The Great Escape - The End - At Last!

My supervisor made it very easy for me to leave without even knowing so. The Best Friend had me cornered and in her gun sight. I already knew that my supervisor had a serious two-faced, passive/agressive quality, exhibited by her smiling and eager "good listener" face which was always followed by her surrogage happily undoing any good will. But my supervisor unzipped her fly, figuratively, when she appointed the Best Friend to be my "Team Lead". Here's the punch line: I was a team of ONE! My function was unique not only to our group but to our international corporation. So I needed a Team Lead? After nine years? After three promotions in nine years? And public kudos from our Divisional Manager?

This was nonsense. The most obvious purpose of this Team Lead concept was for the Best Friend to insert her name into my function and grab whatever kudos and recognition I could bring. But the real purpose was to put me in my place and to allow the Best Friend full approval to confront me at will and spill her animosity and jealousy under the guise of "leadership".

Nobody has to like me to work with me. But professionalism ought to supercede personal feelings. I guess I just provided a thumbnail sketch of the Best Friend. No professionalism, no business smarts, no organizational skills, no people skills, very little self control, and complete cluelessness.

I remember the exact date that I knew I was on the final leg of this exit: May 2, 2007. Exactly one week earlier, to the day, my supervisor had given me a glowing performance review and said, [exact quote]: "You are trusted completely at the highest levels of this company and no one will ever back-check on you." On May 2 my "Team Lead" scheduled a COUNSELING SESSION to officially rebuke me for an item from a MONTH earlier. Her point was that I had not used the source she would have used. So I was NOT trusted and someone DID back check on me. I won't even go into how minor a detail it was (or that her source would have charged almost double for the same item - she really was hopeless).

For the first time at work, I was absolutely furious. I think that was the angriest I have ever been in my life and I am still amazed tha I could stay calm. I doubt that my anger was obvious to the Best Friend because she was always so caught up in the sound of her own voice that she missed anything else going on.

During my years at this international corporation, I had redefined, expanded, and enhanced my particular function to a degree that was unmatched anywhere else in the company. I (me!) was actually a budget line in the company whereby they could track outsourced research because that was all I did. And there was absolutely no one else who even came close to the volume, level, and success ratio that I maintained. I gave them real-time, fully detailed dollar amounts and I gave their scientists items that others had told them were impossible to get. From a copy of an Italian scientific monologue published in 1937 to a journal article written in 1763, I found it.

But I needed a Team Lead? Pay attention, folks, because this is how you manufacture a promotion for someone who could never possibly earn one on their own. First, you give this person low-level tasks anyone can do and celebrate these vocally and publicly as astonishing achievements. Even better, you give this person "leadership" over a highly productive and valuable employee so that the schlub can poach as much acclaim and kudos as possible.

On August 3, 2007, I handed my resignation to my supervisor. She was stupefied and I think this was genuine. I doubt that she ever considered that I would quit such a lucrative and satisfying position. In my letter of resignation I wrote the following sentence, "There is nothing worse than being micromanaged, a tactic guaranteed to stifle creativity, productivity, and morale." As soon as she read that sentence she looked up at me and I could see that she FINALLY got it. And I could also see that she was teetering on the brink of offering to make changes to get me to stay. However, a leopard does not change its spots. She just couldn't let go. The flame in her eyes died and we hugged and parted.

Lessons Learned:

1. No job is worth driving 300 miles per week.

2. No job is worth having 3-4 migraines per week, which is where I was before August 2, 2007. Since then, I have had exactly two.

3. Cover your ass. In addition to copying my supervisor on the email trails, I also copied my home email just to make sure. I made damn sure I was never, ever rude or disrespectful to the Best Friend even in private. I had come to the point that I had no trust left at all.

4. You can survive leaving a job that you used to love. Re-focus and take pleasure in the simple things because they are what really matter.

I now temp for an agency close to home. I enjoy the challenge of absorbing new venues, new processes, and new tasks. I have temped for attorneys, CPAs and one mom-and-pop business as well as countless front offices. I meet some great people and I work when I feel like it.

This summer I have been "hired" by my daughter and son-in-law as a day-care provider for my two grandsons for about six weeks. Frankly, I am thrilled and am already planning the movies and activities we will share. The boys are aged 10 and 5 and tons of fun.

Life is good!