Tryin' to Find Direction

I am having a crisis! Well, maybe I am just being a drama queen, of course.

I feel so uncomfortable with my blogging for some reason. I have been off this blog for a bit, because: 1) I've been having personal issues, and 2) I have been helping a friend get some of her blogs off the ground. Lately I have been feeling the need to gravitate back over here.

Maybe I am having a little crisis because for a while now I have been considering moving my blog over to another blog. I just can't make up my decision.

A couple of years ago, a friend and I were at dinner and I was trying to explore some names for a blog that I wanted to write. I had this compulsion to write about renegade women, and we were trying to come up with names. We love to use the word bad ass when talking about certain women, and so my friend suggested the name bad ass femmes because of our mutual obsession with kick ass women and femme fatales. Although the name doesn't really feel natural to me, I have still been using it. But for about a year, I keep thinking about different names, and I just can't come up with one that calls out to me.

I started this blog, because I admit that I am a major, major workaholic, and I need to have something that would basically force me into exploring some of my interests and reconnecting with literature and books that I want to read outside of the workplace. It's a way to force me into reconnecting with my creativity and some of the topics that make me happy.

I initially thought about writing about literature and biographies of women, but I also have the urge to tell the truth about who I really am. I live compartmentalized lives, where I have to act and wear masks in many different contexts. They always say "It's lonely at the top", and I've learned my lesson in the workplace that I don't tell people much about me. At work, I am close to people, but I don't show many people glimpses of the real me because many of them don't deserve to know the real me.

And then there are people at work who I would really love to get to know better, but I keep myself at a distance because you never know if I am going to be their boss one day. I've already had my share of this situation over the past two years-with one of my close friends and colleagues being placed as my subordinate. It's been working well for the past couple of years, until she started having depression issues and I actually had to write her up. It's all worked itself out, but I feel that we both had to force ourselves into ending a friendship.

I also had a lover for almost eleven years who I cared about very deeply, and about a year ago he was moved under my supervision. We had never really told anyone about our relationship, although people who worked with us years ago were aware of it, but I just couldn't find it in me to open the door about my personal sex life to my superiors. So we decided to end the relationship, and it has sometimes been hard at times to be the supervisor of someone that you had such a close relationship with. It's very difficult to maintain the boundaries between boss and worker when you've had mind-blowing sex with your worker.

And then there are other people who I would really love to get to know, but I am distant from because I don't want to get into the situation where I might have to supervise someone again that I have gotten to close to. It just brings extra baggage that I don't want to deal with in the future. Maybe. I think that the two people that I have had working for me are exceptional people who can handle an equal who suddenly becomes their superior, but I don't think the majority of the population would be able to handle it.

So even though I initially started this blog with the intention of writing about historical women or women in literature, it seems that lately I have had the uncontrollable urge to write about my own personal life because I need an outlet for personal connections with people. I come here to express who I really am, but I just can't figure out if I want to write about it here, or if I should create another blog. Ya know?

I want to be able to write about work issues, finance, politics, books, movies and really anything that I feel like writing about. Not just about women, although much of what I discuss is related to issues of women, so who knows where the hell I should write it.  Sometimes I feel confined here to just writing about women. But then I think that I've always been somewhat unconventional, so why the hell not just write about whatever topic I feel like writing about on my blog?!


I am just going to keep giving myself the time, and I will figure it out.

"You Can't Do That"-The Fine Art of Discouragement

This morning I went to breakfast with my cousin and she told me something that I have been thinking about all day. She is already a manager for a certain company, but lately she has been exploring different ways that she can possibly have more flexibility over her work schedule. Lately she has been recruited for an insurance company, and she asked her mother if she thought that she should go to the interview.

"Do you think that I will like that job?" my cousin asked her mother.

My aunt told her, "Why don't you stay where you are? I wouldn't buy insurance from you. You don't even have experience. No one will buy any insurance from you".

My cousin asked her, "Why wouldn't you buy insurance from me? Why would you say that?". But my aunt hung up on her. (I don't really have the energy to explain the dynamics in this mother-daughter relationship, but rest assured that my aunt is an abusive person).


I asked my cousin, "Why the hell would you ask her if she thought that you would like the job? Don't you trust yourself enough to know what type of job you would like? Besides, don't listen to her. People have always told me that I can't do something or I won't be successful at something".

"Me too, come to think of it," she said as she squinted at me.

This conversation sparked memories of my childhood, high school and early adult years when people would routinely tell me something that I couldn't do, something that I wouldn't like, or something that was what they perceived to be completely unrealistic.

I've heard my share of "Oh, that's an unrealistic goal" to "That's a stupid idea" and anything in between from the mouth of my mother and former friends. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I just wouldn't tell anyone anything that I was planning to do, because I would either get a negative reaction or people would make fun of me if something didn't go as planned. I have just kept my ideas to myself, and since then I have earned the reputation of being sneaky with some of my family members.

I've never quite understood the phenomenon of when people at work frequently tell me that they were groomed for a certain position at work. My last boss and current boss frequently have discussed their mentors and constantly discuss the fact that they are always being encouraged to apply for a higher position. It's bizarre to me, because in my experience people have done little to encourage me to climb the ladder at work. In fact, I have had to claw my way to the top.

When I was a teacher, I always sat and watched some of the crappiest teachers get leadership positions and I constantly listened to my boss tell me about how capable that other people were. I only got the leadership positions when they were offered to everyone else and were not accepted for one reason or the other. It used to frustrate me that I would see people that I didn't respect getting important leadership assignments.

Later I  applied as a manager and I was discouraged from applying for each of the four management positions that I have held. Each time I have been told that I am too young, or that I am not politically skilled enough to do this or that, or that I won't enjoy working with this or that person. I've been told that I lack experience, or that I won't be able to handle the stress and the rigor of the job.

During my last promotion, I could not figure out why two of my most beloved mentors completely discouraged me from applying from the position. Later, I found out that one of my mentors applied for the same position. When I asked someone (who is now my boss) for a letter of recommendation and was denied the letter, I found out that my other mentor had spread blatant lies about me to this particular person about my work performance. (The person who denied the letter is my current boss now and has apologized that he once believed the lies).

When I was denied the letter of recommendation, even close friends with good intentions told me that the "writing was on the wall" and discouraged me from applying for the position. They claimed that someone else had been hand picked and groomed for the position.  They were absolutely sure of it, and offered me tons of supposed proof that Mr. So-and-So would get it.

But I persisted, and got the job. And according to my boss, I knocked their socks off in the interview and blew all the other interviewees out of the water.

So I've learned my lesson all of these years, and I have learned that I don't listen to a damn word of what anyone else tells me that I can't or shouldn't do. I hardly even tell anyone any of my plans anymore. Yet I've never been able to understand this phenomenon that there are so many people out there who claim that they were nurtured and mentored into their positions by mentors since the day that they set foot into the office.

And I see it happening all the time. I don't personally think that my boss is extremely competent, but I always hear people telling him that he should apply as a superintendent or that he should do this or that. It is always amazing to me, because I never would think that he would be able to pull off some of the things that people encourage him to do.

I expressed this to my boss the last time that he was talking about how he was pushed out of the classroom to be a manager after only teaching for three years. "I have never been encouraged," I said. "In fact, people do nothing but discourage me. I have had to claw my way into this position".

"I'll admit-you haven't had it that easy. It's because you are scary competent and you intimidate people", he explained.

Boo. I'm tired of hearing that type of comment. But then he went on to say, "I think that some leaders overinflate certain people before they are ready, which can set people up for failure. Like me, for example. Ever since I was a second year teacher people were telling me that I should be a principal. They set me up to think that I was much more competent than I really was".

Bingo.

But why does this happen? Why is it that some people who are not very competent have people kissing their asses, while other competent people are constantly discouraged?

Am I the only person who has experienced something like this? Is this is a pattern? Or is it just me?

Remembering Neglected Dreams

I have a dream that I have had for a long time, and that I frequently put to the back of my mind. But it's always always been there, since I was in high school.

In the ninth grade, I fell in love with literature in one of my English classes. I can remember my eccentric teacher Mrs. Donahue, who squinted at me from her tall stool and asked me, "Have you ever been identified as GATE?" At the time, I had no idea what she was talking about, and up until then, many of my teachers had done nothing but tell me that I was not very capable. Or they were absolutely abusive to me-like the teacher who used to shoot rubber bands at my face and say that I was a menace.

Later I found out that GATE meant gifted and talented education. Mrs. Donahue recommended that I should be moved to an honor's English class. I wasn't sure that I would be able to handle the class because I had somewhere along the line been told that I wasn't very smart.

Looking back I think that if wouldn't have been for Mrs. Donahue moving me to that class, that I might have just been one of those Latina statistics who veers off the wrong path in life.

The first week in Mrs. Donahue's advanced English class, we read "The Scarlett Letter". I loved it and hated it at the same time because it was difficult to read, but also because it stirred anger in me about a woman's sexuality that I had not really felt before. The book sparked anger about how men and women are held to different standards regarding sexuality in this country.

One of the few things that I remember at all about high school were the English classes. I fell in love with literature (and some poetry). Yet I always felt frustrated because I felt that there was always something missing from the materials that we read. It wasn't until the twelfth grade when another one of my teachers introduced us to the genre of African American literature, and from then on my lifelong love affair with African American literature began.

In that class, we read Richard Wright's Native Son, poetry by Langston Hughes and Toni Morrison's Beloved-to name a few. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness struck a chord in me that has sparked my interest in the history, literature and culture of the Congo region.

I had similar experiences in college, where I was mainly exposed to the white canon, dominated primarily by white men. I always felt somewhat fulfilled anytime that I read something by a female writer, yet I can never recall being exposed to any writing by Latina authors. In college I began to gravitate toward African American and Persian women writers because deep in my soul they initiated feelings of a suppressed collective experience that we share together.

In high school, one of my teachers asked what I would like to do when I grew up and I told her, "I wish that I could get paid to sit around and read all day long". Yet at some point in college I learned that it was an unrealistic expectation that I could just sit around and read all day long.

So I became a high school teacher so that I could maybe talk about literature all day long. It was great, except the fact that I was only four years older than some of my students and was working at the same school that I had graduated from, and many of my students were brothers and sisters of my friends and neighbors.

So I moved down to elementary school. And I loved it. I loved teaching reading, writing, and social studies every day to children, although I always wished that I could have moved back up to the high school level or even the college level, so that I could talk about books all day long with adults.

I left the classroom, and became a coordinator and later a school principal until I was finally promoted to a higher position as a manager. I have loved every minute of every job that I have ever had. But it has always frustrated me that I have always felt that I am stifled in my creativity. Even as a teacher, you are given certain materials that you are told that you are to teach, and they ended up mostly being the same literature that had always lacked the diversity that had frustrated me throughout my personal educational experiences. Even though you are able to bring supplemental materials into the classroom, you are still limited regarding the time it takes to include supplemental materials. It's definitely not the same thing as being able to sit around and read whatever you choose to read all day long.

Over the past couple weeks, that familiar tug of "I wish that I could just sit around and read whatever I want to read, all day long" has begun to tug at the back of my mind once again. I have been fantasizing all day long about creating websites about anything, everything, and everyone that I want so that I can talk, write and blog about it all day long. It's beginning to manifest itself in an actual need for me, an urge that it beginning to feel like something that I can actually have the possibility of doing.

Last night I had a dream that I was in Mexico, in a large library. I was digging through books that were published years ago and had been forgotten about, locked in a back room that was only visited by scholars. I vividly had an image of a book by Nellie Campobello, an author who when I woke up that I most certainly didn't believe was a real author. Who would actually believe that there could be a Mexican author by the name of Nellie? I mean, really.

About an hour ago, I decided to google the name Nellie Campobello and lo and behold I discovered that she was an actual Mexican author. I must have seen her name somewhere along the line and stored in deep in my psyche that manifested itself in a dream to me.

This has disturbed me all day, and I have a  nagging and a tugging in my head that this is a sign. A sign from the inner parts of my brain and thoughts that aren't yet visible to my conscious thoughts. I feel that it might be a sign that I am not fulfilling my life in the way that I am supposed to.

I had initially started this blog so that I could blog about my constant obsession that I have had with a certain type of woman in history, literature, art and other representations. But I feel that the name of this blog, and the format of this blog are not completely fulfilling me. I have been brainstorming alternative names and formats, and I am at a standstill. A conceptual form is slowly beginning to emerge, and I am trying to give myself the time and the space to nurture this idea into a reality.

Maybe one day I will be able to manifest my dream into reality.

I Am Currently Reading:
Dreams-Langston Hughes
The Negro Speaks of Rivers-Langston Hughes 

Def Poetry: Waitress

I can relate to the "poker face" at the end:

When Does It Ever End?!

It's been no secret that I have had a rough couple of months, and that's one of the main reasons that I haven't been blogging on this blog much. Over the past few months, it's been rough in the work setting, I have cut everyone off in my whole family except one person (who better get her ass in gear before she gets axed too, hint, hint), and then today I had what I initially thought was a major crisis.

I am facing one of the most difficult times in my career, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to tolerate working in the education system. We've had to cut teachers, and the whole process of it is so mentally exhausting and time consuming. Certain things going on in California with new policies being implemented spurred on ridiculous stipulations from the federal government are making it very difficult.

It disgusts and disturbs me that we have to pink slip new and eager teachers while I watch shitty tenured teachers continue to fail and still have their jobs. During layoff time, any and every manager of course is under complete attack, and most especially anyone who had to sign any pink slips. I'm sick of trying to be innovative and everyone is either too incompetent, lazy or stupid to actually comprehend what I am saying.

I have a plan that if this continues on that I would like to leave the system within three years and be in a place where I can engage my creativity more as opposed to working within a machine that protects itself and maintains the status quo.

So, I've blogged before about me cutting off my mother and family. I'm one tough lady, but it sure is a difficult thing to totally cut off your mother and certain family members, and feel that you are on your own. But I did, and it's been great.

Yet now my boyfriend's family is driving me crazy. In the past they always lived an hour away, but now his two brothers and mother/father live on the same block. All hell has been breaking loose with them. The brother is a major drug addict. A couple of weeks ago, he was arrested for having a hypodermic needle, but was let go. A week later, his house was raided because of his girlfriend. Last Saturday he was picked up and held for questioning for ten hours.

In December he had a baby with his wife (who left him in Jan because of his drug use) and I've been so pissed that he is a loser father that just lately I told him off and chased him away from my boyfriend's house when I was there. I've been telling my boyfriend that I am "this close" from cutting off all of his family members too, and if that I means that I won't go over to his house, then so be it.

I don't even know what word to describe my boyfriend, but he is the type of person (maybe co-dependent) who always ends up cleaning up everyone's mess. He loans people money, he does things for people, he tries to get his brother back on track, etc. It's ridiculous. There used to be a point where he actually would administer surprise drug tests on his brother. Absolutely ridiculous. I'm of the persuasion that if you have to drug test someone, they should be cut off.

He's been in total denial. Since I have refused to speak to him, over the past couple of weeks he has been telling me that he "just knows" that he will clean up his act. "Look at so-and-so (a cousin). He used to be like him and he is clean now", he keeps saying.

"Yeah, and look at so-and-so (insert a couple of my loser cousins' names). They are in their late forties and are still loser drug addicts", I respond. I have such a low tolerance for drug addicts.

In the past, his brother has caused major destruction to the family. So, I told my boyfriend too weeks ago that his brother is going down, and he better watch his back because drug addicts drag anyone and everyone in their life down with them.

Flash forward to this week. My boyfriend snaps under the pressure of everything at work and just told the school board to literally fuck off. So, he was told that his contract will not be renewed for next year. (I'm practically pretty close from doing the same thing).

Well, then today all shit hit the fan. I don't have the energy to go into all the details, but he had to clean up a disaster that his brother created and he was driving his brother's car home. He was pulled over by the police, and tons and tons of drugs were found in the trunk of the car inside of the area where all the tools are.

When I called over there, the police answered the phone and I almost had a fucking heart attack over some of the things that they were telling me, because of course much of it was overexaggerated by the detective (which I found out later). I was convinced that he was going down for his brother because he initially refused to cooperate much. But eventually he was let go and his brother turned himself in.

I don't need to explain to you, of course, that I don't need this shit in my life. About an hour ago, I told my boyfriend that enough is enough, and that he is also cut out of my life until he decides to get rid of this dysfunction in his life. We've been together for over thirteen years, and if he decides that this kind of craziness is more important, then so be it because I don't want to deal with this.

I've always hated those kind of people who have one crisis after the other, constantly. Well, it seems that since Valentines' day, that has been my life. I refuse to allow this to happen anymore. I just want my happy go lucky life back, and want all of the people who cause craziness out of it, once and for all.

What's Happening!?!

I've been off this blog for a bit because I have had so many crazy things going on with my work, and all this education crisis crap is just wearing me down. In the meantime I have been also working my ass off, because quite frankly I can't imagine working in a broken institution for the rest of my life and I am trying to get myself started towards one day having other options where I am just working for myself.

So, I've got a five year plan that I am trying to sketch out. I know that I can do it before five years, but I always tend to plan conservatively.

I've also been pretty busy working on some additional projects as well as helping one of my good friends and partners with some web projects that she has been getting off the ground.

In the meantime, I'm looking for people who would like to write blog reviews of foreign films-any topic. It's not for this blog, but for another that I have been helping a friend with. So, if you are interested, please send me an email at badassfemmes@yahoo.com, or you can leave a message here or contact me on twitter. At this time, we are requesting volunteer reviewers. If you are looking for experience with writing, then this will be an excellent opportunity because we can include your name, bio and link to your blog if you have one.

Once Upon a Strange Mood

I miss blogging, as I haven't blogged in quite a bit. It's been a rough month which started with the flu and has a been a constant battle of personal and professional conflict. I've been too emotionally exhausted, to put it bluntly, to even try to think about it for the time that it would be required to blog about.

So today I had this wild urge to dig through almost every piece of music that I own to try to define the way that I have been feeling over the past few months. I searched and I searched until I found Jewel's "Foolish Games" which has for some reason always spoken to my soul like no other song that I have ever heard before.



And what tied close in the number two was "Why?" by Annie Lennox:



And third place goes to "Losing my Religion" by REM:



And then the fourth place goes to "What is it About Men" by Amy Winehouse:


And that sums up my life.

Family Drama

I have decided to move my family drama topics over to a new blog that I have created. If you are interested in wacko, dysfunctional families, then you might be interested in reading my new blog.

I've been down with the flu lately, and will be blogging here as soon as I build my energy up again!

xoxo

Language, Culture and Feminism

I think that I am having an identity crisis. Or something of the sort. Whatever it is, it is inspired by twitter, the blogosphere and other internet meeting places. Or maybe today it is inspired by PMS. Who the hell knows??

My identity crisis has to do with language, ethnicity and feminism.

As a child I grew up in a neighborhood mixed with immigrants and native born Latina/os. I always felt like I was on the outside looking in at everyone. I was raised by a single mother and everyone else mainly had a father around, at least when we were younger. I think that was the first time that I started noticing that I was different than the other families, and that they treated our family differently.

As a child I never really fit into the groups of kids who hung out with one another. I never really fit into the group with the first generation immigrant kids who mainly spoke Spanish, and I didn't fit into the group of native born kids who didn't speak Spanish either.

Growing up I always got too many mixed messages from my family and the community. "Maintain your Spanish and culture" would be the message one day and "English is more important" would be the message the next day. "Wow, you have an accent when you speak English" was often pointed out to me by English speakers, and "Wow, you have an accent in Spanish and butcher the language" was told to me by native Spanish speaking recent immigrants.

I never felt like I fit in anywhere. I didn't fit in with the white kids, I didn't fit in with the second and third generation latinos, and I didn't fit in with the recent immigrants. I have never fit in with many other Latinas, because in my experience far too many of them have been oppressed by the Catholic church or their families. The handful of latina feminists that I have come to know well over the years is a very small group, and they are mainly English speaking second and third generation latinas.

Over the past couple of months, I have been chatting on twitter with my buddy Marga Britto who writes a blog called Madres Insumisas. She is bilingual and through my interactions with her I am beginning to realize that I have lost a lot of my Spanish. I can obviously communicate in Spanish, but I have a laziness that exists in many bilingual communities, where we can just revert back to English when the going gets tough.

From following Marga, I am starting to also follow many other latina feminists in Mexico who tweet and write primarily in Spanish. One part of me feels such a relief to see Mexican feminists. It's like I have been looking for them all of my life and I have found them. It fills a void that I have walked around feeling all of my life. But then comes the language issue, and the frustration that I can't communicate to the same extent in Spanish as I do in English.

And there's always that nagging sense of the conflict that sometimes exists between native born Mexicans and those of us who were born in the United States. You know, that conflict of not fully understanding one another's life experiences, languages, and cultural practices.

Language is an interesting thing, tied intricately to our identity and ability to have intimacy with other people. I just hope that I can move past this temporary issue with strengthening my Spanish that I have begun to lose over the years. The realization that I have lost my Spanish to the extent that it makes me feel as if I can't communicate as effectively with people who I have been waiting for all my life to appear...well, that makes me very sad, indeed.

Mini Bad Asses: Priscilla Star Diaz-"Feminist Phenomenon"

Tonight I watched a documentary called P-Star Rising, about a young female rapper. I'm not into rap, so I have no idea if this little girl is well known or not, but I fell in love with her from the moment that she declared herself as a seven year old "feminist phenomenon". She literally called herself a feminist phenomenon in one of her presentations at a club to a room of adults. After watching the documentary, I am so in love with this little girl.

Priscilla was born to a mother who was addicted to drugs and was placed in foster care when her father spent time in prison for drug charges. She later lived with her father after he cleaned up his act and at the age of six she told her father that she wanted to be a rapper. It was at the age of six that this little bad ass became "P-Star", the youngest female rapper and self-proclaimed feminist phenomenon.

During the documentary, it was unclear whether her mother was infected with HIV. Priscilla, her father and sister discussed AIDS frequently and talked about whether or not their mother was alive or was taking care of herself. At one point they hunt down the mother and see her, and it's pretty clear that the mom is still on drugs.

As I watched the documentary, I was in shock so many times because as a ten year old girl she seemed so much like an adult. Not only did she have to face adult issues, such as when her mother showed her heroin tracks and talked about "shooting up", but she also sometimes had to set her dad straight when it came to business decisions.

I am positive that this young girl is going to be someone someday. Check out more about her here:

The Drama Continues!

I figured I'd give you a quick and dirty update to the situation that I have at work that I blogged about a couple of posts ago. You know, the post where I mentioned that I have a female employee who is royally fucking up? Well, here's an update:

She got progressively worse all week long. I finally called her into my office on Friday and basically had a come to Jesus talk with her. I told her that she was losing control of herself, and that she needed to decide if she could handle the position or whether she should go back to the classroom as a teacher where she might have less pressure.

She cried, she apologized, and the whole lot. I honestly thought that the issue was resolved.

Then, on Monday I just happened to pop into the office early because I had a strange feeling that something bad was going to happen. She was leading a meeting that started at 8:30 and she honestly did not walk in the door until 9:05. The meeting had started without her, even though she was supposed to be the lead. Oh, and by the way, when she entered the room, she walked in with a large, hotly steaming cup of coffee that she had picked up from across the street.

I had to go to another meeting, but I sent her a message that I wanted to see her in my office the next day. She told me, "Okay, I thought you would write me up and I agree with it. I am out of control".

Honestly, I was pretty perplexed all day about her basically begging to be written up. If I didn't know her so well, I would have thought that she was asking for a reprimand so that she had a reason to go out on sick leave for months on end. But I know her better than that. Although, I have my ideas as to why she is asking to be punished, I am still perplexed.

On Monday, I spoke with my male boss about the situation and he said, "You are too close to her. When you get too close to your employees, this is the type of stuff that happens".

I said, "With all due respect, you are a man and I am a woman. You will never understand the dilemma that I face as a woman when I am trying to work with another woman who has been diagnosed with postpartum depression. How can I honestly not try to help her, as a woman?"

I feel confused because I feel like I am walking a fine line. I know that I can't be too lenient, because then I can become an enabler yet I also feel that I am obligated to try to get someone in her situation back on the right track. I am confused.

So, yesterday I called her in and had a "come to jesus" talk with her. I told her that although I wasn't starting the formal write up process, that I would start to create written documentation of our conversations and my directives to her.

She cried her eyes out for an hour straight. She told me that she feels that she wants to divorce her husband, that he "holds her back" and makes her feel oppressed because he won't help her.

I wanted to tell her so badly to divorce his sorry ass, but I am her boss and I just couldn't get myself to say it. I know that she looks up to me and I wouldn't want my authority to distort her judgment, nor would I ever want anyone to accuse me of meddling in their personal life as a boss. All I could say was that she has to do whatever is in her best interest, and that no matter what happens that she will be okay because she is an educated woman with a lot of potential. I also told her that I hope that she wouldn't ruin her career over a husband who isn't helping her.

The talk that she had with me seemed to help her a bit, and for the past two days she has arrived at work on time and she even looks more rested and has once again been wearing make up. I know that I need to continue to monitor her, because I suspect that she feels that her life is out of control and she wants someone to lay down the law with a firm hand.

All I can hope is that things will get better. But, if not, at least I will be able to say that I tried to help her get back on track. I know that many men might think that my style of handling this issue might be considered "weak", but fuck them because until they walk a mile in a female boss's shoes as she deals with a case of postpartum depression then they don't know what they would do.

But I do have to ask myself-would I act the same way if a male were having depression issues? Would I give him as many warnings as I have given a female with postpartum depression? Or would I have written him up much sooner? Have I let it get too far without having formally documented it, as my boss suggested?

Who knows. I somehow think that I might have written a male up sooner. And honestly, I don't even know what to think about that fact.