Livin' On the Fault Line

Yeah, it's been a while since I put something up. Unfortunately, last summer there was a management change at where I work and the long term, core staff, myself included, did all we could to keep the place from sinking. I think we were dog paddling to keep our noses just above the waterline some days. We could have let the whole thing run off the rails and smack the wall but the problem is that we're on that very train as well and that's no fun. So we did what we could to stabilize it day after day to have the smoothest time of it. There weren't too many of those days as I did count them on one hand. Our work requires a team effort as we race against the clock and it doesn't take much to wreck the whole game plan because the work requires some pretty tight maneuvers and time management. Bring in someone who doesn't understand that and watch the whole thing crash.

Back last summer, I became so disgusted that I wrote up a resignation letter, undated, just in case my Mr Hyde personality came forth. There were a couple of instances where I might have marched out to my car, gotten that letter out of the glove compartment, date it, come back in and slap it down on the desk.

“Fuck YOU! I've HAD it! Have fun getting someone up and running in two weeks!

Lousy work environments sap you.

I've outright quit two jobs in my life and in one instance (and I won't say who) the facility was trying their damnedest to get sued for malpractice and I didn't want to hang around to watch that happen, or worse; testify in court! The other was with Coalition for Consumer Justice, an organization that I fully agreed with except they had me trying to beg donations from the most Republican areas in Rhode Island. It was like trying to sell porn in Tehran. Places like Little Compton viewed us as Commie Death Squads and it was no fun trying to squeeze cash out of them. I don't care how persistent you can be, you hear “No” a thousand times and you tend to get discouraged.

**

Why didn't I quit? Perhaps I should have?

I figured it out and it's two fold. I can, due to experience, put up with a TON of shit when I have too. There were times where I wore that as a badge of honor, a testament to my mental toughness to endure a shitstorm and walk out of it alive, perhaps wounded, but I managed to survive. When there are no other options, you have to walk through the fire. Do that enough times and your skin thickens, you become necessarily mean and you get used to it.

But, there will be no medals or parades for this kind of tenacity.

On the flip side of that, I was hit with an idea “Hey, I can tolerate a lot of crap...but wait...Why should I live in an earthquake zone just because I know how to? WHY NOT JUST MOVE?”

Jesus, the answer was that simple, “Why not just move? Why live on the San Andreas when you can MOVE?”

Well, things have changed once again at work and my personal jury is still out deliberating on the final verdict. I have to admit things have stabilized somewhat but for how long and what policy changes will we see in the future? We'll see...