Sooo... I'm doing a bit better than I was when I wrote Monday's post. I don't even think I've cried since Tuesday morning.
Yeah, I basically cried in front of my boss. Well, I didn't let him see actual tears or anything, but my eyes were all watery and my voice was all trembly and ugh.
Here's what happened. Monday night, I all but promised my husband that I'd quit the manager part of the job and tell my boss that I just wanted to be a tutor. But I didn't feel good about this decision. Usually, when I make a decision like that, I feel some sense of relief. But not this time. It felt a bit too... abrupt.
So Tuesday morning, my boss and I met for coffee before our normal 9am staff meeting. I told him the same things that I said on the phone the day before. I want to keep the job. But the job's open-ended never-ending projects make me stress. Stress is really not good for me and exacerbates my mental illness. (he knows that I have one... just not the gory details.) I told him my doc and my husband are both telling me to slow down.
He said that he wants to keep me. That he's happy with my job performance so far. And he'd been thinking about ways to cut back on the stressful aspects of the job. Then, he tried to have a conversation with me about how to do this. This is the point at which I got all emotional and incapable of reason, thought or coherent speech.
"I may not be able to trouble shoot with you today." I said. "I'm sorry... it's incredibly frustrating, but my symptoms have really been acting up lately." I think I worded that reasonably well. "symptoms." Labile and extreme emotions are symptoms of my mental illness. (They're also symptoms of weak little girly-girls... yeah, I'm a strong working woman... sigh.) Of course, I left the door open wide enough so that the poor guy could think that my symptoms are visual hallucinations or hearing voices or thinking I'm Jesus. (well that last one could be true. My birthday is Christmas eve...)
I also asked him for a little more clarification about my job as "team manager."
"Basically, I don't have a clear description for that." He said. "Just thinking about ways to make the team better, really. Even this conversation is kinda doing that. I know other people on the team have some simmilar concerns. [Our business manager] has told me that this job is contributing to her insomnia." (ok, that's kinda nice to hear that i'm not alone in this, but seriously, I think the business manager works 10x more than me!)
"Well, that's good to know, because up until now, I've kind of assumed that being team leader meant that I was supposed to make sure everything got done... by me. You know, that makes me feel a lot better because pointing out ways to improve employee/customer satisfaction is certainly something that I know is a strength of mine. In fact, I think the ability to tune into what's going on with my students is what makes me a good tutor. It's a good and bad part of being highly sensitive. Perhaps I'm sort of a canary in the coalmine."
So we agreed that he'd think of ways to narrow and tighten up my job description and I'd take a little time off this week and think about how i'd like to proceed. (I needed the mental health sick day but I told him this partially because i'm in NM housesitting for my parents and I know i'm be less productive out here.)
Anyway, it looks like I'm keeping my job for the meantime. I'm going to try to keep this job in perspective and not be so hard on myself when something doesn't go 100% according to plan. And I'm going to try to keep my personal life and work life (thoughts included) from bleeding over into each other. I don't know if that's totally do-able, but it's a goal. At least I got some positive feedback about my performance.
And... there's one more benefit from this conversation.
My boss is employing someone with a severe mental health disability. He's learning what that means and I got the opportunity (at least I tried to) stick up for myself and try to ask for what I need. Yes, I came off as weak and vulnerable, but frankly, (no matter what my father taught me) employers hire human beings and not robots. If I have to have this freakin' disease, at least I can be a good and responsible ambassador from planet crazy.
I'm really thankful I have a good boss who's willing to deal with my special needs.
PS. my husband is now (in his own words) "bigger than curly fries." For the 1,000th time honey... I am 2% jealous, 98% proud and 0% resentful.
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