This is one of those that started off with me knowing a bunch of things that had "happened," but which I didn't actually experience in the dream. I knew them as memories, though in reality, they have not occurred. There are some of them which might, though, because I'm in the process right now of changing jobs, and that was the subject of the dream.
I had finished the hiring process with the place I'm interviewing with now. I had a start date, giving me just enough time to provide my current employer and my psychotic, abusive boss with two weeks' notice and then have two days off before starting my new job. I hope that happens, but in reality, employers often don't give new employees start dates that far off, and I'll probably be unable to do anything like that.
I wanted very badly to be ungracious, tell her off, or quit without notice to make her scramble to cover my shift, but instead, I typed up a nice letter about how I was moving on to an environment that I felt was more suited to my professional capabilities. The one thing I could not bring myself to leave out of the letter was that I the work environment had strongly contributed to my decision to seek other employment. Not only is that an important truth, I was sure that if I didn't say it, my employer would try to use the letter as evidence against my retaliation claim with OSHA, because they've been that sneaky and underhanded about everything else.
I'm printing my "resignation" letter after having read it for what feels like the billionth time. I feel bad writing about the work environment in a notice like this, but I'd be more uncomfortable leaving the company with anything that gave the illusion that we were parting on good terms.
It takes three tries, because I'm so nervous about how this is going to go that I keep choosing the wrong printer, the one that isn't hooked up, instead of the one that is. Finally, I get it to print. I put it in a labeled envelope, for added formality. I throw a jacket on and head out the door to warm up the van.
It's freezing outside, and my old van doesn't want to start. Instead of fighting with it, I decide to walk there instead. Might as well. I've got two weeks before I'll be driving across town to work every day. The thought gives me a boost. I lock the van, go get my coat and gloves, and head up the street with my letter in hand.
The cold air beats on my face, but it's not bad. It's freezing, but not windy. By the time I get to work, though, my nose is red. I should have worn a scarf.
I'm early. From where I live, it actually takes me less time to walk to work than to drive. I take a moment and buy my usual - a quart of chocolate milk - to substitute for the fact that I won't get a lunch break during the first 6 or possibly 7 hours of the 9 hour shift for which I'm scheduled. In two weeks, I won't have to deal with that any more. The place where I'm going doesn't schedule past 8 hours, and has mandatory breaks. That's going to be different for me after 6 years of this place.
I take my purchase, with receipt, into the back room, and hand my boss the envelope. She's on the phone. She doesn't look at it, so she doesn't notice that it says my name, followed by "two weeks' notice" on the front. I wait until she is off the phone. She glances at the envelope, does a double-take, then gets up and walks out of the room.
Okay, fine. I'm not playing her game today. I'm in a good mood.
I wait to clock in. I can hear her "pissed off" laugh, a harsh, pounding laughter she pulls out for occasions when she wants to sound like she's not bothered or upset, but she's actually really steamed. That lets me know she definitely read the front of the envelope and is pretending not to have noticed.
Whatever. Time comes around, and I clock in, walk out, and ask which register I'm on. She tells me. I start the routine for opening that register. I'm about to ask to make sure she did read the front of that envelope, when she abruptly turns and walks into the back room again.
My co-worker asks me what set her off. I tell him. He laughs. I ask what's so funny, and he very quietly says, "She was talking about you on the phone this morning, planning how to break you down by making you work swing shifts for a month. Now, she can't. You just ruined her plans."
We are stocking cigarettes while we talk, grabbing packs out of cartons and stuffing them into the pack rack behind us. It's an unending task, so we're kept pretty busy even though there's not a customer in the store.
She hears our quiet voices, comes out to the front, and says, "You guys going to do any work today, or just stand around talking?" We both stop what we're doing, hands full of cigarettes, and look at her like she's grown a second head. She can see that we're performing job duties. She's just in a bad mood.
I say, "Look, just because you're annoyed about my notice doesn't mean you have to bark at us. You can see that we're working." Now that I don't have to fear unemployment, her behavior doesn't evoke the same impotent, head-down-closed-mouth resentful anger. I'm not caged any more.
My coworker chokes on thin air, coughs and sputters, and escapes the situation by heading over to brew a pot of coffee. He's not abandoning me. He's getting out of my way.
She says, "So, where will you be working?"
I remind her that, as it says in my letter, I'm not disclosing that information. What I didn't say in the letter is my reason, which is that I fully expect her to try to sabotage my new position by showing up and bad-mouthing me to my new boss before she even gets a chance to get to know me.
My boss glares at me and tells me that by refusing to answer her question, I'm being insubordinate, and she can fire me on the spot. I know that's not true. It takes the company two weeks just to write an employee up, and they can't fire me without doing that first. By the time they get anything done, I'll be at my new workplace anyway. She's just blowing smoke, and we're both aware of that.
I smile and wait. Forced to back down from what she said, she starts handing out crap duty, literally. I'm ordered to first clean the restrooms, then take lot duty. No one ever gets both of those chores in one shift, and I know it's meant as a punishment, but it doesn't bother me, because I know that's all she can do.
Then she says, "...and when you get done with that, you can meet me in the cooler."
So, I'm assigned all of the heavy lifting for the day. Okay. I can handle that.
I start the tasks, grabbing the necessary tools. While I'm in the men's room cleaning, I hear someone go into the ladies' and move around. When I go in there, it's a mess, toilet paper everywhere, wetness on the floor, walls, and bowl. I leave the cleaning equipment there, put up the wet floor sign, and go for a bucket. I can't believe she thought this would phase me. All I have to do is sweep up the paper, then pour water on everything before washing and sanitizing. There's a drain in the floor, for crying out loud.
She has this smug look on her face. I smile and wander off with the bucket and broom, as the smug look changes to confusion. When it doesn't take me any longer to do the ladies' room than to do the men's, and I don't complain about it, she has to look and make sure I actually did the chore, taking my coworker with her to witness, because she's assuming I didn't get it done. While she's doing that, I gather the stuff for lot duty. I hear the coworker say, "...looks like she washed the walls, too." as I'm on my way out the door. My boss glares at me, but what can she say? It's clean and dry.
I go through the whole series of tasks for lot without incident, taking about half an hour to get everything done, because for once, it isn't that bad. Usually, she waits until later in the day to send me out, so I'm used to the chore being messier and heavier.
I come back inside and head for the cooler, but she's not there. I find her in the back room, let her know lot is done, and I'm ready for the next thing. She tells me it can't be done that fast, and she's going to go inspect my work for short cuts. I shrug, and ask if she wants me to wait here or start in the cooler. That I'm not concerned pisses her off, and she tells me I'd better check my attitude, as if I said something different. When that also fails to bother me, she sends me on into the cooler and goes outside.
By the time she joins me in the cooler ten minutes later, I've got two "doors" filled with product and am working on the third. I work much faster when I'm in there by myself. She immediately begins working on whatever she can find that involves reaching for things that are over my head. Everywhere I go, she has to put the step ladder right over me, then climb up and reach for stuff, knocking it down so that I have to catch it to keep it from falling on me. I stop working on what I'm doing, go to the other end of the cooler where there are no shelves, and start putting away bottles of pop. She glares at me, starts telling me how worthless she thinks I am, and how it won't matter if I go someplace new because I'm never going to amount to anything. She says I'll end up in as much trouble at my new job as I am with her, calls me lazy and stupid, and accuses me of having issues with people in authority.
That finally gets to me. I've never had trouble at work like this. In my past, to which she is not privy, I've been far above the position I'm in now, and my success in the past was due to my work ethic and professionalism. She doesn't know anything about me, and has no right to make such criticisms. I grit my teeth and continue stocking, reminding myself that I've only got two more weeks to deal with her. She continues berating me, pushing and pushing, talking about the person she's made up in her head for me to be, instead of the person I know that I am. Then she starts talking about what kind of parents must have raised me.
I can handle all of it, until she starts talking about my mother. I know what she's trying to do. She thinks if she pisses me off enough, I'll hit her, and she'll be able to press charges, once again showing me the false image of me she's built up in her mind. I struggle to not lose my temper, but I've been subjected to a half-hour barrage, and I'm worn down. I finally tell her what I'm thinking. I've been a foreign ambassador for my hometown. I've been a business owner, a teacher, a professional artist, and a model. I've been not only above the position I'm in now, but above the position she's in. With the way she treats her subordinates, and the attitude she has toward other people, she'll never be anything more than the fat fish in a little pond that she is now. And it doesn't matter what she says, because I'm out from under her thumb, and there's nothing she can do about that. There's nothing more she can do to me but stupid, petty little things like this.
She turns beet red and rushes me. I try to put the cooler door between us, but she runs around it, slams into me, and knocks me into the beer cave, landing on top of me. She sits up and starts swinging at my face, calling me obscene names the whole time. I'm trying to dodge and block, but she's getting through anyway. A regular customer sees the fight, and rushes in to pull my boss off of me. I scramble away from her, backing up against a rack of 12-pack bottles. The customer is looking at us like we're from another planet, but at the same time, he's kind of grinning, and I know he's thinking, "Cool! Chick fight!"
She immediately cools off, tells the guy that this isn't what it looks like, and I attacked her. He looks at the shiner that's all ready forming under my eye, blood on my lip, bruised arms, and messed up hair, then at her undamaged face, and unruffled demeanor, and says, "Riiiiiight."
She still pulls out her phone, calls the police, and says she wants to press charges. The customer immediately tells me he'll hang around and act as a witness, and I know that the bulk of the assault is on the store's video of the beer cave, but there's no proof of what happened in the cooler, and I'll probably be arrested on her word before the whole thing gets straightened out. I hear her also tell the dispatcher that I stole a quart of chocolate milk, which is sitting in the back room without a receipt. I paid with my check card, so again, I'll be able to prove she's lying, but it's going to take time to get that proof.
She's going to try to make sure I'm unavailable to start my new job. My heart sinks, and I feel totally defeated, wondering if I'm ever going to win one instead of getting trampled all the time.
I woke today feeling pretty depressed, probably because tomorrow is my first day back after being on vacation for a week. My boss hasn't had me at work to harass every day, and I know what happens when she doesn't get her fix. After her week's vacation in December, she was intolerable for days. That's why I ended up taking these days off. I just needed to get the hell away from her. I've really been dreading going back.
A few minutes ago, I got a phone call that has changed all of that. I just got hired in to the photo center of a bigger chain store. It's going to start out part time, but I've all ready been told I'll be getting more hours soon.
I've actually got a new job. I am out from under her thumb. It's real. And unlike in my nightmares, there's going to be nothing she can do about it. I'll never have to deal with her again.
In the meantime, I'm really glad I'm not dreaming about the scary monster that has been haunting my nightmares for almost a month. Between getting through that, and the good news today, I'm feeling pretty darned good, like a thousand pound weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.
Gotta go - time to start composing my letter. ˆ֊ˆ
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