breaking up is hard to do

Expressing myself through the written word is my preferred form of communication, but also the one that gets me into the most trouble. In its favor, it has a permanence that can allow for interpretation further on down the road. Or at least that is what I always hope will happen, after the initial misunderstanding. Words spoken off the cuff, in anger, also can have lasting effects, but re-living them only happens in one's mind until most of what was said is forgotten, to resurface only in the safety of a counselor's office or triggered by the next time it happens.

I put a lot of time into my plan to leave my job, hoping beyond hope that this time I could curb some of the fallout, the unnecessary drama that keeps everyone from having a good day.

To begin, I did not want to leave my job. In fact, I really liked my job, in spite of the assessment of a previous director who did not realize I was educated, competent or even human. At that time, I was reduced to the output of a laptop computer that crashed frequently causing me to lose all of my hard work and making it appear as though I had no skills when in reality the IT guy (may he rest in peace) told me my computer was broken. Hoping I would not end up in the same condition, I was given a computer of a woman who threw things in her cubicle the day she left until they told her they WOULD pay her for her vacation days after all, and she was able to calm down and collect her things in a box.

Writing, editing and proofreading is what I have always done. When I was in 5th grade if you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up my answer would be swift and plain: I want to be a writer. I wanted to travel to foreign lands. I wanted to read books by myself in the big tree on our farm. Instead of spending a lot of time with dolls, though I did enjoy creating doll houses out of shoe boxes and miscellaneous materials, I created a library complete with library cards in which I wanted my sisters to check out books. They, of course, wanted nothing to do with this game and could not understand why I was again asserting my authority over them. That was easy--I was the oldest. I needed no other reason.

In 7th grade I co-edited our class newsletter which meant I corrected the spelling and punctuation of willing classmates who desired to record the news of our small elementary school which was across the road from my dad's cherry orchard. I could wave to him on his tractor from the playground.

In high school, after finding myself so many points below failing geometry, which was unacceptable for a mostly A student, my guidance counselor found me a place in Mrs. B's journalism class. It was as though the skies had parted and a light had shone down from heaven: I had found my home. I co-edited the high school newspaper, re-writing stories to correct format and then took them down to the local newspaper to have it printed. I felt like I was on-track to becoming a journalist and decided to major in it in college and eventually graduate school.

But life is full of surprises and though I did work as a journalist briefly for a small newspaper in Colorado, my work life would lead me to data base editor positions at a law firm and many various administrative assistant positions before I became a preschool teacher for many years. I also helped my husband through two graduate programs and my sons through whatever papers they were writing.

So imagine my joy when not only would I be given a computer that did not lose all my work but my supervisor at that time recommended I be promoted to an editor position within the agency! It was not glamorous and the raise barely paid my bills, but I would get to read reports written by social workers who were not writers and I would make sentences better, spell words correctly, and insert punctuation wherever it was needed. It made my heart sing to employ the wonders of grammar daily.

For nine months I learned how to do this job and nine more felt comfortable with it. As the dark cloud of a job review gathered above my head, marking me down on tasks not assigned to me, I defended my work. Pointing this out did not make me popular or even heard. Then hard times hit and we were all asked to do our part and I kept reading and correcting and doing the absolute best I could do until we were all one by one called into the office, as though it were somehow the principal's office of which I know nothing because I was a good little girl and never got into trouble. Suddenly I was being told that my job description was going to be divided among others, I would take my previous title or some new variation thereof, take a cut in pay and even have to move into a cubicle the size of a small desk where the only window was so high above the desk that the sun shining in made it impossible to see my computer screen and I had to put a bulletin board behind the blinds to block the light.

And there it was: an impasse I could not traverse.

So I started to write a letter. At first it was your basic resignation-by-number letter that is a standard template used by many to professionally end their commitment. Obviously I was not going to do that. Having lost all I had, the last thing I could not lose was my voice. My words. My thoughts in written form like only I could write them. As I wrote this letter, I would stop and edit out the anger. I wrote this letter over and over for about three weeks. I had this amount of time because after the meeting in which my job description was taken away, I had found a new one by the next week, and would need to leave by the end of the month.

To give notice or not to give notice, that was the problem plaguing me. To give notice did not ensure that I could stay and get paid, and it would be perfectly legal for my employer to make that decision. In the end I realized my job had already given notice to me and I therefore would not need to give notice for something I no longer had. A part-time administrative assistant could be found the same day with a couple of phone calls. An editor with my credentials could not.

I wanted everyone in my small office to be given the same message to eliminate the need for comparisons or gossip. I wanted to demonstrate what I had been through since by this point I was one of the senior members of the staff though certainly not treated as such, and I wanted the rest of the one-page letter to be a place in which I could express my thanks to each staff member. I kind of saw it as an end of life letter that finally expresses in writing what one would not say out loud to anyone's face. I meant it sincerely as thank-you and good-bye. Nothing more, nothing less.

But here is where things took an unexpected turn.

Going into work on what I knew was my last day, I felt the need to tell my newly appointed supervisor my plan. I had told this woman three weeks before there was a great likelihood of my departure but that I was not willing to give notice. She told me she would tell those in charge. I could tell by the way they diverted their eyes every time I saw them that they knew. I was already being left behind by the herd for the wild animals to pick off at their leisure. I was no longer one of them. So on this day, my supervisor immediately called them, putting into motion something that did not resemble my plan. It was more closely associated with the nightmares I had been having for quite some time.

I was asked to write a resignation letter and told her I had written a letter. She said she didn't want a letter I would have written but something professional for my file. Three sentences later starting with, "Effective today" and ending with "my apologies," and I knew this thing was no longer in my hands. My hope for quietly going into that office that afternoon and sitting down to explain why I was leaving and how I could not be certain I would get paid for the two weeks and therefore could not give notice, was gone. Things went from bad to worse as I was called into the conference room to meet with those in charge. None of us even sat down. It was a standing meeting with my succinct resignation letter on the table in front of us, smiling up at me and apparently mocking them.

Suffice it to say it did not go well.

I then made the regrettable move of actually placing the letter I had written in each of their mailboxes. I say regrettable and yet I did not know at which moment I would be asked to leave and wanted the chance to leave the letter, so I did. (I would find out the next day by a coworker who had left the office early that she did not know it was my last day and contacted me to say good-bye. She knew nothing of the letter I had left for her since it was no longer in her box when she went to get her mail.) I should not have returned to the office after lunch but did so because my supervisor wanted as much information as she could get about my job that I no longer had, even though we had spent numerous hours for the previous three weeks transferring that information. I had not taken vacation hours as many with my plan for departure have done. I stayed to make sure every detail I could think of was covered.

Just as I was standing up, signing off my computer, gathering the last of my belongings, I was confronted by those in charge, this time shaking my true letter in my face with an anger I had hoped not to ever experience. I was told again how unprofessional I was, but the thing that seemed to get under the skin the most was that I had freely let my words tell my story and had not gone through the channels of leadership to communicate. I did not want my life reduced to an office memo. I knew I had broken the rules but I could not help it. I did not, as I was accused, write the letter to make anyone look bad. I wrote the letter to explain what had happened to me and why I needed to leave. It was further proof that some people will not ever know who I am and will therefore react in anger. I did not feel much of anything by that point. I had done what I could. I had a job that I liked, I did it to the best of my ability, it was taken away, and I left. The end.

I began again a new job today. It is not a job of writing or editing, but a job of caring for the needs of young children. I have always known that I have a special place in the hearts of babies, dogs, and special needs people. They somehow "get me" in ways others do not. I do not know why this is the case. I only know that their honesty does not tend to get them into trouble in the way mine does.