TGI...F?

What I should be doing every weekend.

Normally I'd be elated about today being Friday. Instead I am drained, abrasive and particularly sorry about an episode I had at lunch earlier with my husband. Before going further I should preface this post with the fact that I'm prone to extreme pissiness (including uncalled-for outbursts toward loved ones) when I have no other outlet to vent my frustration. (It might be time to take up kickboxing again, or make like Regina George and join a competitive lacrosse team.)

Anyway I was supposed to meet up with my husband at 12:30 for our 1-hour lunch but got stuck in a God-awful meeting that went way over schedule and made me seriously think of gouging my eyeballs out with the nearest ballpoint pen to put myself out of my misery. After the meeting was (finally) over, I dashed out of the office and down the street, meeting up with my husband who'd already been waiting for 30 minutes. There went half our lunch break. Ugh.

So what did I do next? I yelled at him. Totally uncalled for, but I was so angry about the meeting, about the entire day, my entire decision in taking this job and making him give up his dream job just so I'd wind up complaining about mine daily. (None of this is an excuse, by the way, to lash out at poor, unsuspecting husband who just wanted to share a pastrami sandwich with his wife on a sunny afternoon.) But with me, when it rains it pours. A bad day or week or month can make me feel like my life is falling apart indefinitely. Today proved no different.

Husband, smiling on street corner: "Hi!"

Me, with a scowl: "Hey."

Husband: "I take it the meeting didn't --"

Me: "GOD, I don't want to talk about the meeting! I don't want to talk about work at all, okay?"

(Silence)

Me: "When are you going to start networking, huh? How do you expect to find a job just looking at job boards? Why don't you get your crap together and get started networking already."*

* - Saying this makes me SUCH a monster. I fully realize I have no right to even utter these words; it's my fault, after all, that he doesn't have a full-time job and is instead getting a three-month stipend while he works for a federal office. It was all for me. And now he's got nothing. No prospects, nothing. Just a wretched wife who makes disgusting accusations as though he didn't have the world, at one point, in the palm of his hand. Moral of the story: I should not have launched into the above tirade without counting to 10 and calming down.

Husband (starting to walk away, no more smile): "I can't believe you."

Me: "Where are you going?"

Husband: "Back to work. I don't want to have lunch with you if you're going to talk to me like that."

A few more words were exchanged, more me than him, and that's when he whipped around and with a hurt look on his face told me he understands I'm frustrated with how everything turned out, but that I can't keep taking it out on him or else someday soon I was going to "find myself alone." Ouch. Of course this comment not only stung but succeeded in antagonizing me and I was about -- about -- to blurt out the most TERRIBLE THING EVER...:

"Oh yeah? Well at least maybe then I'd find someone successful!"

So, so bad. LUCKILY I bit my tongue right before these words came out because I knew it was only the anger talking. It's a lie (I will always love him regardless of how successful he is) and it might make me feel better in the heat of the moment, but all it would do is succeed in hurting him deeply.

And maybe that's the problem. Maybe I want him to be as miserable as I am now, so I have someone to commiserate with. But that's ridiculous and such a waste of energy. Even with his job situation he manages to stay positive. I love him for that. Maybe I do just need an invigorating outlet to release all my pent-up frustration. Competitive racquetball anyone?

It's only Friday and I'm already dreading having to go in on Monday. Something is seriously wrong with this scenario.

Fool if you think it's over

So I'm in what Duck Philips would call a “sticky wicket.”

The reason (which I publicly glossed over in my other blog) why I was moving to more anonymous territory was because I was “found out” at work. Not a big deal, right? What I do outside of work is my business and I'm fully entitled to own and maintain my own personal blog.

But in the heat of a particularly terrible and stressful week recently, I made the mistake of mentioning work on the blog. Again, fully within my rights. Was what I wrote, a tongue-in-cheek look at my management style, that bad? No. (Hyperbole, as always, was generously used). Could what I have written been worse? Yes. Judging from my track record of making light of people in situations I'm silently thanking GOD I refrained from poking fun at anyone but myself in said post. Was it a smart thing to do, venting my frustrations about work on a blog that I THOUGHT was unknown to coworkers? Probably not, no.

But in my defense, that week and all weeks before and after have been been simply dreadful (which I'll save for another post). The day I wrote the “incriminating” blog post I was bawling my eyes out at lunch to my husband, who had elicited my meltdown by simply asking how my workday was going. As I choked on my sobs I could barely breathe I was so frustrated and stressed out. It was terrible. The rest of that day I spent puffy-eyed behind a pair of Wayfarers at my desk, silently cursing my decision to ever take the stupid job. Oh, and this is after the stress caused me to miss my period earlier in the month. (I've since gotten it, not coincidentally, on the day I called in sick last week and had a blissful 24-hour time span to relax.)

The problem is I don't like the atmosphere at work. There's no such thing as general common courtesy, or social etiquette, or anything, but there's lots of passive aggression, lots of eye rolling. It makes working there very, very hard and now it's even worse because I made the impulsive decision to go home and blog about the tip-of-my iceberg of frustrations. Little did I know that I was being watched.

Recently one of my coworkers -- who's been throwing me under the bus from the beginning -- confronted me in private about the blog post. (For the record I have NO idea how he/she found it, but I have a sneaking suspicion he/she is buddies with the IT guy and he's been perusing my work computer to troll for incriminating “gossipy” information to pass on. Not cool.) I assumed that after our talk he/she would go tell my boss, which is fully within his/her right to do. But no, coming to me was an after-thought. Not only did he/she first circulate it to the entire office to smear my name, they then went and talked to my boss about it BEFORE coming to me, because they wanted to “know how to approach me,” which is complete bullshit. He/she knows exactly what they're doing and I couldn't believe how conniving and mean they were in their approach to the situation.

Luckily my boss, L, thought the whole thing to be petty and largely stayed out of it. L and I had a private discussion about it and that was that. But now the office atmosphere is even more toxic and I honestly don't know how much longer I can “hang in there.” No amount of money is worth this kind of stress and workplace bullying. What I hate the most about the bullying is that it's done so passive aggressively that it's hard to tack down and confront.

Basically taking this job and having my husband turn down his six-figure offer down south was THE WORST DECISION OF MY LIFE. I have tried my hardest to live a life with no regrets and had succeeded until I took this job. I was wooed by the notoriety of the company and the stellar income they offered, and didn't stop to question whether they were actually a good fit for me. (Though how would I have known about the office vibe from just my interview?) Either way, I was a fool.

Now I'm crying more often, snapping at my husband over trivial things, and dreading going to sleep at night because I know that in the morning I will have to traipse to the Gulag. I kind of feel like Meg Ryan in French Kiss when she goes to Paris to try and win back her husband and instead runs into terrible luck. Standing in a phonebooth near the Arc de Triomphe, weeping about her misery, she raises one fist in the air and squeaks “I will triumph!”

I could only wish that my now-miserable days were spent in Paris having my luggage stolen. Heck I would even walk the the red light district in Montmartre if it meant I no longer had to do this. But as I get pulled deeper into the mire, I feel myself losing sight of who I am and what I want. I want to cry but I can't. I am becoming numb.

I have no idea how I will triumph.