents of rain aka prayer; as is my ‘human rights’ to do. My time of playing nice was over. I had maintained my cool with her, maintained the professional demeanor; but, that was all ‘high maintenance’. Now, I was still going to be professional but I was not going to suffer the targeted harassment anymore.
She saw the report I sent. This I could tell with every slamming draw as she searched for letter sized paper to print my epistle of a report. In and out she went, as she printed page after page. Funny enough, I did the same thing the day I had enough. But I, unlike her, was making myself familiar with labor laws and grievance procedures.
Last Sunday I was so stressed, my brain filed through most of the incidents over the last two years and I wrote like Jesus was telling me His life story. My list of incidents was about three pages long and had every sigh, grunt, hiss teeth, tears and murderous thought; hidden between the lines.
Psychologically, emotionally, physically, mentally…prison ally!! I knew, I reached my cliff. I could not take the bad boss syndrome anymore. I knew I was going to bend – not break – emotionally and I also knew that it would take divine intervention to stop me from going to prison, if I lost my temper around her. It’s good to know yourself and your weaknesses, so you can ask for HELP.
Back to her…
I heard when I left the office, she was fuming, claiming they were all lies. One good thing came out of it, The meetings will stop. When I heard that she said, “I shall have no more meetings, if anybody wants me…or anything, they can come to my office.” I am paraphrasing of course.
I smiled. I laughed and I thought, how foolish. How can one be a manager, if you never have meetings with your staff? This shows guilt! If you were innocent and what you did in the meetings were innocent and morally correct, why would you then want to stop having meetings? But, at least now the closed door, bad behavior will cease and now I don’t have to sit in a closed room while all the things that are bad with my work are hammered into my cranium.
Remember, if all you hear is bad, all you do will become bad. But if encouragement and recommendation is given, especially when it is due, an employee will thrive from it. Under her, I am quarter the employee I used to be. My brilliance has traded itself in for the lackluster….but a change is coming and I will continue praying.
Copyright © 2014, Denise N. Fyffe
Revealing the Christian Life Ministry 