I'm not fired.
That's the good news.
I have to find a new job.
That's the bad.
In this economy. After having six jobs over the past six years. Spoke too soon about not having to move again, just don't have to move where we live. No boxes involved, at least. Three of those jobs were as a Traveling RN, intentionally time limited, let me add.
The why is difficult. I am not very good with female politics. I'm much more a misanthropic writer than a social people person. I'm good with groups of men, or evenly mixed groups, where competence is the prime value. There is no criticism of my work ethic. I don't really quite understand what it is that is rubbing everyone so wrong, but I am the one who feels the victim of petty, personal politics. The truth is somewhere in between, no doubt. I just don't catch the subtle messages women expect another woman to pick up. I read patients quite well, and surgeons, even anesthesiologists. And practical women.
It's largely a matter of a terrible fit, where I have been trying to keep my most necessary income by dancing on eggshells and battening down on every impulse and personal expression. Apparently, it's been seeping. And now, since I cannot change what I cannot even see to understand, I will have to find other work.
HR and Manager have offered some assistance, to get me toward research or QA, which might feed off my professionalism better, keep me in the same system. Monday will be all about phone calls and job searches and utilizing HR resources. I'm feeling sick already. I'm not kidding. I have some time, but the hiring process make take longer than I have.
I'm trying very hard not to feel a failure.
I'm pretty scared.
18 comments:
ugh. a giant pit in my gut for you, z. not sure what else to say. i suck at this.
hugs and tea,
jessica.
so sorry to hear of this upheaval in your life. hoping that it will end up being a tool to help you identify a better career fit. try not to let the anxiety get you down. you need your energy right now.
I am so sorry.
This is just awful.
Thinking of you.
Oh, Zhoen. I'm sorry you're having to endure this. Things will be better soon.
In the meantime, one sentence of encouragement from the greatest misanthropic writer of all time:
The place, I’ll make it all the same, I’ll make it in my head, I’ll draw it out of my memory, I’ll gather it all about me, I’ll make myself a head, I’ll make myself a memory, I have only to listen, the voice will tell me everything, tell it to me again, everything I need, in dribs and drabs, breathless, it’s like a confession, a last confession, you think it’s finished, then it starts off again, there were so many sins, the memory is so bad, the words don’t come, the words fail, the breath fails, no, it’s something else, it’s an indictment, a dying voice accusing, accusing me, you must accuse someone, a culprit is indispensable, it speaks of my sins, it speaks of my head, it says it’s mine, it says that I repent, that I want to be punished, better than I am, that I want to go, give myself up, a victim is essential, I have only to listen, it will show me my hiding-place, what it’s like, where the door is, if there’s a door, and whereabouts I am in it, and what lies between us, how the land lies, what kind of country, whether it’s sea, or whether it’s mountain, and the way to take, so that I may go, make my escape, give myself up, come to the place where the axe falls, without further ceremony, on all who come from here, I’m not the first, I won’t be the first, it will best me in the end, it has bested better than me, it will tell me what to do, in order to rise, move, act like a body endowed with despair, that’s how I reason, that’s how I hear myself reasoning, all lies, it’s not me they’re calling, not me they’re talking about, it’s not yet my turn, it’s someone else’s turn, that’s why I can’t stir, that’s why I don’t feel a body on me, I’m not suffering enough yet, it’s not yet my turn, not suffering enough to be able to stir, to have a body, complete with head, to be able to understand, to have eyes to light the way, I merely hear, without understanding, without being able to profit by it, by what I hear, to do what, to rise and go and be done with hearing, I don’t hear everything, that must be it, the important things escape me, it’s not my turn, the topographical and anatomical information in particular is lost on me, no, I hear everything, what difference does it make, the moment it’s not my turn, my turn to understand, my turn to live, my turn of the lifescrew, it calls that living, the space of the way from here to the door, it’s all there, in what I hear, somewhere, if all has been said, all this long time, all must have been said, but it’s not my turn to know what, to know what I am, where I am, and what I should do to stop being it, to stop being there, that’s coherent, so as to be another, no, the same, I don’t know, depart into life, travel the road, find the door, find the axe, perhaps it’s a cord, for the neck, for the throat, for the cords, or fingers, I’ll have eyes, I’ll see fingers, it will be the silence, perhaps it’s a drop, find the door, open the door, drop, into the silence, it won’t be I, I’ll stay here, or there, more likely there, it will never be I, that’s all I know, it’s all been done already, said and said again, the departure, the body that rises, the way, in colour, the arrival, the door that opens, closes again, it was never I, I’ve never stirred, I’ve listened, I must have spoken, why deny it, why not admit it, after all, I deny nothing, I admit nothing, I say what I hear, I hear what I say, I don’t know, one or the other, or both, that makes three possibilities, pick your fancy, all these stories about travelers, these stories about paralytics, all are mine, I must be extremely old, or it’s memory playing tricks, if only I knew if I’ve lived, if I live, if I’ll live, that would simplify everything, impossible to find out, that’s where you’re buggered, I haven’t stirred, that’s all I know, no, I know something else, it’s not I, I always forget that, I resume, you must resume, never stirred from here, never stopped telling stories, to myself, hardly hearing them, hearing something else, listening for something else, wondering now and then where I got them from, was I in the land of the living, were they in mine, and where, where do I store them, in my head, I don’t feel a head on me, and what do I tell them with, with my mouth, same remark, and what do I hear them with, and so on, the old rigmarole, it can’t be I, or it’s because I pay no heed, it’s such an old habit, I do it without heeding, or as if I were somewhere else, there I am far again, there I am the absentee again, it’s his turn again now, he who neither speaks nor listens, who has neither body nor soul, it’s something else he has, he must have something, he must be somewhere, he is made of silence, there’s a pretty analysis, he’s in the silence, he’s the one to be sought, the one to be, the one to be spoken of, the one to speak, but he can’t speak, then I could stop, I’d be he, I’d be the silence, I’d be back in the silence, we’d be reunited, his story the story to be told, but he has no story, he hasn’t been in story, it’s not certain, he’s in his own story, unimaginable, unspeakable, that doesn’t matter, the attempt must be made, in the old stories incomprehensibly mine, to find his, it must be there somewhere, it must have been mine, before being his, I’ll recognize it, in the end I’ll recognize it, the story of the silence that he never left, that I should never have left, that I may never find again, that I may find again, then it will be he, it will be I, it will be the place, the silence, the end, the beginning, the beginning again, how can I say it, that’s all words, they’re all I have, and not many of them, the words fail, the voice fails, so be it, I know that well, it will be the silence, full of murmurs, distant cries, the usual silence, spent listening, spent waiting, waiting for the voice, the cries abate, like all cries, that is to say they stop, the murmurs cease, they give up, the voice begins again, it begins trying again, quick now before there is none left, no voice left, nothing left but the core of murmurs, distant cries, quick now and try again, with the words that remain, try what, I don’t know, I’ve forgotten, it doesn’t matter, I never knew, to have them carry me into my story, the words that remain, my old story, which I’ve forgotten, far from here, through the noise, through the door, into the silence, that must be it, it’s too late, perhaps it’s too late, perhaps they have, how would I know, in the silence you don’t know, perhaps it’s the door, perhaps I’m at the door, that would surprise me, perhaps it’s I, perhaps somewhere or other it was I, I can depart, all this time I’ve journeyed without knowing it, it’s I now at the door, what door, what’s a door doing here, it’s the last words, the true last, or it’s the murmurs, the murmurs are coming, I know that well, no, not even that, you talk of murmurs, distant cries, as long as you can talk, you talk of them before and you talk of them after, more lies, it will be the silence, the one that doesn’t last, spent listening, spent waiting, for it to be broken, for the voice to break it, perhaps there’s no other, I don’t know, it’s not worth having, that’s all I know, it’s not I, that’s all I know, it’s not mine, it’s the only one I ever had, that’s a lie, I must have had the other, the one that lasts, but it didn’t last, I don’t understand, that is to say it did, it still lasts, I’m still in it, I left myself behind in it, I’m waiting for me there, no, there you don’t wait, you don’t listen, I don’t know, perhaps it’s a dream, all a dream, that would surprise me, I’ll wake, in the silence, and never sleep again, it will be I, or dream, dream again, dream of a silence, a dream silence, full of murmurs, I don’t know, that’s all words, never wake, all words, there’s nothing else, you must go on, that’s all I know, they’re going to stop, I know that well, I can feel it, they’re going to abandon me, it will be the silence, for a moment, a good few moments, or it will be mine, the lasting one, that didn’t last, that still lasts, it will be I, you must go on, I can’t go on, you must go on, I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.
You are not a failure.
As Jessica says, hugs and tea.
x
No way on this good earth are you a failure. I'd say it is the small minded around whom you must navigate who are the failures.
Hope your spirits are lifting today.
Martha
I'm sad to hear that you are going through this. We're in the same lifeboat. For similar reasons.
Being employed at home as a medical transcriptionist or speech recognition editor is what I'm working towards. When I applied for re-hire as a medical transcriptionist at the hospital where I had worked with consistently positive evaluations of my work for nearly 20 years, I received a letter informing me that I wasn't a good "fit" and that I would not be re-hired.
Oh dear, so sorry. I hope that you find somewhere where you're better appreciated.
Very sorry to hear this. I hope you find someplace where you're much more valued and feel like a good fit.
Jessica, mm, Crow,
I'll gladly share both. But not the sense of failure.
Sky,
That is the hard bit, ain't it?
RR,
Sure feels awful.
So,
Ha! I had to look it up, Beckett never would have made it as a nurse these days.
I. P/H,
Thanks. I'll get the kettle on.
Crikey, that's hard. Sorry to hear it, Zhoen. But you're not a failure. From what I've read, you excel at a lot that's truly important.
Very best wishes for finding something that suits you well, soon.
Oh, hugs, dear.
Zhoen, substantial amounts of empathy in your direction. I myself am shite at female politics of the sort I think you're referring to - and some of the best people I know are misanthropic writers who are not social people persons.
It feels to me (and not just in reference to this post) that you are an artist by nature.
I'm very sorry to hear this. Today's workplace is pretty universally not a good place, I think, and for anyone at all unconventional a very difficult place indeed. It scares me too. Hope you can hold on to your confidence and separate criticism of behaviour (however mean and unjustified) from criticism of your deepest self - so hard, so necessary. And I hope, of course, that this have a silver lining, perhapse open some doors to a niche that is a better fit for you.
xxxx
I hope, with jean, that this will be a disguised blessing and will lead on to better things.
Failure to be the same as everyone else is a good thing, if a little inconvenient at times...
good luck with impending changes, let us know how things go.
(o)
Ah Z, am away for a few days and return to find this.I hope that all comes good for you. with love Sx
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