Literary Liaisons

I think I knew that I was going to be writer not because I had a way with words or that I could express myself with them, but because I could see things in a way that I knew no one else could.  I have the tendency to overanalyse, obsess, interpret, and dissect almost every aspect of my life…I was either going to be eventually become a writer or else I was going to be shrink.  And let me tell you, will all my head issues, it would be literally the blind leading the falling-down-drunk-incompetent.  Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration.  I find that I draw confidences naturally enough.  I am not sure why but people feel compelled to tell me things—sometimes I don’t even ask any questions.

Take for example, the other day.  I went to check out this ‘job information session’, which just turned out to be a dodgy sales, pyramid scheme thing.  I met a young woman, I’m guessing, who is around my age or slightly younger.  This young woman happened to have come to the job for similar reasons; she was looking for a slight change in her job prospects.  The difference was that she loved her current job whereas I was desperate to escape mine.  I had already started the process of my escape, but I was looking around at future options.  Anyway, this young woman, who for privacy purposes I will call Cara. 

Now, Cara currently works in an art gallery run by a church.  I had never really heard of such a thing, which made her an interesting character upon first impressions.  However, within minutes of discussing our job options (which we did as we were leaving the non-helpful information session, neither of us saw anything beneficial about staying) she revealed to me that she was upset about her job because her new boss, a pastor, was treating her unfairly.   In short, Cara felt belittled and disrespected by her current boss.  The woman who had originally hired had left on short notice and Cara found herself landed with new boss that was less than professional.  Cara felt that she was overly and unfairly criticised for her work performance and that the new boss talked down to her like she was incompetent.  She tried to justify her new boss’ behaviour, saying perhaps she was acting this way because she was new to the position and still settling in. 

I empathised telling Cara that I had been in a job situation not long ago where I had a difficult and unprofessional boss and that was the reason I had left.  I told her that, to a point, you can try to explain someone’s behaviour, but ultimately it would be up to her what she would do in this situation.  I did not want to give advice, but I did not want Cara to become a victim of bullying as I had been.  I simply told her that she should always remember her own self-worth and what she was prepared to put up with from her boss.  I said that if she stayed in a job she loved, but was feeling bad about work because of her boss, she may eventually come to dislike the work itself.