While in the workforce I was the one who would get scheduled for all the holidays, get the hours that no one else wanted to work and have to help my fellow co-workers if they couldn’t meet their deadlines. Mainly this happened because I was the one with no social life. Everyone else would get angry and refuse to do it because they had things to do. Even when I was angry I could not refuse, I didn’t know how. I did not voice my anger about these things, though I would quite regularly have meltdowns no one knew why because I didn’t say anything. I had a constant fear, that if I spoke up about what I felt was injustice, with me having to take on so much work that I would be fired. I was pretty opinionated but my superiors knew how to get me to work. Technically I didn’t feel that it was being opinionated but giving more efficient ways to do things.

All they had to do was imply that my work was not up to par.

When I felt that it was my fault, that possibly my work was not the best that it could be, I would work as many hours as possible to ensure that I did better. If someone implied or told me that I was not being a team player and not helping my fellow employees that would cause me to feel horrible and I would do whatever I could to help them. There was another problem though, I felt like this was all wrong but I didn’t know why. I would work off the clock and devote my free time to try to get work done. These feelings would even trump the fact that I could be fired for working off the clock. Interestingly, my superiors knew that I was working off the clock but “did not” know.

I always was rewarded with excellent reviews and year-end raises or promotions at most places.

However, being promoted usually ended up to be to my detriment and I would feel like a failure. The more I got promoted, the more social encounters I had to have. Even though my employers would tell me how great I was, they also abused my loyalty. One place of employment did not give me my review or my raise for 7 months past the deadline, in that time they gave two other employees raises who did not have year-end reviews. They knew that I would not say anything. When I did receive my review it was outstanding, except for my “attitude”. Another place promoted me and did not give me my pay raise for three months after I had already been doing the position. While another employee did receive theirs. I did ask and they said I would get it soon. I did not receive back pay.

I had other issues as well with fellow employees.

When I first became a Christian, I was rather zealous about sharing the love of Christ. I always have tried to be loving though, not forceful with my faith. At this particular employment, head management was a Christian who was very outspoken. There were several of us there. At first the other employees were fine with me, they would ask me questions as to why I lived a certain way and I was happy to share. I tried to always be nonthreatening, however I am not sure what happened but one day I offered to help a woman who had gotten into legal trouble. I was just trying to be helpful, I do not know if my words were wrong or I was misunderstood or what but the next day she turned into something awful.

Soon she had formed the “Hate Angel Group”.

They began making fun of me about my beliefs and doing things that were very hurtful. One morning I came down and noticed one of the guys laughing, then several other people laughing what felt like was at me. I wasn’t sure so I just ignored it. Later the woman who I worked with told me that they had been sending an e-mail photo, it was of my face photoshopped on a woman who pretty much had no clothes on and enhanced body parts. I was terribly upset and went straight to the guy who did it. He told me to get over it, that it was just a joke and to stop being such a prude. I went to management and told them.

The way it was handled was beyond disturbing.

Instead of getting rid of the guy, they kept him on and then refused to give him his year-end raise as punishment. I felt that it was not right for them to take away his pay, at least write him up or dismiss him. They did not so because of that there was even more animosity from my fellow co-workers. One morning they made what they called a “Satanic Pentagram”  in the carpet, so that I could see it from where I sat upstairs. Though, I do not believe they were Satanists at all, one did say that she was a Wiccan witch, but I find it highly unlikely since I had more knowledge on the subject than she did. I must add that the limited knowledge I had was only from what I had read to try to understand the beliefs and with my limited knowledge, I knew more than her. They were clearly trying to make me upset.

I wouldn’t have been as upset if they were truly practicing a belief they claimed.

I was upset because they had never showed any vested interest on the topics before. They only started doing it when a group of us met in another building to pray. It was before work hours, on our personal time and it had been ok’d with the management.  We prayed for each other, the community, our churches and for the business. We made sure that it was not in front of people who may be offended and everyone was welcome. What I didn’t understand was why all of the aggression was targeted to me. There were other people in the building who were very spiritual and even more outspoken than myself at times so it made no sense to me, it still does not.

I have other stories similar to this throughout my work history.

Although, I would say this one was by far the most hurtful because of the fact that I tried to help but then received this kind of behavior. I did try to talk to them and they refused, they would only mock me. Several of them thought that I liked one of the guys that was working there as well, they tried to play a trick on me by saying that he liked me. I knew he was dating the girl who I tried to help and I thought it was very odd that they would do this. I told the guy who tried to trick me that I was not interested and I didn’t want to be bothered with such silliness.

I was 27 to 29 years old when this happened and some of the people doing this were several years older than myself.

I find it all to be quite strange. What I find even more strange is all of the time spent on such shenanigans, while we had a ton of work to do. In my mind you can work hard and play hard, but the work needs to be completed first and done well.  At the time I thought that because I didn’t really understand the social situations going on that I was wrong in feeling that their behavior was wrong. I thought I was wrong by thinking that my employers had taken a wrong course of action. I just felt wrong and didn’t know what the right thing was. I also felt betrayed, vulnerable, attacked and isolated.

In other work places I took on a more dominant role to protect myself.

I did not do this on purpose but I did try to protect myself because no one else would. Some perceived it as bully behavior and that was before I became a Believer in Jesus. When I became a Believer that led into another whole issue of confusion in how I should behave in situations. I learned first hand how some church people take advantage of others in a very negative way. My willingness to give up all things to serve Christ turned into another form of being bullied and torment of mind.

Thankfully I have had very positive experiences as well with church people so I have a balance.

I confuse myself a lot in these areas because I can be very gullible with certain things and quite astute in others. This confuses people about me too, but those who know how to manipulate people like me can use and have used it for their advantage. That is another whole topic that I am getting close to writing about because I am no longer angry or bitter and I feel that I can find healing from writing about it.

I believe that many of these situations have caused possible long-term effects that may be a contributor to some form of PTSD and I hope to work through it.

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