Day 152: Survived and Got My Wish

Today, my boss was fired.

This event results in the following new acts for today:

1)  I survived a bad boss, rather than them outlasting me.  I’ve never been fired but I’ve left a job because of poor management.  I stayed in this job because it is the industry in which I want to work, I love the team of people with whom I work, and it is a shitty economy and full time jobs are not easy to come by.  My surviving him is an act of victory.

2) I stood up to work practices that I found unethical and unprofessional and was not fired.  I didn’t know that this would be the result at the time and I was terrified.  I didn’t know I had that in me.

3)  I started to learn how to manage a team of people because he was not willing to do so.  I didn’t know I could do that.  I learned exactly how frustrated I can be and how I react to extreme stress.  I also learned that I genuinely care about how happy and well-treated other people are in their workplace.

4) Learned more about Excel.

5)  I learned how amazing, self-sacrificing, and hard-working my co-workers are.  The past 12 months have been a lot of work and little reward and they have humbled and inspired me with their compassion and resilience.

6)  I got a wish a today that I never, ever thought would come true.  Yesterday, someone at work was credited and awarded for work that was a collaboration between my team and several other departments.  The nomination was a parting gift of my ex-boss and left me so enraged that after work I beat a chair to piece with a baseball bat in the alley (hi neighbors!).  I was heartbroken for my team and I kept thinking, “The only way this could possibly be healed is for someone to acknowledge the wrong, apologize, and recognize the year of work they put in.”  I never thought that would happen.

Today one of upper administrators came down to our staff meeting, acknowledged the wrong, apologized, and recognized all the work they had put in.  I am so deeply grateful, it was like they poured sunshine into a dark room we were all living in.

7)  This morning, after my terrible day and night, I suddenly felt calm and at peace, like nothing could touch me.  I’ve never felt like that after difficult time–numb maybe, or resigned.  But not like that.  I feel like going through all of this helped me learn how to be happy despite everything; a combination of concentrating on what resources I do have, detaching myself from negative people and just knowing that I will get through the day.

For that knowledge, Ex-Boss, I am grateful.