What Goes Around

It is exhausting being in the presence negativity, but when you are in the presence of malice it is more than exhausting, it is draining.  People like that suck the life out of you then blame you for their perceptive failures of you.   They infuse you with all the negative energy they generate and pretend to be your best friend while they do it.  I allow energy to pass through me for the people I love, cleansing their soul as it does.   I willingly take on what is harbored within them, and release it into the universe.  It is a type of healing.  As I walk through my day, I shield myself from the energy and emotions of the people I come into contact with so I don’t wear myself out, or infuse myself with energy not mine to disperse.  Every once in a great while, there comes along someone who is so damaged, I cannot shield myself from the havoc they create. 

I have come into forced contact with such a person.  I am unable to create enough physical distance to avoid the energy wrath he emits from his embittered soul, so it is a daily assault on my spirit.  I have been able to bear it for the most part, holding tight to the truth I know, and by recognizing how damaged this person is.  It worked well until today.  Today, his assault upon my spirit was relentless and it created a hurricane inside of me.  It has been a long time since I have felt rage coursing through my body.  It was ugly and I hope I don’t experience it any time in the near future.  It filled my body and created an energy field all around me.  It permeated my space, and it affected everyone near me.  It broke my happiness, annihilated my peace, and left me feeling powerless.  I really don’t like feeling powerless.  Worse, I had no recourse, no way to dissipate what he had inflicted upon me.  I tried to walk it off, it wasn’t helpful.  If ever I was tempted to go postal, this was it.

This guy is a prime example of what happens when a bullied boy grows up to become a man with some education and a little bit of authority over the lives of others.  He is the best reason to stop bullying before they have authority over you.  Always the optimist, I gave him the benefit of the doubt at first.  I can’t help it; I want to see the good in people.  Sometimes I have to look pretty hard, but I can usually find a place of compassion for them.  He projected an image of wanting to be your friend, your buddy while he was responsible for teaching you the job.  In theory, he was supposed to be cultivating a spirit of camaraderie while supporting your efforts at success.  He succeeded at the camaraderie; almost everyone who comes into contact with him begins to despise him sooner or later.  Bonding together over a common enemy is a powerful force.  When you bond over an enemy who pretends to be on your side, it is even stronger. 

This man projects an image of what he believes to be a straight-up, shoot from the hip kind of approach.  You can respect that.  After all, it is his job to call you on areas of improvement.  There are hints to an underlying malice, an underlying sense of rage, but you just don’t want to believe it is what you are seeing.  Those hints are troubling enough you place them in your mental file, though.  I began to notice a pattern emerging in him.  In the beginning, it was directed largely at older women.  There are three women in my unit over forty.  All of us were struggling to learn an antiquated software system fraught with more glitches than operational segments.  The software system is unduly and unnecessarily complex, requiring four or more passwords to run the various aspects of it.  Additionally, one system easily affects the stability of other system components so a glitch in one area can cause a domino effect in others.  It does not run efficiently, windows pop up covering the windows you need to work through, other windows pop up while you are entering information in another field, obliterating the information you are entering and you have to ask the customer for it again.  The windows are painfully slow to populate and it is easy to forget information you need on the first window by the time the subsequent windows populate over it.  In the midst of it, certain components time out frequently and without warning, causing other components to close with them.  This means when you go to utilize them, you have to sign back into those components in order to perform your job.  He made all three of us feel like blithering idiots, and while I may wear the dunce cap from time to time, it is not easy feat.  The more he pressured us to get us to speed of the younger set, the harder time we had learning the system.   He demoralized, degraded and humiliated all of us.  He also underestimated all three of us.  We come from a sturdy generation.  We are stubborn and we work damn hard.  Though it complicated the learning process, we pushed aside his thinly veiled superiority and learned our jobs. 

Contempt for older women soon was not enough for him.  I watched as he created a pecking order on the team.  Next, he honed in on the people he thought would be a liability on his team statistics, again focusing on women.  These women were younger, but it affirmed my observation he had an underlying hatred for women.  Watching this unfold made me feel better.  I wasn’t a blithering idiot after all, it was about him.  While he was eliminating potential statistical risks, he identified team mates he thought would be an asset to him and partnered up his buddy approach with them.   His team pets were soon evident as special privileges and praise were afforded these individuals.  His pets were the early running top performers, so to the untrained eye, it appeared as if he were rewarding their efforts.   I do not believe that blindly.  I observe for emerging evidence.  He continued to treat women with disregard and disrespect, except for a couple of young, pretty things with not a lot going on in the brains department.  One refused to put a Campbell’s microwavable cup of soup in the microwave because it had a metal ring around it.  That’s what the plastic cap is for that you heat it with.  She made quite a spectacle of it until someone else took the soup and put it in the microwave for her.  She wouldn’t read the directions, she wouldn’t listen to what everyone else was saying, and someone had to rescue her so she could have her soup for lunch.  In some ways, he treated them worse than if he treated them with disrespect.  The difference was, they thought the special privileges were some type of honor.  I saw them as patronizing. 

I watched as he targeted various types of people, treating them with contempt and condemnation.  Most of them were oblivious to it at first, because he’s the kind that rips you apart while pretending to act in your best interest.  He demands you hold yourself accountable for system failures and training failures.  You can’t know what you don’t know and it is his job to teach you.  Instead, he faults you for not performing to falsely high expectations.  He injects it as your failure, not his.  Over the course of time, I saw his prejudice was not limited to older women, but to every member of the team except his handpicked superstars.  I began to hate having any contact with him, and despite taking personal pride in my performance I no longer cared if I beat my own personal best.  I was not alone.  People who initially performed well began to develop negativity about their day, their performance and their overall functioning in their position.  If something went wrong, they tried to avoid him at all costs, waiting for him to leave the unit so they could approach another manager with their issue.  I refused to allow him to color my life, trying to stay off his radar (which was impossible on a consistent basis) and biding my time until I could change shifts and managers.  By now, I saw that no other manager treated their team like he did.  I didn’t even care which manager I ended up with, I wanted anyone but him.  Looking forward to bolting made the time I had to bear him tolerable.  I played the game.  I acted like I believed he was my friend as he degraded me.  I acted like his contempt was a friendly joke.  I smiled on the outside and screamed “Fuck you asshole!” on the inside.  I had many imaginary scenarios going on in my head when I had to deal with him.

For a while, I was able to stay off his hit list.  Everyone on the team saw he isolated me for a frequent target, but I refused to allow him to alter my spirit.  I came in and performed my job.  He was rude and patronizing to me; he treated me with blatant disrespect and talked about me like I was his special cross to bear with the other managers.  When in a conference with him one day, he even said to me “You might not have me as a manager after shift bid; another manager might not be as understanding of your special needs.”  The only special need I had was to get as far away from him as I could, but he made it sound as if I wouldn’t do well with anyone else.  I began to see he took great pleasure in denigrating everyone around him in such a subtle way that some appreciated him for being “tough” on them.  A tough manager is honest, forthright and fair.  This one is sneaky, manipulative and conniving.  He revels in his limited power and thinks no one sees him for the underhanded abusive child he is.  I see him.  I’ve seen him from almost the beginning and he knows it, which is why he is meaner to me than anyone else.  I bore this while keeping my happy, positive attitude at work.  I was waiting. 

As time passed, I moved up the ladder in my stats.  It wasn’t long before I was a regular in the top five producers with an occasional number one spot.  Now I am a steady first place holder.  My numbers are great and yesterday I found out I was one of ten people on the site who were in the top tier.  Success is the best revenge.  It also makes him look like a contemptuous idiot.  As I have become more successful, he has become angrier.  Being around that type of person is incredibly draining.  I am exhausted at the end of the day, I can barely stay awake at work and the anxiety he perpetuates interferes with my sleep.  Worse, he triggers deep seated fears in me related to the abuse my father lay upon my tiny feet.  Post-traumatic stress emerges under the same influences as the original trauma.  This man was hitting all the bullet points. He had the same sneaky smile as my father, the same joviality as he cut your jugular.  He had a thinly veiled hatred for women, and enjoyed his limited power over others.   I starting dropping weight, which was concerning to me but I held on knowing my time with him was coming to an end.  The anxiety made my private life a challenge, panic attacks threatened to take over on a daily basis.  I worked hard to keep it all under control and I refused to allow him to mar my spirit.  He had no right to my happiness, but he was making it very difficult to enjoy being me. 

He is the textbook case of a child who was bullied and grew up to have dominion over the lives of others.  He is morbidly obese and has gained significant weight in the six months I have been with him.  He is eating himself to death.  I saw him yesterday in the break room sitting in the corner all by himself, eating his lunch.  I nearly felt sorry for him.  Nearly.  He has psychology textbooks in his office, which I’m sure he reads but he doesn’t have the capability of understanding.  Some people study psychology in order to bring understanding and growth to their own life, and to help them relate to the lives of others.  They study it to mitigate and heal their own pain, and to alleviate the pain of others.  Some people study psychology in order to understand human behavior and use that understanding to manipulate it to their own advantage.  It is self-serving, abusive, contrived and malicious.  They use it to inflict disharmony and chaos into the world of the people around them.  It is a game to them, a game they think no one is clever enough to see.  Honestly, most people don’t see it.  They are so sneaky; they hide it under the guise of friendliness and humor.  I have been exposed to that type of manipulative selfishness much of my life.  I see it.  I see him.  He knows it, too.  He tries to out maneuver me, but what people like him can never grasp is that I’m not playing the game.  I have no interest in playing his underhanded mind fuck.  It wouldn’t be a fair fight, but I wouldn’t want to bring that kind of energy into my life.  When you come from a position of strength, you don’t have to prove it.  Only the weak need to prove how strong they are.  He is weak. 

Today his assault on my spirit was relentless.  I only have a couple of more days with him, and he has stepped up his game.  The latest stats came out & I am again at the number one spot.  In the past weeks, I have hit that spot frequently.  Typically, the top performer receives lots of praise and recognition.  They receive special privileges to reward their success and to motivate others toward it.  He has been noticeably quiet every week I hit number one.  I don’t need recognition for my achievements.  That’s not what drives me, and I don’t need to prove to anyone my worth.  I strive to be the best I can be at everything I do.  I take note when I am not treated the same as others.  The rewards are nominal, so I don’t care he is not rewarding my achievement.  I would be slightly embarrassed at team recognition, though it was earned.  But he is not treating me the same as everyone else.  I guess the lack of recognition and reward is meant to be a slight.  I don’t see it as a slight against me.  I see it as a measure of the small man this person is.  He called me into his office over trivial infractions, used a thin veil to threaten my job if I did not correct those infractions, and used my break to do it.  I tried to leave his office during a break in the assault, but he told me to sit back down while he rambled on about site statistics that held no meaning for me.  He knew I wanted to leave his cubby and he had me trapped.  I didn’t give him anything to feed off of, but he tried to dine anyway.  He was making his last play for control, his last play to break me.  He told me a few weeks ago his managerial approach was to break the members of his team so he could see what they are made of.  He said he had to break them in order to build them up.  He compared it to army boot camp.  The difference is that army boot camp is training you to survive potentially life threatening situations.  This is a low level entry position and he is just above me on the ladder.  I have yet to see the part where he builds them back up.  He has demoralized everyone on the team, some with more experience that he has. 

I was angry and frustrated most of the day.  The angrier I got, the more mistakes I made.  This served as his form of proof that he was right all along, I was incompetent.  Disregard the proof in my performance; it was his reputation at stake.  I hit the wrong key and locked myself out of a program.  This requires a manager reset of your passwords.  “Charisse, you silly goose, how do you keep locking yourself out of the program?”  He called me a silly goose twice this day.  Forget I am twice his age, forget I have more education than he does, forget I have accomplished more in both my professional and personal life than he will ever dream of, I am a silly goose.  He might as well have called me a fucking slut, it has the same effect.  Calling me a silly goose can’t get him fired, though.  His negative energy and malice permeated the entire area and I absorbed it all.  It was an awful, ugly and uncomfortable feeling to carry.  I absorb, transform and release the energy surrounding me.  The energy field he created was so pervasive I had no choice but to absorb it and it made me physically ill as well as threw me into mental and emotional disarray.  My emotions were in chaos and I felt what he lives with every single day of his life.  Now I know why he eats himself to death, personally, I would take a faster route. 

I rode home with a coworker who is actually the only person here who knows me at all.  He has the same manager and has been having challenges of his own with him.  Usually, I am the one telling him this man isn’t worth his time; we just have to wait until he transfers at the end of this month to another team.  I am the one telling him how this man treats him is not a reflection of who he is.  It is a reflection of the type of man we are exposed to.  I told him a week ago that our manager had a storm coming.   I am spiritually sensitive and often know things on a spiritual plane.  I’m not a psychic, though I have been called one.  There are just some things I know.  I don’t know what direction the storm will come from, but there is something very bad heading his way.  I told my coworker to let him know this man will not be unpunished; the malice he is perpetrating will be met with justice.  I know it is coming to him, I can feel it as if the storm was electric in the night air.  He asked me what happened all day and I replied I was so infuriated I couldn’t talk about it.  I normally chatter a mile a minute and I can’t speak.  That is the gravity, depth and perversion of the energy he inflicted upon me.  I was afraid to release it to my coworker.  I was afraid of where it might land if I did.  I needed to get back home and release it back into the universe. 

I arrived at home and began my meditation.  I was shocked at how much negative, malicious and cruel energy this man harbors.  I’ll have to thank him for sharing.  It took a significant amount of time to release it from by being, and my soul felt dirty and used after I did.  I was spent and exhausted but felt so much better after I was done.  I soon was back to my happy little self; I refuse to place in safe keeping that which would destroy my soul.  I deserve a happy life, and this man deserves everything that is about to come into his universe.  Then I realized something significant.  He gave me the storm that will bring chaos and destruction to his life.  I could have kept that storm, harboring it in my own insecurities and allowing it to permeate and poison my life.  Most people do exactly that.  I didn’t.  I became one with Spirit and released the storm into the universe.  It wasn’t my storm to keep.  That storm will find its way back to him, and when it does it will have gained in strength and intensity.  That’s what storms do.  When it hits him, he will feel sorry for himself and wonder why it happened to him.  Last week, I told my coworker a storm was coming for this man.  I had no idea I would be the one to release it, but I could not have done it unless it had been handed to me.  I am not a vengeful person, I would not have responded in malice toward him.  Still, there is a certain satisfaction knowing I was the conduit for the chaos that is about to hit a man who has caused my insufferable grief these last months.  Some may call it karma, I call it beautiful.