This is not the first job I’ve ever had where I’ve had to deal with an unpleasant or crazy coworker or whatever. It IS the first job where I’ve had a bad reputation with my managers… but it’s also the first job where my managers didn’t know me and never saw me work. This is the first job where I felt my manager had no clue about (or confidence in) the quality of my work. This is the first job where I’ve had someone actively retaliate against me. So a lot of firsts for me here.

I’m glad I’ve been in the workplace long enough to know that this is an anomaly. To know that even if I’ve contributed to certain problems, overall it’s not me at the root of all dysfunction. If this was my first career experience, it would have shattered me and convinced me that I’m a horrible person. But certain things remind me that in the end, despite my mistakes, it’s really not me - it’s them!

Last night my manager from three jobs ago called me and pretty much offered me a job. I couldn’t take the pay cut, but how flattering is that? This woman is brilliant too, has her MBA, and is a tough cookie - fair, but not easily impressed.

Even one of the managers where I work now - the one that has bought in to the other coworker’s bad propaganda campaign against me - she isn’t my manager any more but she was and she has expressed confidence in the work that I’m capable of (even if it’s not part of my assigned tasks right now).

So these things keep me holding on, but when even one person around you is crying to everyone about what a horrible person you are, it’s hard not to let that affect how you see yourself.

Think back over the last six months of your job.

Have you ever complained about anything or reacted negatively to anything or anyone?

For example, if someone did something annoying, did you ever say to a friend at work, “That was annoying!” or “I can’t believe they’re doing it that way - it doesn’t make sense!”

Now take every moment of frustration that you ever let show to any friend you have at work… and then imagine if one of those friends made an extra effort to be your confidant. She read emails over your shoulder and asked you what was going on. Started conversations by complaining herself, and you joined in the “bitch session”.

Now imagine if that person exaggerated your half of the conversations x10, documented it, then had regular phone conferences with the management team of your department to report every confidential word you shared with them, and making up even more stuff. Keep in mind the management team works out of state and they have NEVER observed you perform your job in almost two years, and never worked with you personally, so they don’t really know you and in fact never want to even hear from you unless there’s a problem, which paints you as negative to begin with.

Imagine if that person had gotten into trouble about THEIR job performance and was using your conversations to try and deflect attention away from complaints about her. Imagine how much they’d “amplify the drama” and distort the truth in said “behind your back” reports to the management team.

Now imagine how you’d react once you finally learned this was going on. You’d probably try to defend yourself, right? Keep in mind that the managers have month after month of reports that you’re basically unhappy to the point of mental instability (keep in mind that 75 percent of what is making you unhappy at your job is the very person who has been filing the negative reports about you, but even with her around you’re not unhappy to the point of being psycho at work). Wouldn’t every attempt to defend yourself seem to make you look even worse, since the managers have already made up their mind about you based on the one person’s reports?

Then look back and realize how that person has played you all along… provoking disagreements only when within earshot of someone else. Saving the hateful and inappropriate things she says to you for times when no one is there to witness it.

I have NEVER had a problem with a coworker like I have with this one. She’s made it a battle and she’s definitely winning, and I played right into her hands by trying to treat her like a friend and confidant, trying to get over my dislike of her by bridging the gap. And she used every second of it to try to get me to lose my job.

I had one!

It was bad beyond all levels of badness.

But I’m still grateful. I’m grateful that I have a roof over my head, that my parents, brothers, sis in law and nephews are healthy and happy, that I get to see beautiful mountains every time I drive to work (and no it’s not what I see when I look down at my chest), that I have friends like E and S who will take me out for coffee and listen to me bitch and whine, and then turn around later the same day and take me out to lunch and listen to me bitch and whine some more! I’m grateful that my animals seem healthy and happy, that I have satellite TV and an internet connection, that I have at least two former bosses who still believe in me, that beer was invented ever, and that it’s almost Friday.

Tomorrow will probably be badness to the 2nd power… badness squared. Because the drama at work isn’t over, it’s ramping up and I’m in the center of it. There’s no winning, no coming out of this OK, no recovering from it. All that’s left is the last final nails in the coffin of my career at my current employer, and I just hope it takes a few more months to hammer that crap in so I can find something else. Oh, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m responsible for a big handful of those nails. I set them up because I didn’t know there was anyone swinging the hammer when I wasn’t looking. Drunkbunny 0, “Christian” Coworker 195+++.

But I have a lot to be grateful for. I can walk, I can see, I can think, I can hear. I can support myself, feed myself, drive. I’m a lucky girl.

So I return to work today after yesterday, a day from hell.

My boss has been telling me month after month, “You are the senior trainer on that site. You need to take AUTHORITY. You need to take RESPONSIBILITY. You need to tell the management there that you are the sr. trainer and should be treated as such. You need to tell the other trainers you are the sr. trainer and they have to listen to you.”

So after 9 months of dealing with the crap of another trainer who has been bossing me around since I started there, I finally came out and said it. “I’m the Sr. Trainer and sometimes I have to make decisions and I hope that you all (both trainers) can start to trust that.” Then the bossy trainer said, “I’ve had meetings with my boss about EXACTLY what your job is. Your job means nothing. Your job description is the same as mine. I had my boss send me a copy of your job description and you have no say in what goes on here.” (In other words, the job description that says I have no extra authority or responsibility is the same one she has - she claims - yet SHE has been the “boss” and called the shots for the 1 year and 10 months I’ve worked there… she gathers her authority from the fact she started 5 months before me.)

So I asked what part of my job performance led bossy trainer(BT) to have secret meetings with her boss about MY JOB DESCRIPTION (we have different bosses). BT stammered around and never answered. Truth is, she has had so many complaints filed against her but has kept her job over and over because she deflects those complaints and tries to focus the attention elsewhere by complaining about me.

So I called MY boss and told her what’s going on and she was pissed off and said, “Yes you DO have authority, they have to listen to you, get the other trainers on the phone NOW.” I said I would but if she was going to backpedal and not support me, after I finally did what she had been badgering me to do for months on end, that it would not be forgotten. She promised to support me.

She didn’t. She got on the phone and basically said that any decision would be made by the training “team” (which in BT’s mind meant “made by BT” as it always had) and if no agreement could be reached it would be escalated to the two managers out of state. So she basically threw me under the bus.

BT is 40 percent of the reason I’m miserable at my job. You can’t reason with her, logic with her or deal with her. Any word out of her mouth, she’ll deny two seconds later. I’ve never once seen her take responsibility for her inappropriate behavior. If I have a bad day or get upset about something, she’ll throw it in my face every chance I get as an example of how I “can’t handle this job”.

I’ve tried every way I can to deal with her. I’ve tried every tactic I could. I’ve tried talking to my boss, her boss… nothing works. I’m at my wits end.

To top it off, we have training coming up and I created the invite for the staff SIX DAYS AGO. I put a sign up sheet in the mail room SIX DAYS AGO. But the staff manager has refused to send out the invite for six days. She says there’s nothing wrong with it, she just hasn’t “had time” to click on “forward” and mail to one distribution list. (Takes all of four seconds.) This manager has been retaliating against me since last fall for declining a particularly unreasonable training request, and her sitting on these invites has caused mass confusion to the staff. But she’s doing it on purpose - to make training look disorganized. She has all the power in the local office and there’s nothing I can do about it.

This is typical shit I’ve been dealing with for over a year and I just can’t stand it. Yet I’m trapped because most trainer jobs require travel and I can’t travel because of my dog.

My stress levels are through the roof.

I like to grab a Cunningham Muffin.

Oh, you WILL eat a muffin. You’ll eat it and you’ll like it!

No one has a perfect life. Everyone has crazy stress, unhappiness, barriers to overcome. I am not special.

So why do I seem to be the only one unable to deal?

I would think that having a spouse and kids would be more stress - not everyone’s home life is a happy one. Yet I find myself making excuses… “Yeah, nothing at work gets to him. But he goes home to a family that adores him at the end of the day.” Does that really help people cope all that much? Or is that an excuse that I use because I am not handling things as gracefully as other people?

Every day is a new reminder that I’m not doing this life right and I don’t know how to right things. I can’t find a cure for myself. I can’t find a way to change this personality that seems more prone to take a toll on the world than make a contribution to it.

Am I expecting too much from life when I expect a reason to endure it? “I don’t have anything to live for!” is quite the melodramatic statement, but I wonder… do most people have (or find) something to live for? Or do they find a way to live without purpose, success, or any sort of reason? Is that why people are so driven to have kids - so that there’s a reason for it all and it’s not all so stupid and futile? (Even if that is a reason, still don’t want ‘em, thank you.)

I could make it through just focusing on little joys - the next season of The Office, my dog, my pictures, lame internet jokes. But when I go to a job where I’m constantly reminded that I’m not good enough… that I cause more turmoil than solutions… that every reaction or feeling I have is wrong… it’s exhausting and makes me feel a bit beat up every day. I suppose everyone’s job is like this, but when the job is all you have, it makes one a bit myopic. But does a lack of objectivity - which we all have - make all my feelings invalid, an overreaction? I sincerely doubt it, but now even my feelings seem to be something else for me to apologize for and dismiss as unreasonable without examination, because they are mine and therefore automatically wrong. If I’m to believe those around me, such action is the only right course.

I guess everyone needs one source of joy that can inspire them to set aside everything else, all the bullshit, and have a reason to get out of bed every day. I’ve lived so long without a reason for joy that I don’t think it’s ever going to happen, and I know I’m not the only one in that boat by a long shot. So how come others can plod on, and I seem to have such turmoil about it?

OK, this post made no sense. And I haven’t even been drinking! I suppose these very words can be used as further supporting evidence to my “wrongness” but goddamnit, I’m sick of everyone else’s feelings and frustrations being valid except mine.

At the end of the day I just want a reason for going through it all and I don’t have one, and I wonder if I ever had one. I know I’m not alone on this but I don’t see anyone else struggle so publicly and awkwardly as I do, so what’s wrong with me? I must be weak, too impulsive, self-indulgent.

Would the universe giving me a straw to grasp be just one more joke - a dangling carrot, not really something that could ever be held in the end?

I’ll keep on keepin’ on, but the wrongness of my fit in life clings to me like a bad perfume. I wasn’t meant to be here. Someone messed up. I didn’t get the life I was meant for - a life where my overall footprint on the world would be at least a fraction positive. If I had been born one day later I would have been raised by a totally different family. If I had been born one year earlier in my biological mother’s life I would have been given to a couple of a completely different religion. If my parents had asked for a boy on the adoption application - what they really wanted in the first place - I would have gone to a different family. Was I just one impulse decision away from ending up where I was really meant to? Is that why nothing ever seems to fit?

All I know for sure is that I regret who I am, and that is one fucked up thing to live with.

And the world shares this regret, which I think is even worse.

So I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday flat on my back. Fever/chills, body aches, congestion, sore throat, and coughing until each cough made my ribs hurt. Yesterday afternoon the congestion started to break up and I thought I was going into the home stretch - WRONG!

This morning I woke up with a headache so bad I couldn’t stand. I knew it was a tension headache triggered by three days of laying on the couch, and now gone out of control. So I thought a hot shower might help, but then I thought I was going to pass out so I got out of the shower with soap still in my hair. Managed to call in sick by 5:30 this morning, and after that the vomiting started. What’s this? Severe pain and dizziness isn’t enough (and oh yeah I’m still coughing) - now I have to have nausea and vomiting too?

Have you ever, either by accident or by a loss of temper, done something or said something that you instantly regretted? Maybe not something so bad that you’d turn yourself into the authorities, but something that left you feeling so guilty that you not only expected the universe to get even, you actually welcomed the vengeance that you knew was coming, because until it came you would live your life not only consumed with guilt, but consumed with dread, waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Yes, I admit I didn’t correct the Quiznos worker when they forgot to charge me for the sea salt and vinegar chips. Yes, I admit I didn’t go back and re-align my car when I noticed my parking job had my driver’s side wheel go over the yellow line enough to make the next space over unusable. Yes I admit I don’t bother to recycle my beer bottles.

After the last four days of penance, I can honestly say that my dues are paid and my conscience is clear.