I gave my two weeks notice. I finally let go.
The day began just like any other workday. All was normal. I was up early and ready to begin another grueling workday even though I wasn’t sure what the day might bring me.
I was always unsure about the workday even though I knew my position and what was expected of me. It’s just that the creator of the job assignments would always make sure to leave me in limbo. As coach, I don’t think the person in that position cared for me really because I never knew from day to day where I would be placed despite my reputation for being one of the hardest and best workers at my assigned task.
I felt like this particular coaching manager always had it out for me even though I thought they were better at management than some of the other coaches of the past. I actually gave this particular coaching manager the benefit of doubt, at least until I realized they also played the game of narcissistic chess well enough to cause me to question their motives. Now, that coaching manager avoids me like I have the plague and fancies having conversations with my adversaries in front of my face – the mobbing bullies I refer to as the mobsters.
Needless to say, it was a foot injury that made that coaching manager leave me alone for a while. I could not be scheduled to do anything else other than my originally hired-to-do job. So, as time went on, I became better, faster, and more efficient at my assigned task. For the weeks that I suffered from a broken toe, I could do my best work. I improved so much that I was mainly thought of as the fastest and most efficient worker on my team. Everyone was finally able to see just how good I was at what I was hired to do. It was to the point that team leads and managers outside of the department in which I work all sang my praises too.
When these praises occurred, the particular coach who was in charge of the schedule always avoided me – literally stopped having any interactions with me whatsoever. I often wondered what I’d done wrong and would be, at times, tempted to ask. That’s when I began to study this coach’s behavior and discerned through a host of patterns that this coach was playing along with narcissistic games. Once I discerned this for certain, I pulled away, silenced myself around this coach, and no longer spoke to this coach about anything.
In the past, I had shared with this coach my grievances and frustrations regarding the toxicity within the workplace. I mistakenly believed this coach was about positive change, but when I began to see no action behind their words, I realized they were merely all talk and no action, and that they were appeasing my narcissistic teammates – even setting them up against me. That’s when it dawned on me that when I told this coach I felt as if I was being driven out, they turned a deaf ear to my comments and went about making things even harder for me based on how they scheduled me regarding assignments.
For as long as I could, though, I rode that wave of goodness and praise regarding my work successes because I knew it wasn’t going to last. Occasionally, the coaching manager would throw a chink into the schedule and have me working outside of my regularly assigned area. This coach never did anyone else this way at all. So, I knew this was on purpose and by design, despite what this coach claimed to be the company’s needs.
Nothing this coach ever did made sense to me (or many others for that matter), but all I could do was go with it. Most often, the team leads would decide that I needed to be where I was originally assigned when I was hired because I was best suited to that task. So they’d move me as soon as they had the chance. The most I could believe was that maybe this coach was not only intent on sabotaging me in the process but also intent on sabotaging everyone else too.
Needless to say, on the day that all seemed normal when I came into work, there was something brewing underneath the surface. I saw it without seeing it. I saw it without being able to verbalize it. It was something I saw in the spiritual realm. It was something that could not be stopped. Things ran quickly out of my control, and before I realized it, I made a decision that would change the direction of my life’s path enough to set me free from a toxic work environment.
I don’t know what it was in particular, but something was different. I could feel it in the atmosphere. It wasn’t even a matter of something or just one thing; it was a cumulation of things. I had reached the final break, dealt with too many final straws, and couldn’t go any further on this job even if I tried to push myself to see it through. I’d reach a certain point where seeing it through didn’t mean anything anymore. There was no seeing it through on a job where I no longer wanted to be. I was unhappy and dissatisfied, and my unhappiness and dissatisfaction had reached a zenith.
On the morning I walked into the job and waited to get my equipment, I saw the schedule and realized for the last time the feeling I’d always had the moment I felt that I was being pushed out of my position back some months ago. It was an unsettling feeling and nothing I could pinpoint specifically or put my finger on in that moment. It was just a keen sense of knowing that I couldn’t shake.
When I saw that the the very people who formed a mob against me were working together on my original assignment, I felt an uneasiness within me. I didn’t want to think anything about it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. For whatever reason, I immediately felt defeated, and when I looked ahead on the schedule and saw that I was no longer being assigned to my usual department, I knew something was up, and I felt a strong consternation within me that this was indeed the final straw.
My Voice Unchained 