What Had Happened Was…

I posted last week about my long, busy, hot, fun-filled summer so far. What I didn’t post about was the off-the-charts stress I have been experiencing at my job. You remember the job that I started last September? The legal assistant job? I was accepted into law school but decided to put that off for lack of $90,000. I know, chicken, huh? Anywho, I was really bored at home, so I decided to find a job doing something. It took about two months, but I finally found a job. It was part-time, only twenty hours per week. Paid decent, gave me time to still accomplish home stuff, hit the grocery store, take the kids to the dentist, do all the laundry. Not a bad gig.

Well…about three weeks into said gig, I started realizing that my boss was a Type-A+++++ who had a nasty habit of constantly yelling, ranting, complaining, nitpicking, and calling her clients (in front of me, not the clients – whew) “f’ing idiots,” “f’ing stupid,” and losers. Nice, huh? Me being the pretty laid back one, I thought I could handle it. Until she started directing that crap toward me. Regularly. I knew I should have left when I was told to get out the ruler to see if the bottom page numbers were exactly 1 inch, not 1.1 inches. Uh huh. There were days when I was so nervous that my hands started shaking, which made it pretty difficult to type, which led to more of above-mentioned ranting and raging. And then there was the month after month I endured hearing the rage over the “f’ing idiot” printer who made a mistake on her letterhead. Yeah.

Soooooo…mid-way through an especially nasty rant about ME, I calmly said that I was through, done, not doing this any more, bye-bye. I mentioned that my self-esteem had been eroded to zero over the last year, then I proceeded to pick up my radio, little fan, reading glasses and purse. I ever so serenely walked to the elevator and left the building. Yep, that’s that.

I had promised myself to stay at this job for an entire year. I made it to within a couple of weeks of that goal. Doug suggested several times that I should just quit, but I kept thinking that I could surely stick it out. Guess not.

We are extremely fortunate that we are not in a position where I must work. I just really want to work. I enjoyed doing work that was important, at least to the clients. The stress of the law firm never got to me. That I can deal with. Now that’s it been a couple of days, I am on the road to regaining, little by little, my confidence and feelings of self-worth. It’s amazing how someone so insignificant can be allowed to squash the life out of someone simply with words. Hateful and hurtful words, for sure.

BUT…I am good, folks. Very good. I have been submitting resumes for over a month now. This time I will pay closer attention to that little voice in my head that is speaking LOUDLY during the initial interview telling me, “Um, she doesn’t seem to let anyone get in a word edgewise. Oh, and she has some extremely unkind things to say about my predecessor. That might end up being me.” Yeah, I so totally thought all this. No joking.

But let me tell you this. The morning after my Interesting Exit, my wonderful and loving hubby told me to go get a pedicure. I did, and it felt like heaven. I was still stinging from the hurtful words, so I was continually fighting tears. But my feet felt good!

Enough about that stuff. Unless, of course, you know of a good law firm looking for a GOOD legal assistant who loves working with clients and who can handle the sometimes extreme stress dealt out in said law firm. I’m your woman.

I want to leave you on a few positive notes. We went to a Braves game yesterday. Really, you say? Hehe That was our 11th game this season. We can’t help it, people. We still have at least two more games to go. Go Braves.

We grilled out. Doug is the Grill Master.

We sampled some junk food. See Doug’s homemade salsa?

We usually buy our tickets ahead so we can use our AAA discount – buy one, get one free. Didn’t do that for this game. We had to sit in the outfield near the foul line pole.

That’s not so bad. It’s that we had to pay a lot more for our tickets than usual. That’s yucky. And my gang kept falling asleep!!! Asleep, I tell ya. So you know, of course, I HAD to take these pictures. I had no choice, really. Back me up here.

Everyone eventually woke up. When they are awake, they need treats. It was so hot that I even needed a cold treat.

Matt had deep fried Oreos. I am not lying.

He got a little on his face.

And on his leg. Cuz everybody eats this stuff with their leg, am I right?

Mackenzie cooled off with some ice cream. No messes for this girl.

I got an ice cream.

Doug made sure it wasn’t poison. Thank goodness for Doug.

I displayed my shared family resemblance with Matt by spilling ice cream down my leg and into my shoe…three times. I guess I wasn’t sure I got it right the first two times?

Remember where I said we were sitting? Right next to the foul line pole? Well, these cost-more-than-usual seats came in handy at the end of the Braves-were-down-for-the-entire game when Brian McCann hit the ball onto the green wall BEHIND the yellow line on top of the wall. We saw it up close and personal. All these people, including the entire team who had already cleared the bench, saw it, too.

But the umps didn’t see it. Get this. We witnessed the first ever Instant Replay situation where the deciding run was determined by this new-to-this-season tool. Yeah, Instant Replay. Go figure.

BRAVES WIN!!!! WHEEEE!!!!!

Okay, so you see, even after my yucky week at work, we ended on a happy note. It’s all good. I’m serious.

Have you ever made an Interesting Exit from a job? Are you a baseball fan? Wouldn’t you love to use Instant Replay in real life sometimes?

Today’s Daily Blog Song – “You Dropped A Bomb On Me” by Gap Band