On Monday, after psyching myself up for two days and practicing in front of the mirror and in the car, I went into the office and told Mr. X right away in the morning that I wanted to talk to him. He said sure. I had planned to have my conversation in his office. I had thought about how I would ask to close the door, where I would sit, how I would cross my ankles, and about not picking at my finger nails to show how nervous I was*. The morning passed, and he never asked to talk to me. I started to freak out, thinking that he'd forgotten and that I'd have to repeat the whole process Tuesday morning, or worse, that he'd ask me to go to lunch. Chewing had not factored into any of my preparation. Lunch was too friendly, and I was not feeling like a friend. The clock edged closer to noon, and (oh horror), he asked me to lunch. I was freaking out, but then decided that I would order a salad and eat tiny pieces of lettuce, so I could still talk. I told myself this was going to be okay and that I would still be able to say what I wanted to say.
So, we go to lunch. But, instead of** going to a normal restaurant, we went to an Italian knock off of Chipolte. I love Chipolte and Italian food, but having this conversation with a burrito was not what I had planned. Technically at this restaurant, instead of a tortilla you got a flatbread (it seemed an awful lot like a tortilla to me). I had a vegetarian one and had them put as few things as possible inside (grilled zucchini, rocket***, sun dried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and they topped it off with some pesto). Believe me, this was a tiny Italian burrito--Mr. X had his with angel hair pasta inside and double chicken. (Yes, you read that right, he had pasta inside his bread.) In addition to having to chew while having one of the worse conversations of my life, this restaurant didn't have normal tables; instead they had these long high school cafeteria like things. Mr. X decided we should sit next to each other, with our chairs angled towards each other, like we were on some weird kind of date. Awkward.
As I said in my previous post, I told Mr. X to choose me in the best way that I could. I'm actually extremely proud of myself**** for saying all that I had to say. It was one of those moments when you are looking at yourself from the outside and seeing that you are a grown up. I told him that demoting me was a mistake, without any irony--I meant every word that I said and I had the courage to say them. I felt like Lady Macbeth: "But screw your courage to the sticking place, and we'll not fail." (although I was not planning to kill anyone). And then I asked if there was another candidate. I knew the answer before I asked the question, but I wanted to make him say it. There is someone else. Mr. X has known this guy, who we will call Clay Aiken, for a couple of years. This reinforces my feelings that this whole thing has been in the works for awhile and is bigger than me. I still feel that there is discrimination going on, but I don't really know what to do about it. I would like to be a fly on the wall the first time Mr. X asks Clay Aiken to make him a cup of coffee (or when Mr. X realizes he's going to have to start walking the 10 feet to the coffee pot himself). I, personally, can't believe I ever let myself get in the position of getting coffee. Maybe that was my downfall.
Last night was our office Christmas Dinner. It was horrible. I wanted to celebrate with these people about as much as I wanted to have teeth pulled, but The Husband and I put on our happy faces and went to dinner. Because this is the way life works out, we ended up sitting next to The Big Cheese and Mrs. Big Cheese. Mrs. Big Cheese said that she didn't even know that I had started working there. I'm not really sure what that means--I'm trying to think that it means that Mrs. Big Cheese has really bad manners. You should at least pretend to know your husband's employees. The Husband and I had a whole babysitting debacle, since the dinner was on a Wednesday and got pushed back to starting at 7:30, so we skipped the post-dinner bowling. I'm glad that we had an excuse to do that. I don't think I could have kept from cracking under the pressure for too much longer. Apparently bowling got kind of wild--it sounded today like someone took their clothes off. Oh, speaking of clothes, I was very disappointed because K did not wear any sparkles. Instead she wore a plaid shirt. I was actually kind of over dressed (which is always better than being under dressed).
Today I did something that I probably shouldn't have done. I am really paranoid and wondering when the other shoe will drop, so I decided to see if Clay Aiken was scheduled to come in for an interview. I looked at the calendars of Mr. X, The Big Cheese and Will and it was pretty easy to deduce that Clay Aiken will be coming in on Monday, December 19th at 1:00. I will also be in the office on Monday, December 19th at 1:00. I wonder if they will introduce us and give Clay Aiken a tour of my Triangle. I met everyone in the office at my second interview. I hope they have the class not to introduce us, but I'm starting to doubt just about everything. Thanks to Clay Aiken's LinkedIn profile, I now know lots of things about him. I'm more qualified for my job, probably because it's already my job.
Anyway, when you combine all of this with Sweet Pea's Ritalin-induced emotional outbursts and the fact that the Ritalin isn't working at all, I'm at about the breaking point from a stress and mental-health standpoint. I am coping by living in denial and overspending on Christmas presents. (It's a good year to be Sweet Pea.) I want to cry most of the time and I feel like this:
(The picture comes from this great blog post "Adventures in Depression")
Right now I am doing the best I can, which is not very well. Thanks to everyone for your kind thoughts and words. I do feel like I did the best that I could for myself and now we just have to wait and see who they think is better--me or Clay Aiken.
*I was nothing, if not thorough.
**Sweet Pea just asked me if gladiators had brains. This has nothing to do with my post, I just wanted to share
***so much more fun to say "rocket" than "arugula"
****in the midst of feeling really sad
No comments:
Post a Comment