Day three.
Back at work.
There are new people everywhere and I am sitting, essentially, in a hallway.
Every ten point five seconds someone stops to welcome me back, over cheerful as if to pretend the events of last year never occurred and old happy haveachatlookatmyprettyshoes Kelley is back again.
haveachatlookatmyprettyshoesdeeplydisassociated Kelley
I am introduced to the new people and in the next breath they are informed about my shoe collection.
Not the chick that lost her shit last year.
Or the one that is barely holding on by the skin of her bleeding gums (what the fuck is with THAT?!).
The more blunt of my colleagues mention my weight gain. Joking about having a holiday full of fun and, obviously, food.
Others ask about my kids or if I am ready for Christmas or how is this crazy weather?
Don’t mention the war.
I am given SO MUCH work to do. None of what I used to do.
The boring, mundane tasks that someone has to do.
And that someone, it seems, is me.
Brain damaged girl is liable to paint the walls with her own shit, lets not give her the important stuff.
Today as I sat at my temporary desk – the promise of a pretty shiny new one overlooking a park and the water in the new year dangled before me – there are people everywhere.
All around me there are flashes of suits and colours and my brain is trying to make sense of it all along with the bright fluorescent light (is it flickering? I swear it is flickering. Does anyone else notice the flickering?) and the work that I KNOW. I KNOW I KNOW IT WHY IS IT SO FUCKING HARD and nothing is set up and apparently I should just know how to do it.
And maybe I should. But right now, in this moment full of people and lights and people and lets pretend everything is fine and it is 1999, I just don’t.
I am drowning.
They changed the way we print and use the photocopier. Someone explained to me why but memory fails me (how weird…*sarcasm font*) but suffice to say we need to scan our security passes to get them to work, and guess who has a useless temporary security pass to go along with her temporary desk and temporary status as a normal person?
Did I ask for a pass? I am sure I asked. I wrote it down and everything. Did I?
Upper management are wary of me. Or overly friendly. Or, as is the case with one who I have been friends with for over 20 years and was my person at work, pretend I don’t exist.
Tight smile when eye contact made. Ouch.
I am holding it together, barely, and stare at the screen and try to control my breathing and remember what I was doing just minutes before.
Until another person approaches to welcome me back and we do the dance and pretend that it is 1999.
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
onomatopoeia…
Oh lovely lady. Big arsed hugs to you. We love you. xxxxxxx
Waaaaah! I’m crying inside for you. Why won’t anyone let you do what you can….and be treated with true understanding?
Because everyone is only ever concerned about themselves, their jobs, their promotion chances & when they get to retire.
Oh Kel, this is not working for a living. This is a jail sentence.
I hope someone makes a decision that both helps & supports you
Denyse
Big hugs. I hope things settle into some kind of bearable routine for your. Being back after everything you’ve been through must be incredibly hard (understatement). Hang in there, chick…
I’ve been thinking about you and wondering how you’ve been since going back to work. It takes a little while to settle back in but you’ll get your groove back soon. I’m sure chicky babe. Hang in there x
Oh shit, I feel for you. It must feel like hell. Big ol’ cyber hugs coming your way.
Sending much love and light your way, and hoping that they light up at least a tiny corner of the suckage.
this post is heartbreaking
i can ‘feel’ every slicing word
this sounds horrible
and i get it, i really get it
its seems this year is perfect for turning everything upside down and inside out
and just when you think you have caught onto how things are and how they will be, it spins you on your head again
big cyber hugs to you
and hang in there
we all love you – no fake smiles or weird eye contact
xx
<3 I am hoping it gets easier and fast.
Why is it that so much changes all the freaking time? The new faces are the hardest.
Ummm, I’m not sure what to say here. I don’t think I can offer any solutions. Maybe a suggestion…if you can’t remember what you’ve been shown of a new system, then ask to be reminded how it goes? Ask for help? (The hardest thing in the world, I know. I hate asking for help when I know that I should remember how to be doing something). And ask for a proper security pass to use the photocopier if you’re going to have to use it every day.
And put a tiny sparkly Christmas Tree on your desk.
The thing is, you’re going to have to prove to them that you can adjust and fit back in. You have to be “the newbie” all over again.
Onomatopoeia babe.
Thinking of you Kelley.
Sucks. Bastard workmates are bastards. Love you.
I’m sorry it’s so hard. It was always gonna be, wasn’t it? Forge on through, things will adjust. You will, they will. Just sit tight. It’s ok.
Corporate sucks big time. I’m bloody over it and understand the bullshit of having to speak to people you don’t care about, about shit you don’t care about. Surely there is a way out. If you work it out, promise to let me know.
Corporate sucks big time. I’m bloody over it and understand the bullshit of having to speak to people you don’t care about, about shit you don’t care about. Surely there is a way out. If you work it out, promise to let me know.
I’m feeling you! I’ve just come back after a year of utter hell (not just the health stuff, but personal stuff) then took a three month break because I could see I was useless and losing my shit, and as it turns out the guy that stood in for me has a sunshine-emitting anus AS WELL AS a love of fishing and dirty jokes AS WELL AS a wang (you heard it here first!). So now he has my job and I’m doing the shit their fucking undergraduate engineers should be doing. Fucking fuckers. Don’t they realise that I’m a fucking superstar??! But I can see the cracks in him…
Oops, that was supposed to be about you. Ummm yeah you’ll become part of the furniture again soon. People are already accidentally asking me to do things that are no longer my problem/job but it’s all a step forward. Soon they’ll be doing it to you, too, and day by day you’ll cope a little better xoxo
Thinking of you and hoping for at least some small things to start falling into place and go your way
Breathe Kelley. Right now, just remember to breathe.
Shitheads
I recommend humour, not on those souless arsehats, but for you. Have you seen Office Space, with Ron Livingston. Funny because it is partly true
This is a link for the trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IwzZYRejZQ
Change is hard. Make it change with a brain fart or two thrown in and it’s a bitch and a half. You can do this, I believe in you.
Onomatopoeia, baby. Onomatopoeia!
Fuckers. This sucks all the dicks in the land.
The lights are TOTALLY flickering babe, don’t worry about that one.
As for the others, a big hug to you and nothing but hope that it will get better sooner rather than later.
Hope it gets easier quicksmart x
Hey, it’s only day 3. take your time easing in. The tight smile says more about the smiler than you. Be kind to yourself. Big hugs.
xxx
Groan, this sounds like hours of hell, every freaking work day. Feeling for you Kelley, and hoping that the fuckers suck a little less each day.