It's a bit hard to describe how a small conversation at work about performance could have sent me into a month long tailspin. It has delayed my trip. It gave me a week of sleepless nights followed by a 2 week stint of illness which turned into the dreaded bronchitis. I gave my illness to my twins, who were sick for a week. And now I have arrived at the conclusion: Let them fire me if they wish.
We were suddenly, out of the blue, evaluated at work on a project of interest. I had a week of training on the project and the evaluation took place during my second week on the project. Needless to say, I hadn't quite figured out any efficiencies yet and I performed poorly. I also had to completely reroute my entire daily schedule. The 5 hours I used to use helping others and solving problems had to be shut down over-night. That is not easy to do.
Mid-way through the 3rd week of work on the project. I was handed my numbers and was given 6 reasons why I should have been keeping pace with the remainder of the team. My boss was angry. I was too bewildered to even begin to know what to say. I asked him, "do you want an explanation for my performance numbers."
He said, "No."
There was not much to say after that. I was confused. The day before the meeting I had been telling him that I felt like my performance was poor and I needed help. He told me not to worry, more experience would resolve my trouble.
I had never had this occur. I was always wonder woman who did everything! Innocently I thought perhaps he was right, I should simply work harder. For the next week, I worked so hard I fell sick. then my daughters got sick also.
I'm not sure what propelled me to this self destruction outside of an irrational fear of being jobless/helpless. What I discovered the following week is that rather to be unemployed than to be the slave of an irrational boss. I donated my lunches--my precious time with my children. I did nothing but work. The house turned into a complete disaster. Because if you are a single mom, all the time you have is the time you are not working two hours to get ready and get to work in the morning. Three hours to get home from work, cook and feed the kids, then you have an hour to yourself before you must go to bed so you can function the next day.
This is the cycle I'm on and if I get off I will be plunged into the world of not knowing where my next paycheck/mouthful of food will come from. Visions of me living on the street with my little girls, flash before me. Panic fills me.
Some shreds of sanity did propel me to log every single activity I was doing every minute of the day. In the follow up meeting I had with boss on the 4th week, I gave him the log and asked him to redirect me if necessary. He thanked me for the effort but has not offered one suggestion since. I began to wonder, if this was a psychological game they were playing on us mere pawns. The thought makes my blood boil. An that is when I realize, I have enough proof to demonstrate that I was working every minute of every day. So, let them fire me. And let me collect Unemployment off of them.
