I’m up for the day at 3:15 am. No amount of tearful exhaustion can bring me rest in the darkness of this pre-dawn Friday. I fell into a fitful sleep at 10, woke at 3:15 to pump (no alarm needed for this – your body wakes you up when it’s time), and that was all she wrote.
My wretched Thursday work day, two very NOT TIRED dogs and a meowing cat, and keening for my baby have all conspired against me dreaming, and knowing that I have to work tomorrow, too, that I have to get up even earlier than a normal work day, is making my head pound. Much as I would like to call in, I have to go because I carpool with a guy and he can’t get there without me. So, ok. Ok. I give up on tossing and turning. I come in here, and empty my head onto this page, and maybe if I can scrape a dollar fifty out of the cushions of the couch, I can buy a McDonald’s coffee this morning and get by.
I am so tired, and I miss my baby in a way that is completely out of proportion to what sense would dictate – he will be back in a couple of days, he is on a good mission, an important one, meeting a very special member of our family. But dammit, he cut his first tooth on the drive to Indiana yesterday, and all I can think of is how badly I want to see my baby’s first tooth.
So I am feeling particularly fragile on this somewhat chilly morning, and all I can think about is how I skipped this trip to see my husband’s unwell grandmother so that I could meet some very important work obligations. I am not one to say that work is more important than family matters, ever. If my boss makes me choose between work and an important family event (like attending a wedding, or rushing to the comfort of a grieving relative), then I will find a new job. But in this case, I will be seeing Gran in November, at a wedding that we are all fairly certain she will be well enough to attend. And I have two very important projects happening at work right now that have a due date of, well, today actually, and also my overseas Director is here this week for a trip that she only makes twice a year (why this trip had to happen at the same time as the projects was poor planning on my part that has led to much stress and tearing of hair, as I try to meet a zillion obligations at once.) And so, though I would rather have stayed with my family and shown Gran my support this long weekend, instead I made the choice to stay home and finish my projects and meet with my Director and serve my company, because the obligation to work seemed the more urgent of the two. And so yesterday my Director’s boss, who is also here for this week from overseas, invited me into a meeting with a handful of very important people to discuss some Employment Law issues, on which I am my company’s subject matter expert. In this meeting, during which he never asked for my opinion or even let me (or anyone else) talk – so I guess it was more like a lecture than a meeting – well, during this very long meeting he asked me an impossible question, one for which every answer is a wrong answer and one that can harm your career, and though I tried to treat it as a rhetorical question he demanded an answer. And instead of being politically savvy enough to refuse to answer, which is what I should have done, I looked him in the eye and answered the question honestly, and then he used my answer as a stick to beat me with for the rest of the meeting, while I shrank down in my chair fighting to keep my composure and stare him down, and while every one else in the meeting looked around uncomfortably as he continually repeated my name, getting louder and crueller as the long awkward minutes passed and my face grew hot. But I did not cry. I did not cry. Not until 4:30 this morning when I realized that I wouldn’t be getting any more sleep, and it was partly because I kept hearing his accented voice spitting my name at me, over and over and over.
He made it very clear that I should have gone to Indiana. I am feeling very foolish now for sacrificing this trip in order to serve this stupid, small-minded man.
It is easy to feel disheartened in the darkness after a sleepless night, and I do. I am a woman in a man’s world, and if another man at work calls me a girl, or asks me to photocopy something that he is perfectly capable of copying himself, or to please get the door when the receptionist is on break, or to attend a meeting as a subject matter expert and then refuses to let me talk and completely disregards my (informed, educated, and bloody well CERTIFIED) opinion in favor of his own uninformed one, then I – I don’t know what I’ll do. Do I throw up my hands and say forget it? You’re right, world, there is no room for me in the workplace unless it is as a servant, and so I will quit fighting you? Or do I hoist myself up the ladder just to spite them? Do I work twice as hard to get 78% of the pay, because not only do I have to perform my work as a Manager – I also have make and fetch the coffee and then tidy up the men’s disgusting styrofoam cups when we’ve finished our meeting and one of them gives me the little swirly finger sign that says – Hey sweetie, how ’bout you adios these dirty dishes, huh? That’s a good girl.
My Director is a woman, too, and he was equally dismissive of her, not letting her talk and in some cases actually pushing her away from the table when she leaned in to comment, telling her to hush, you do not know what you are speaking of. After the meeting was over, she came over and apologized to me on his behalf, and said this is just the way he is, you know him, it is ok, he is not mad. And I know it’s partly missing-my-baby hormones talking, making this big melodramatic deal out of it, but I felt so bad for both of us. Two professional women, women with graduate degrees, women with proven skill, and we are nothing. We are supposed to be ok with being belittled, demeaned, and ignored, because at least "he is not mad."
I have to go take a shower and get ready for work. It is with reluctance, as you can imagine, and I only suck it up and do it because my income is one on which my family depends. It would have been satisfying to slam closed my notebook and stalk out of that meeting, and possibly out of the building, and possibly out of the job. I try to tell myself that Revenge is a dish best served cold, that I’ll show them one day, but even as I forcefully, angrily iron my work slacks and powder my face, I know I won’t. I’ll just work there until one day when I have another offer, and then I will leave, and it won’t hurt that wretched man one bit. He’ll just hire a replacement, probably a man to whom he will pay more money.
Boy, does that guy ever sound like a complete dickhead. The difference between you and him, though, is that his job with that company is probably literally the Number One Most Important Thing In His Life, Without Which He Is Nobody Doing Nothing and Going Nowhere. For you, it\’s eight hours of nonsense, necessarily tolerated for the money to do the things that actually matter. When you look at it that way, all of his huffing and puffing is more pathetic than anything else. What a loser.
You got it. Absolutely hit that nail on the head. I worked for him for 2 years before I found out that he had a wife and two children. He never mentioned them. He still doesn\’t – someone else had to tell me.
Oh I feel for you. I hope I never ever have to work for another tyrant, who doesn\’t respect you since you lack a penis. Sorry I haven\’t been by in well forever. I hardly ever log into MSN anymore. Must add that to my to do list, because I missed you. Reading over the last couple of posts I want to say it does get better, not that you are being whiny or anything. I just recall those days and how sometimes I felt so completely overwhelmed by it all. The lack of money, the lack of sleep, my husband working his tail off, having to leave my kid to work, wanting my body back, being head over heels crazy for that little boy. It\’s funny Z is in kindergarten and Max starts preschool tomorrow and while the day where I can take them both to school and go work on my own things is nigh, and reading your blog I can\’t help feel nostaligic for the past as well. Not that I really want to go back there, but glad I was there at one point. Does that make any sense?