I am going to write my life in pen from now on!

When I started my undergraduate education (I think I was about 22 years old), I kicked it all off with taking classes at the Jr. College in the city where I grew up. In one of the first art classes I’ve ever taken there was an assignment given that I never forgot. “Draw this still life,” the professor instructed us. “Oh, I am sorry,” she went on. “Did I not mention that you are not to use your pencils? You will be using pen for this drawing. There is no erasing with this assignment. If you make a mistake, figure out how to make it work.” That’s what art is all about.”

When I was 18 years old, just two weeks after graduating high school, and about 4-5 years before ever taking that art class with the unforgettable lesson, Jen’s older sister and I moved to Lake Tahoe (I think I’ve mentioned this before). I had two jobs while living in Lake Tahoe.

The first job I held was bagging groceries at a major super market. Yup, I was a courtesy clerk. That job ended when my manager told me that I needed to go next door to the drug store and buy a new white dress shirt, because mine wasn’t clean enough. (There was some dirt on the front of my Oxford from putting my shoulders into it when I was pushing a row of carts in the parking lot the day before.)

“If you haven’t scheduled me for enough shifts to afford to do my laundry, how do you expect me to come up with the money to buy a new shirt?” I asked. My manager, a real piece of work, wasn’t sympathetic. “Figure it out,” she said, “Just come back with a clean shirt.”

So, I left. I rode my bike home, called the super market main phone line, and I asked to speak to the manager. When the piece of sh— , piece of work, said, “Hello, this is the manager,” I said, “This is Leven. I quit.” I hung up the phone. Then, I put my bikini on, got back on my bike, and I went to the lake—King’s beach—for the rest of the day. In three days, I got a new job waiting tables at one of the major family dining restaurant chains which was located even closer to my apartment. Thus, waiting tables for the grave yard shift was my second job in Lake Tahoe.

But then, after a year taking orders, even though I’d moved to getting bossed around by customers on regular day and night shifts, I needed a break. I asked the restaurant manager for time off so I could go to Mazatlan, Mexico with a friend for Spring Break vacation. His answer was no. He said, “Absolutely not,” to be exact. So, I quit. I went to Mexico, and I had a blast. I even went parasailing, except that was scary as hell.

Now, let’s cut to how I am doing now. As you already know, I’ve been pretty miserable at work. For me, it has been a very stressful thing to be under the management of one of the most wretched and unconscious individuals I have ever met in my life (Bull #2).

As much as I understand that the pain and misery Bull # 2 inflicts on others has everything to do with the internal pain Bull # 2 must personally posses deep inside, I do not excuse a person’s pain as a good enough reason to become such a generally feared and hated supervisor. I’ve said it before, wielding one’s position of power over others, and thereby making them feel bullied, powerless, constantly threatened, and stressed, is not acceptable behavior from a being.

Sure, as you know, recently I got a new boss. However, if that New Boss Man ultimately reports to the same Bull #2 I’ve been dealing with for the last year, than how does that change what and who I’ve been dealing with? It doesn’t. It makes it so I have two people I have to answer to. No, wait. There have been three people I’ve been answering to since New Boss Man started. Have I ever mentioned Bitch #1?

Bitch #1 is one of those know-it-all, but-knows-nothing, loves-the-sound-of-her-own-voice (even though everyone else can’t stand it—really can’t stand it), yammering, annoying bitches who also happens to be one of the higher up bosses where I work. But, I’ve never reported to the bitch, and, up until recently, rarely had to deal with her. My New Boss Man recently started to report to her, so that has put me into the position of answering to three people who don’t know how to do what I do for a living but think I should be doing it better.

Put succinctly, in this position, in this place, every expectation put forth, every deadline set, and all scrutiny of the process that my job requires, has been unrealistic. Aside from some of the amazing people I’ve come to know, and get to know better (my dear Ava among the select and wonderful few), every second of every moment I’ve spent working for this place (I’m still not mentioning the name), has been pretty close to tortuous.

Do you know what it is like, when, as a professional trainer, putting together the documentation for, and conducting the training of, various policies, procedures, and softwares, nothing about what it takes to accomplish this is understood by the people asking you to do it?

They know nothing of taking just the right screen shot of a software page, drop-down menu, pop-up screen, login navigational reference, etc. They don’t get positioning the cursor, cropping the image just so, circling or pointing to the aspect of the image which correlates to the steps or directions listed just below that representational picture. They don’t know how to rearrange or cut out certain information so as not to give out any personal or proprietary data in a visual reference. They don’t get how much of the afore-mentioned effort, and more, it takes to get and/or create just the right image that will match up with the language which the image is supposed to represent.

They’ve also got no idea what it takes in creating a consistency in language throughout bulleted lists which may span over 50 pages of a manual or 25+ pages of a presentation. Oh, and could they maintain a similar type of action verbiage throughout their step-by-step direction/instructional sets, including which words to quote and/or put in bold? Would they remember every step that needs to be changed if something in the software or the policy changes? No.

Do any of them have half of my personality in order to be able to train others, to be deft at working a room, and to be comfortable enough in one’s self to be in front of a crowd so that the crowd, the trainees, can be put to ease while they, as learners, are given the task of taking on something new which, inevitably, makes everyone feel stupid? Do they care about how much change devastates people and how threatening them with change in their job is what makes change still more frightening yet? Will they take any of that into consideration in each way that they present new information? Let’s go with “no” again.

Oh shit. I’m sorry. I just realized this is one of the most boring complaints I’ve ever outlined. I’m stopping now, but I think, without mentioning even one more aspect of what it takes to learn, put together documentation for, then teach anything, you get the point that it takes a lot. Thus, I’ve been working at a job, giving my best, which was not good enough, and killing myself for people who want more blood out of me.

That’s why, the day after my dad had quadruple bypass surgery, which was a little over a week ago, I started to question my own hand in my misery. When my father goes in for a stress test for one surgery, then his doctors realize there is a 70% blockage in all but one of the veins leading to and from my father’s heart, and he ends up having another surgery, a quadruple bypass, and they discover the blockages were closer to 90%, the two questions in my mind are 1) Is my father going to be okay? And, 2) Because of the stress in my life, am I going to end up like my father?

I’d already gone home sick the Monday before, because of a B.S. stressful meeting I was in with Bull #2, Bitch # 1, New Boss Man, and two other Managers. Then, adding to my stress, and worried about my dad, I’d called in sick the next day.

What happened when I went back in on Wednesday, the day after the day I called in sick and had explained that my father had just undergone quadruple bypass surgery? I got called into an impromptu meeting with Bitch # 1 and my New Boss man where they proceeded to berate my work and re-dictate the deadlines for my projects.

Did anyone ask me how my father was doing? No. New Boss man, who tries to come off as the Deepak Chopra of managers, but has proven himself to be nothing more than a lip-service fraud, just sat there with Bitch #1 as they pointed out the various changes my 63 page technical how-to manual needed. Really? There are mistakes, corrections, or necessary changes on a manual I spent how many hours/weeks working on? Fuck. Isn’t that what proofing is for? Seriously, thanks for finding the mistakes. That’s how it is supposed to work on a team, you idiots!

Ah, shit. I forgot again. I am not supposed to require the assistance of others to proof my work. I am supposed to do it all on my own. No. Wrong again. I need to exert more initiative and fix my own mistakes and find my own answers. Still wrong. If I need help on anything I have to go through the bureaucratic channels before using anyone else as a resource. No, no, no. I’ve just got it all wrong and I am not up to par.

Oh, and then there is that fact where the replication and data validation of 25+ financial reports hasn’t been completed by me yet, even though that’s not work a production trainer usually does, but generally speaking what a team comprised of a business analysts, a developer, and an accountant would accomplish, so I shouldn’t forget that I still suck on that account, too.

BTW, it is worth mentioning that the entire division I have been working in has been under similar stress, working with just as tight of deadlines, and all equally detest the management, but they are not me so I cannot begin to account for how they want to handle how they are affected.

I am now truly sorry. I did it again. If just writing the last “how many?” paragraphs made you want to stick a drill in you left ear, like me, I shouldn’t have driven you there.

What’s been my point? It’s not worth it, doing work that doesn’t fulfill you for people who are basically killing you. And, while I previously mentioned two jobs that I gave up over a dirty shirt and a Spring break, I would like you to understand that I have never quit anything in my life. I have chosen.

Sometimes life asks you to choose between slowly dieing or consciously living. I choose to live, to turn a corner, make a change, and take a chance. It’s taken me a year of misery, a lot of crying, and even more stress to realize that I’ve never regretted any leap of faith I have ever taken.

That’s why I know I won’t regret putting my entire life in storage so I can minimize my stress. I am giving up this bat-cave condo and I am going to start living just as fearlessly as I did in my youth. I am not going to give all the details now, because I don’t know what route I will take with work to make sure I have continued health insurance to deal with my existing medical conditions, the damn thyroid thing and the blood pressure, but I am saying enough for you to figure it out.

What’s paramount, is that my dad is okay. He was up and walking within a day and a half of his surgery, and when I was talking to him on the phone the other day, he was slowly ascending the stairs (something the doctors told him not to do unless my mom was home, and she wasn’t). But I know in my heart if I keep going at this pace, keep working for this place, if I keep coming home and giving up my dreams to tears, tuning out, and television, I am not going to be okay.

Am I afraid of the changes I am planning ahead? What do you think? But, again, I am more afraid of living the way I have been. I’ve am growing back the back the balls of the 20 year old in me who took off to Mexico.

My truth is now this: I don’t want to live so tentatively that I’m always living in pencil, afraid to make a mistake, afraid to take any chance that won’t give me the room to erase. I may have more furniture, and may need a little more health insurance, now that I am older, but I’m going back to drawing in pen.

Isn’t that what life is about?


(To my big sister: I love you. Thank you for being so fabulous and for helping me find my strength again! There are leaps in life I would not have been able to make were it not for you!)