Confessions of an Office Politics Queen-Part Two

Apologies to those of you who have been asking about the follow-up to my last post, but I was extremely tired yesterday. It's not as if it's earth shattering news, but it's just that I got so exhausted on the night that I was writing it that I couldn't even see because my eyes were so blurry. So here's the latest:

The boss called me into his office on Monday and as I mentioned in my last post, I was sort of shitting bricks because I know that I was overly, overly aggressive. Not to mention that I had just been sort of chastised for sending the same bitch an email last Friday, so I was sort of worried.

I walked into his office and he told me to take a seat. I could tell that there was a bit of tension in the air and he was somewhat uncomfortable. For about 15 minutes he had his back to me and he was typing on the phone.

As I stated, this is not the most earth shattering news, but this is what he suddenly blurted out:

"Aren't you afraid that they are going to get rid of you?" he asked.

"Who?" I asked. "Do you want to get rid of me?"

"I don't know-whoever. Don't you know that institutions get rid of people like you?" he explained.

"People like me?" I asked.

"Yeah, people who can't get along with anyone," he stated.

I just stared at him, trying to control myself from reaching across the desk and bitch slapping him too. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but then suddenly my alter ego just took over my body once again.

I said, "If you or anyone in this institution wants to get rid of a high performer such as myself because I am advocating on behalf of the students, yet you keep around these jackasses who are very incompetent then so be it, because I don't want to work for an institution like that. Besides I would gladly go work for "Joe Blow" [a local civil rights educational advocate] and then I'll come back and expose everyone's sorry ass,"  I said.

He sat back in his seat, startled. I couldn't believe that I said it, but like I said I have been having major issues with aggression. I don't take it lightly when someone insinuates that I might be gotten rid of, especially when I was left out of the loop on an important project and was accused of having dropped the ball.

He said, "I have to go talk to [the head honcho] about this. He wanted me to talk to you before he talked to me about it."

I said, "Good, give him my regards. Also, let him know what I said when you asked me if I was afraid that they would get rid of me. If he wants to keep all of these incompetent people, then I am sure that there will be plenty of people who would love to have me work for them". And then I just walked out the door.

When I got home last night I was so convinced that I was going to get a pink slip as soon as possible. I was so surprised though that I just don't give a rat's ass. I am passionate about what I do, and I will not allow someone to shit all over me. If someone wants to get rid of me for standing up for myself, fuck it.

I am actually surprised that I have lost any sense of fear. No fear of economic repercussions, or fear of any difficulty with some of the other people involved. It's amazing how free I feel.

Many years ago, I used to have a principal who would send nasty, mean emails every morning and yell at us over the intercom for us to read them. They used to spoil my day. An older friend once told me to not read them. I told her that I had to read them. She told me to tell the principal that I refused to read mean emails in the morning because they put me in a bad mood. I told her that there was no way that I would get away with that.

I think that we often put a muzzle on ourselves, living in fear of retaliation, breaking the rules, or being shunned. We do this to ourselves most of the time, because I am becoming increasingly convinced that most people are just bullies and that they will pee all over themselves when you sock it back to them.

So today I was called into the head honcho's office. As I was sitting outside, I didn't feel scared or worried at all. I was absolutely convinced that my ass was grass though because of the comment that I had made about going to work for the obnoxious educational advocate.

He called me into his office and told me NOT to sit down. "Oh great, here we go," I thought.

But secretly inside I thought, "Great, I'll just work for home and peddle porn online".

Then he said, "How dare you be such a smart ass and say that you will go work for so-and-so. You aren't going anywhere. Now get out of here".

Well, I most certainly didn't expect that.

When I got home tonight, I checked my email and there was an email from him, saying that effective immediately that everyone better keep me in the loop. Well, well, I bet that bitch who sent me the email is pissed as hell.

The men in the institution tend to support me, interestingly enough, even when I do and say outrageous stuff and basically accuse them of having no balls. It is the women in the institution who have done their best to try to make my job difficult in so many ways. Well, that's a whole other story, which I will get to in time.

In the meantime, I am going to have keep my ass on alert at all moments, because I know that bitch I sent the email is going to be coming back at me.