On my blog, I get to say all the things that are in my head.
In person, not so much.
I read something recently that described me perfectly. Apparently, I am an introvert that behaves like an extrovert. Yep, that’s me. I didn’t even know that was a thing. Although, I don’t know why I didn’t know, it fits me like one of OJ’s gloves.
I can talk to people in small groups or even large ones and the appearance is, I’m completely comfortable in my own skin. The reality is, I’m doing everything I can to crawl out of it.
If I see an injustice, then I address it. As long as it’s another human who is suffering the injustice. I will go to the mat for a stranger before I will myself. I can only stick up for myself if I am pushed to the point where my anger or outrage is stronger than my anxiety. I have to be pushed pretty fucking hard because my anxiety rises to superhero levels.
I’ve been at my current job for 7 years now. I went back to computer programming after leading an IT department for 5 years. It was at the end of that 5 years that I got pushed hard enough that my anxiety no longer controlled my voice or my actions and I got pissed. I stuck up for myself.
It did not turn out the way I expected.
My old company had been sold and the new owners were horrible. It became apparent that they were draining the assets as quickly as they could and were not interested in keeping the company afloat. The new owner had his own personal henchman. I named her Reputa. (J Geils Band – Musta Got Lost).
Reputa was the new head of HR. The man who lost his job was a massive dick and I wasn’t sorry to see him go, but holy hell…Reputa was flat out evil.
She lied to me, bullied me, mocked me and generally tried to make my life miserable. It didn’t work, though. I knew which way the wind was blowing and was actively looking for a new job. Her words rolled off me with ease. Falalalala.
One day, though. One day she pushed me too far.
She was in my office along with my senior programmer. This guy was a fantastic programmer, but really disliked human interaction. She was grilling him about a project he was working on and the harder she pushed, the more he retreated.
I waited for a lull in the conversation and attempted to interject to get the spotlight on me instead of him.
Reputa looked down her nose at me and said: You shut up. I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to him.
And the switch flipped. She told me to shut up. In my own office.
I told her that she was in my office and I would not shut up. I told her that until they were finished destroying the company and decided it was time for me to go, that I was still the director of IT and that if she had any questions regarding the work we were doing, she was to address them to me. I then asked the programmer to leave my office. Reputa followed him.
I was an open door manager and my office door was rarely closed. The walls were lined with opaque windows. Reputa left my office and slammed the door so hard that the windows rattled.
Fucking really? It was my office and my office door wasn’t supposed to be closed. Fuck that bitch. Fuck her and her stupid mean face. I jumped up from my desk and threw the door open as hard as I could.
The door bounced off the wall and slammed back shut in my face.
That wasn’t the effect I was going for.
So, I threw it open again, because at that point, I was in full on toddler tantrum mode, but this time, I put my hand out and caught it before it could shut in my face a second time.
Reputa stood there with her mouth hanging open. She rolled her eyes and left the building.
Guess I showed her.
I found a new job, my current job, a few weeks later. I was thrilled to give Reputa my letter of resignation. It consisted of 5 words and a date. My last day will be….
A few months later, I’m sitting at my desk and I find that I have a Linkedin request from Reputa. Fucking Reputa wanted to connect on a social network? I wrote a long message listing all the reasons why I would rather set my hair on fire than connect with her. In the end, though, I just ignored the request.
I’m finding that I’ve changed a bit since those days. Sticking up for myself doesn’t come easy, but I am getting better at it. I would like to be the ‘me’ that I am now and travel back in time because a few things would have changed. First, I would have stuck up for myself long before the door slamming incident. Secondly, I would have caught that goddamn door the first time.
How about you? Ever finally get the courage up to stick up for yourself and end up slamming a door in your own face?
Ha, brilliant. Wish I’d been a fly on the wall.
She sounds like a shining example of the reason I mistrust and dislike most HR people. It’s no surprise to me that most employment agencies refer to them as Human Remains.
I really suck at standing up for myself, I’m a snarling tigress when it comes to defending those I care about but me, not so much. I tend to get emotional when it’s about me, which really isn’t helpful.
Work in progress I guess.
Yeah, had more than one person try and connect on Linked In that I’d rather never hear from again in my life. Some people are just rhino skinned.
Right? I just don’t get people. What the fuck are they thinking??
rhino skinned. god I wish I could be that.
i’m like you, I will defend others, no problem. myself? I get emotional and have to attempt not to cry.
days like that, I wish I worked from home.
I get you. I used to cry a LOT..and I hated it. I hated and I still hate crying in front of people, so I don’t. Which means I rarely stick up for myself because if I have to defend myself, unless I am VERY angry, then I am going to cry.
yep. i totally cried in the bathroom at work this week.
and it’s only wednesday.
i just wanted to crawl under a damn rock. >:/
I’m sorry!! That sucks so hard. Anxiety around work is the worst. It’s just the fucking worst and if you are stuck with psychopaths or at least difficult personalities, it makes you feel like you’re in prison or something.
I wish I had your courage to speak up when necessary. Unfortunately I THINK really tough and assertive thoughts but they sputter before they come out. Of course the good news is that I’ve been writing so long that I don’t actually have to “work” with people fact-to-face so if I need to blow off steam I can do it in the privacy of my own home. I AM getting better as I “mature” but don’t think I’ll ever be really good at it. And yes, I agree that it often NEVER turns out quite the way we would like it in our heads to begin with. Thanks for the reminders in this post though….We should learn to stand up for ourselves as much as possible.
It’s just really NOT easy. It’s getting easier..but like you said, I don’t know that I’ll ever be good at it.
Yeah. Just last week actually. Got caught writing at work. Gave my boss shit for giving me shit, when I hear him dealing with personal shit 3/4 of his day.
Still not sure how that’s going to play out, but I’m not thinking it’s good. Sigh. FML.
Oh man…that sucks. I hope it doesn’t turn out badly for you, sister.
My job found out about my blog, so while I don’t (and didn’t) write anything that could have gotten me in trouble, it is still unsettling. Maybe not as unsettling as the things they have learned about me, but hey, open the door and guess what? Anything can happen. That goes for me and whoever chooses to read.
As it is, I am also trying to find a lower level position after all this time. This job is stressful, but my back was completely broken by my prior job. 15 years of being a high performer and I went to work for a Reputa-type (and HR director too). Three years later and I think it still effects me today, honestly. I hate the fact that she put doubts into me so that I am not as able to stand up for myself here like I could have before.
It’s amazing, the damage other people can do. I’ve had a few times that someone has undermined my self esteem to a degree that it took years to recover. It’s frustrating.
I live in fear that work people will discover my blog. I don’t know that I want them to know this much about me…I mean, the rest of the world is fine, apparently. haha.
I think LinkedIn brings out the stupid in people. A while back we had a guy stage a big scene – yelling at the boss, slamming doors, making childish threats, the whole 9 yards – before storming out in a huff.
And then he tried to connect with me on LinkedIn.
1. No.
2. Hell no.
3. HAHAHAHAHAH…no.
HAHHAHA..yeah..what are they thinking??
I am self-employed and have had the same kind of crap from people who mistreated me or were extremely unfriendly (a.k.a. not in my corner) wanting me to link to them on LinkedIn. NOT ONE CHANCE IN HELL. Then they ask you to keep them in mind if any freelance work comes up where you can put them on the crew. REALLY? When you were in a hiring position you slow-payed every freelancer with the same excuse “your invoice fell behind the file cabinet and got misplaced” and you somehow thought we didn’t talk to one another when waiting for you to pay us? REALLY? Then you wanted to issue us purchase orders so we could get paid but at the end of the job you didn’t have a P.O. number for us to invoice you with. REALLY? So I waited at the end of each job and make you go get the P.O. book and write out and give me my P.O. before I would leave the studio. As my good friend and fellow freelancer from south Chicago would say, “You ASSWIPE.”
And as a freelancer I am going to go on LinkedIn and exhibit my client list and jobs to everyone else like keeping clients isn’t hard enough already? May work for some, but not this old boy. Like Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe told German General Luttwitz who was demanding the surrender of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, his reply was one word: “NUTS!” Often mistakenly attributed to McAuliffe’s commander, Gen. George S. Patton.
I really don’t understand people sometimes..(most of the time). I mean, they HAVE to know what dicks they are being, right??
I dislike confrontation, so it take a while to push me to the point where I stick up for myself. But once I’m there…yikes. I don’t like myself when I’m angry.
I am with you. I abhor confrontation..but when I get pushed, it gets ugly and I rarely walk away feeling good about myself.
I call it my bitch mode and it rarely comes out but when it does, you better look out! Something in me will totally snap and then it’s ON. Bitch mode came on one time at a totally inappropriate time and in front of my husband and kiddos. I was pretty embarrassed about that episode and felt bad for the movie theater manager who was my (undeserving) victim. But for the most part, the bastards deserve it!
I feel you. I’ve had a few explosive episodes with strangers where I lost my shit. I mean it was so over the top..not proud of those moments at all.
Wow. An introvert that behaves like an extrovert. That is me to a T. I can consciously feel myself flipping a switch to turn myself “on” when I have to deal with people.
I can, will, and do stand up for myself, although that has not always been the case. I guess it was about ten years ago that I finally started to figure it out. “It” being that I needed to treat myself the way I treat my friends. I needed to be my own friend. I needed to go to bat for myself the way I do for my friends. I won’t say I feel really comfortable with it, but damn it, I WILL DO IT. Usually. Once in awhile I am a really crappy friend to myself.
The door thing . . . doesn’t that just suck?! But seriously, be glad it slammed IN your face and not ON your face. That sucks even more. Nothing ruins a good temper tantrum like giving yourself a bloody nose.
Hahah! Good point. A bloody nose would have been MUCH worse.
Linkedin. I just WON’T!
Good for you for standing up for yourself. It’s so frustrating when the BIG ACTION we take doesn’t work as we thought it might in our heads. Like that time I hit that punk kid. It was crap (but effective, I guess).
I remember that story! I rewrote it in my head where you knocked him out and stood over him with a warrior princess yell! 🙂
In reality, my outcome in the same scenario would have been very much like yours.
Oh, my gosh, yes. It usually doesn’t go as planned as these things have a way of going ‘off the rails’. Your message is important here though, always treat yourself with kindness and when you need someone to stick up for you then you can do it for yourself. Love it! Still working on that. And I wish I could go back in time and ‘correct’ a few things 🙂
Oh me too…I would be handing out a few bitch slaps. Haha. Well, not actual slaps. I’m definitely not the violent type. Except against doors. Apparently.
Oh, man – that’s a great story! I wonder what would have happened if you had sent that list of reasons to her on LinkedIn… Hahahaha! Feckin’ REALLY!? Wow.
As for doors slamming in my face, recently for some inexplicable reason our receptionist has felt very comfortable bitching at me about nonsense & then hanging up on me when I counter her bullshit. Last week she switched my coverage day with another secretary (while I was out schlepping my mother around to see my aunt in the hospital) and never told me. Until the day OF. So, while I was protesting her last-minute notice/demand and about to say I’m not com…. the bitch hung up.
Yesterday, she calls me not 2 minutes after I dropped a UPS pkg at her desk to say that I “did it wrong”. She is bla-bla-blahing about how it’s the wrong color and UPS takes the blue one and I must have dug up an ancient slip so I tell her “Look, I kept the one that says ‘Shippers Copy’ but if UPS won’t take it I will redo it for tomorrow’s pickup. No big de…” she slams the phone down.
I just can’t flipping win with that one it seems.
What. A. Bitch.
She’s miserable. At least you don’t have to put up with her 24 hours a day like she does.
Seems like misery loves company in this place… and it multiplies like rabbits.
PS – That “ancient” UPS slip was one of two she gave to my Accounting Manager LAST WEEK so he could ship a package. But of course, I didn’t get to say that…
sheesh
I did scream at my dad once, fully justified, righteous-indignation style, “THAT’S NOT A GOOD ENOUGH EXCUSE”, when he tried to blame his alcoholism for the fact that he sold the camper I was living in ALONG WITH all the furnishings (and all my personal stuff basically) to a stranger while I was at work. It was glorious.
THEN I had to drive my not-so-brave 18-year-old self over to this stranger’s house and explain that all the stuff inside that camper is MINE. The price was for the camper only. *shrivel* It only occurs to me today, that he didn’t bother to fix his mistake either–he left it for me to do.
And oh yes– I am possibly the Queen of being an introvert who acts like an extrovert. I can go whole days alone without speaking to anyone, but– toss me into a social setting and I babble like a broken faucet.
Holy hell…that’s terrible, Stef! I’m glad you got your things, though.
Yeah, I’m good in a social setting, but if people could see the raw panic I go through beforehand, they would probably back away slowly from me.
People think I’m the life of the party but they don’t know how exhausted I am when it’s all through…my husband calls it my public face versus my private face because it’s like a light’s been shut off when it’s finally over. Any kind of conflict is difficult for me as I had a tumultuous childhood. Whenever I have to stick up for myself (or someone else) I can be very forceful but inside I feel like jelly and no one seems to notice that I find it hard to get a full breath in. It’s as if I’m a cornered animal. Afterwards my stomach feels like it’s full of ashes and my hands shake- I’m on the dark side of my forties so I don’t think that’s going to ever change.
We could be emotional sisters. I even have to gear up for phone calls.
I am definitely an introvert that acts like an extrovert in certain situations. Sadly, in addition to an inability to see someone else get screwed, I also have no tolerance for bullshit. Back when I used to work in an actual office, I was always getting myself in trouble by pointing out the glaring flaws in whatever happy lala land plan upper management had to save the world.
Now I work from home for a small consultancy. Less face to face time = greater ability to keep my fat mouth shut.
hahhaha…yeah..I point out the obvious as well..it usually results in me having more work to do
Maybe this is my issue too. For instance, my son had this party to go to about an hour from our house, so I was going to drop him off and wait around in town then pick him up. It all went fine until pick up time. I was sitting in the car literally hyperventilating because I did NOT want to go in and get him and have to talk to other parents. Eventually he came out, but because life, I ended up having to talk to other parents anyway. And I did just fine. I’m sure they had no idea that it took me a good 45 minutes and a vicious pep talk to be able to say, “I’m good, you?”
Oh sister…we are so much alike. I am exactly the same way. Usually, once I get past the first 5 minutes, then I’m fine..ON even..but it’s so fucking hard to get there.
My last boss tried to push me out and threatened, subtley, to start writing me up for imaginary infractions if I didn’t give her a quit date (so that she could then fire me and not have to worry about unemployment payments).
It was so SO hard to sit in her office calmly and answer her stupid questions without screaming at her, crying, or giving her any more info than I had to at the time. I hate that shit.
Thank goodness for a few super supportive friends and a timely job offer…
That’s just terrible. I like to imagine there is a special place in hell for bad bosses.
I used to work for a Reputa, only I called him Shitler. It’s hard to work for someone you don’t respect. In your shoes and that angry (because hitting myself with the door would send me right into nuclear meltdown) I don’t even want to think about what I would have done.
In retrospect, it’s kind of funny. I mean, it TOTALLY ruined the moment…but at the time, I was furious. Shitler…HAHAHHA..that’s awesome.
When I was a little kid–I mean about 5–my father said something that stuck with me: never, ever start a fight. But if someone hits you, hit them back. And make sure you only have to hit them once.
I kind of adapted that philosophy to my adult life, though I have stopped actually physically hitting people. I don’t seek out confrontation, but when it happens, I go straight for the knock-out punch. Happened many years ago with a boss who was too cheap to hire enough staff, and just kept piling more and more work on me, the new hire. That might have been tolerable, but he was also a sleazy, patronizing asshole who addressed me as “love”–probably because he couldn’t remember my name.
So when he called me into his office to tell me I really needed to step up my game if I wanted to keep on top of my (ridiculous) workload, and then leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, and said, “So, love, what are you going to do about this?” I might have gone off on him just slightly.
I leaned across his desk, and said, “What am I going to do? I am going to request a transfer to another department. And if you ever, ever call me ‘love’ again, I will jam your false teeth down your throat.”
He just sat there blinking. It was awesome. Oh, and I did get transferred. And he gave me a wide berth from that point on.
You are my hero!!!!
This is the best story ever and I wish I had an equally kickass one to tell about my various professional experiences. You rule, RageM.
Thank you, Gorgeous! I don’t have many..not many…but I do have a few.
So, I figured I’d start here first. Just because.
It’s unbelievable to me the way people in corporate America work. They’re drunk on middle management power. I had a boss that used to effing THROW stuff at me.
I’m so glad you got out of that environment. It would have destroyed you, and we NEED you!!
My current job is pretty fucking bad. It’s like a slow weak poison gas…but I had a very interesting conversation today that might make it possible for a change. And Randy will kill me for posting this..but my filter is broken.
That sounds like something I would do. I am horrible for sticking up for myself until I go into full on meltdown mode and usually bet myself into trouble. I’m getting better the older I get.
Yep…that wasn’t really a meltdown…I’ve had a handful of those and they were spectacular. The two worst times were with complete strangers. I scared on guy so bad that he locked himself into his truck. Hahah.
I got my Les Paul out of one of the only times I really stood up for myself at work. I was being leaned on and abused by the new owners of the warehouse where I worked, 80 to 100 hour weeks as the warehouse manager job sort of fell into my lap because no-one else knew how to do it.
One day the owner told me to take a wheel with a flat tire off of one of the delivery trucks and I refused on the grounds that he wasn’t paying me enough to do mechanic work especially on top of my already hellish workload. He threw a tantrum and took it off himself, but I ended up having to drive it (on 5 wheels) up to the shop (where they had floor jacks and an air gun, so WTF?) to get a new tire put on. When I returned, he called me into his office to discuss my insubordination. I confronted him with the evidence I had been compiling of the systematic wage-theft he was doing, and told him how the operations manager (who was my friend) had warned me when he quit that he had been seeing a lot of errors in the payroll, and always in the company’s favor, and suggested that since we didn’t use time cards anymore, I should probably start writing that shit down. I did. I showed it to him and told him not to even try to weasel out of it, that I knew how his payroll software worked and that he had to have been making the changes manually, which required a password that only he and two other people had. I finally told him that if and when he wanted to discuss the truth about the place, on his dime, I would be more than willing, but in the mean time I had a lot of work to do.
As he was leaving that night, he walked up to me and handed me an envelope with “Doug’s vacation pay” written on it. Inside was $700.00 in cash, not quite twice the amount of stolen hours I had showed him, but substantially less than the vacation time I was owed. I took that money and replaced my stolen electric guitars with the black Les Paul I still have.
I have to believe that makes the guitar sound just a little bit better…
What an asshat..how do these fucking people sleep at night?
I have the unique qualities of hating confrontation and a very bad, very quick temper. I have a better handle on it than I used to but it’s gotten me in trouble more than a couple of times!
I have a quick temper, but it starts out as annoyance…it doesn’t get bad until I’m pushed pretty far. I really can’t tell if it’s better or worse now that I’m older. It’s different..I know that much.
Oh yeah… I went off on a fellow customer service rep once and I thought we were going to get into a fist fight right there in the office in front of the manager, who was also her brother… oh, and the owner’s son, which of course meant she was the owner’s daughter. I actually didn’t get written up for that. Go figure.
Amazing…seems like that wouldn’t have worked out in your favor…maybe her brother and father knew that she had it coming to her?
When I reached critical mass, I just walked out. Then they let me work from home. My director was a total fuckin…..well….you know.
It was funny, when I walked out. He was standing over me chewing my butt about various things; and I just stood up, grabbed a few things, and walked out. He said, “Where are you going?”
Ha.
Nice!!
I had a horrible boss at that job as well…he ended up getting fired and I took his place which is how I got to be the director of IT. He was berating me for something and called me an idiot, so I got up to walk out. He said “I’m not done talking to you” and I said….”No, we’re done talking now”.
Actually, it is not at all unique or unusual that you exhibit extrovert behaviors though being and introvert. I’m sure you know that few of us are totally one or the other but fall somewhere on a continuum between the two extremes. We (introvert here) also may exhibit those divergent behaviors in a “situation-specific” manner. I used to play in a band and was totally off-the-wall for me with my stage persona, but could easily be socially and emotionally swallowed up at a party or other heavily peopled function. I was the guy in the corner waiting for someone to approach me one-at-a-time and if that was the only person I talked to that night, so be it. I guess my blog is my corner in the party now. Even then, I have made it non-searchable by engines so as not to be overwhelmed.
I have often suggested this book which is recently published, well researched and an easy, personable read about introversion by a professionally successful introvert. You may have seen me recommend it on other blogs we have in common. You can thank me after reading it. 🙂
http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-power-introverts-world-talking-ebook/dp/B004J4WNL2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413505828&sr=8-1&keywords=quiet+the+power+of+introverts+in+a+world+that+can%27t+stop+talking
Thank you so much for the recommendation!!!
I stick up for myself all the time, in my head. Out loud, not so much. The one time I stood up to my dad when he was bad-mouthing my spouse, I ended up with a new set of tires. So I see the value of speaking out, but how often do I need a new set of tires?
That’s awesome! Because tires are fucking expensive…
Yeah, I still stick up for myself in my head much better than out loud…
My problem is that when I do speak my mind — I’ll obsess over it for hours. Makes me crazy. So when I get over that I’ll be happy. Great story.
I obsess for hours either way…that sucks. I wish there was a way to turn that shit off.
I totally get the thing about being an introvert that behaves like an extrovert. I don’t find it hard to deal with people I don’t know and have no intention of getting to know (like grocery store clerks, the library checkout lady, and the person at the drive-thru window). However, put me in a room with people who expect me to relate to them on a personal level and I just want to run and hide in my room.
Yes..that is me exactly. I’m okay with dealing with store clerks (although I do freak out a little when I have to get my hair cut or something…because then they will be touching me)