If I thought the hiring manager (who reminds me of my narcissist mother) of human resources (HR) was going to respect my wishes for privacy regarding my resignation, the love bombing stage of niceness that I’d experienced with her after rescinding my first resignation was definitely over. Mind you, such information should be confidential, but nothing within this particular workspace remains confidential or private. Wishes for such are never respected.
I knew something was up by the way the team leads and coaches had been reacting to me. I said nothing though – not even giving a hint that I was leaving. For me, it just wasn’t up for discussion. I didn’t feel that I owed anyone an explanation, and I wasn’t going to be pressed to talk about it. Yet, they remained silent towards me – a little more than usual – some even behaving as if I was invisible. So, I knew the news was out, and they were essentially dismissing my presence before my actual departure.
As for my coworkers, I knew something was up when conversations teetered on attempting to gossip about all the changes taking place within the workplace and all the people leaving as a result of those changes. The changes weren’t about improvement but were more or less about a sledgehammer of micromanagement coming down to place judgment upon employees who hadn’t yet realized they were working for a toxic corporation of superiors. I didn’t care though. I was as good as out the door. I was trying to bide my time.
Damsel in Distress, the coworker who’d led a mob of others against me over a position that I was hired for, attempted to use her manipulative charms of feigned innocence to win me over so that she could learn my personal business. Based on all the information she shared about others leaving, I supposed that she wanted to hear from my mouth if I was leaving. It was obvious to me that news about my resignation had already traveled down the line to others, but I didn’t share. I neither confirmed nor denied any information. I just listened as she attempted to try every angle to pry information out of me.
I didn’t share any information about myself because I didn’t want to share. I wanted to keep my privacy, and as much as I could have simply said I was moving on, I also didn’t feel I owed anyone an explanation about my business. I’d been friendly with coworkers, but none of them had been my friends. I didn’t share personal details about myself because I’d learned that many of the people within this workspace would weaponize information against others for the sake of leveling up or simply being vicious towards them. I also didn’t want to say anything about my departure because I didn’t want the process of moving on to my next venture to be impeded upon.
Some of these coworkers, team leads, coaches, and managers didn’t play fair. They could, in fact, be downright malicious. Their need to deep-dive into the secret spaces and chambers of a person’s heart about even the most benign and minute details was crazy to me. Their need to know business that wasn’t theirs to mind really bothered me. The toxicity was infuriating in this way because I couldn’t even take time off from work to be sick without the speculation as to why I actually needed time off. I couldn’t go without inserting my absence into an online application without someone’s need to know why such an absence wasn’t being shared for everyone to know. That’s crazy!
It never ceases to amaze me what personal details most coworkers knew about other coworkers either. Nonetheless, I was taken aback by their overall need to break into the lives of those who refused to talk about themselves. If they couldn’t easily speculate, then they’d go to more severe means of gathering information like talking to anyone a coworker might have possibly confided in just to dig for information.
Interestingly, there was no one that my coworkers could go to about me because I had not even revealed reasons for my departure to even HR. I was friendly to many people, but I chose not to make friends or close connections. When resigning, I simply gave a final date for my presence on the job and that was pretty much it. Even when the HR hiring manager attempted to pry, I remained silent. Interestingly, this didn’t go over too well, and even though the hiring manager said nothing to me about it, her behavior onward told me everything I needed to know.
My Voice Unchained 