Still employed.

Well, today I had a work meeting and I stirred the pot.

That metaphor might be inadequate to describe what happened... I stirred the hornet's nest.

I'm sick to death of the insane schedule of event-event-event-event. September and October were outrageous but the whole year was overburdened with in-store events, out-of-store events (Quilt shows and the like), and I'm shouldering more and more classes to support what we're selling.

I asked last year about the influx of Events, and was told that we were doing a lot of events because of the banner year (110 years in business), but we did more events in 2014 than we did in 2013. So that doesn't hold water.

And I wanted to speak up. I'm not the only one who feels this way, either. It's not just the part where we are required to work a 10-14 hour day with no break *AND NO EXTRA PAY* on the day(s) of the event; it's the weeks leading up to the event where we not only have to do all of our usual work, but do all the prep work for the event while our boss gets increasingly crazy because of the proximity of the event.

This year I quit feeling bad about taking time off during an event. I also tried to be wise about which battles to fight, and chose carefully which events I was going to blow off.

So tonight we had a meeting.
And my boss started talking about next year's events.
And I had Something To Say.

Oh, Lord, help me JESUS I finally just did it and talked about it in the meeting. I also finally leaned on my coworkers to back me the hell up, which they did (albeit weakly.) My boss has amazing powers of transformation, shifting from the triangulation game (Abuser/victim/rescuer) to becoming a goddamned Sea Lion, to her usual mode of gaslighting (It's always been THIS way, and never been THAT way, why would you think that?)

And I admit, I let her sidetrack me a couple of times and then I set my teeth and dragged the conversation back to the topic at hand: Events, and our insane way of dealing with them.

See, I hate to show up somewhere and point at someone saying, "Hey, that thing? That thing you've worked so hard on? It's broken. I don't like it. You should do something about that. K, bye!"

I'd honestly rather say something like, "Hey, that thing you're working so hard on? Can I help you? Seriously, you're about to dump everything on the ground, and I'm standing right here. Can I help you support that end for a minute?" or "Hey, I noticed that this one thing right here doesn't work right. I don't have another one of those, but I have this other thing; will it help?"

So I approached this with built-in solutions, and not only did she blow me off and try to sidetrack me, she decided that the solution to our issue was to simply say, "Well, if you don't want to work events, just sign off on those days and don't work." Of course, the flip side of that is that if you ever request a day off, she automatically deletes the day in question from your schedule. NO really; she's THAT lazy with the schedule. This came up in the meeting, too. She says that if we request the day off, we're requesting a hole in our schedule.

If we were a M-F, 40 hour work week I'd buy that.
We're open 7 days a week, and on Mondays and Thursdays we're open for almost 12 hours. Asking for a day off does NOT mean removing it from our schedule; it means that for the two days we are SUPPOSED to have off, we want one of them to be this particular day.

And for someone who does the schedule the stupid way around, it's too inconvenient. After all, once she cuts and pastes last month's schedule, she doesn't really want to tinker with it.

Even with the extra events that happen on random weekends. And sale days that have happened when they happen for decades, which she can't be bothered to keep track of.

(headdesk)

This time she actually screamed that she hates doing the schedule and wants someone else to take it. I've taken it on several times; she ALWAYS takes it back from me. Always. I never do it "right", and she has to micromanage me, then take it away and Do IT HerSelf.
So this time I didn't offer to take it off her hands.
Nope.

I just stared at her, smiling.

She actually threatened to quit.
Be my guest, lady.

And all of this after telling me breezily earlier that she didn't bother to vote.

(On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd be happy with her voting choices, so perhaps it's for the best.)

So tonight I feel rather emotionally bruised.
So much so that I was somewhat teary-eyed over things that wouldn't normally have pulled an emotional response.

Gah.

Well, I still have a job. My boss responded to my legitimate issues with a solution designed to fail, but I still have a job.

I can breathe. I can speak. I can hear, and see, and taste, and touch. I can smell. I can walk. I can run. I have money in my purse. I have a house to live in. I have food in that house. I can vote. I have a truck.

I am wealthy. I must remind myself of my wealth.

That's why...

I was reading a story on the Archive. Bit of fan-fiction fluff that I got into for Science Bros action.
( Skip this bit if you don't care what kind of FF I read. )

The author wrote a complete story, then started a sequel. I'm reading one of the sequel bits, and in it Clint Barton (Hawkeye) has to endure a barrage of medical testing. They take him to a nice private facility, something civilian and in the suburbs. During the exam, he kind of checks out, and when he comes back to himself, he discovers that the flurry of doctors and nurses and technicians have been replaced by a single doctor, the neurologist.

She asks him about his post-traumatic stress disorder. He acknowledges that he's had it for most of his life, going back to his childhood. She speaks to him calmly and tells him that they need him present for the testing, but now that she knows that he has issues she can address them. She tells him that they will keep the crowd to a minimum, and always tell him if they're going to touch him or approach him. Here is a direct quote:
"No… can we do that without you blocking me out? Because I need you to actually respond to my questions. If I warn you before I do anything, can you stay here and do that?”

Since I was about twelve, I have had the reverse conversation with nearly every medical professional and every single dental professional I have ever worked with.

Some of you know about this.

I was on a back-board, in the Cone of Shame, having been driven to the hospital from the scene of an accident where I had been hit head-on, then pried from my beloved truck with the jaws of life. During all of that, I still managed to get a doctor to come and look me in the eye, and I went through the litany. "I'm going to help you out, doc. Here is how to keep me a sane, cooperative, helpful patient. Thing one: Be where I can see you when you talk to me. Thing two: You can do anything you like to me, so long as you tell me before you do it. In a best-case scenario, you not only warn me but tell me what the procedure is, and why I need it."

Most doctors LOVE it when I do this. They don't know if I'm going to freak out at the sight of blood, or if I fear needles, or if I'm going to withdraw and fail to tell them when something hurts, or if I'm someone who will sit still for the most painful procedures so long as they're kept in the loop. Most doctors and dentists are delighted that I bother to explain, before we get into an awkward situation.

Because there are two reasons for my policy.
The first one is that I know myself and I will react somewhat unpredictably when cornered, threatened, or stabbed without warning or explanation. I have actually told dentists that if they fail to follow my rules, I will likely punch or kick or scream or worse.

The more accurate one is that the sneak attack gets a really unpredictable response, as evidenced by my complete and total meltdown/panic attack during my root canal when he stuck me without warning.



So there I am, reading this bit of Fan Fiction fluff and I suddenly have to close the browser window and breathe for a minute.

Because there it is in front of me: I've been traumatized, and I found a coping strategy. It's not some weird quirk of my personality, and it's not my assertive nature. It's a straight-up desperately cobbled together coping strategy for some things that happened to me as a kid that are just plain not ok. Not things that "every kid" deals with. Not things that I should walk off and put up with.

And no, I'm not recovering memories of sexual assault or anything. I am just really realizing that I was, in fact, betrayed by those who should have been protecting me. I was traumatized by a medical professional or two who should have had my best interests at heart and were just in a hurry. I have been treated badly by two dentists and one doctor.

And as a result, I took control the only way I knew how. I learned that if I could communicate with my medical professionals directly and on an intellectual (and adult) level, my panic levels drop quickly.
I learned that if I understood the meaning of the pain I could manage it much more calmly.

Hell, my husband once saw me dig a tick head out of my arm with a knife too dull for the job. He stared at me in horrified fascination and announced abruptly that I was way more butch than he ever could be.

So if you are treating me for something and you explain quietly and completely that you have to open up my skin and do some bizarre things underneath there, I will want as much information as possible, and then I will sit the fuck still while you do your procedure.
Though you should be prepared for a genuine debate while explaining things. I read.

There I was, reading some fan fiction which might be grossly inaccurate, but it did something to me to read about a medical professional who knew how to deal with someone who had been traumatized and damaged by it. It did something to me to realize that I have a name for what's wrong with me, and ways to deal with it. It did something good to realize that my coping strategies are theoretically legitimate.

Between that and learning about Misaphonia and Super-tasters, I am learning a great deal about who and what I am. It's refreshing.