Managing to scare the crap out of me

I arrive at work at 9:50 A.M., ten minutes before my schedule says I am supposed to be there. It had originally said 11:00 A.M., but I received a call from the second shifter (on his cell phone, after work) telling me my boss had changed it late in the evening so that she could write me up the next day for being late. At home, I have written down what time she did it, because she was dumb enough to do it on camera. In the meantime, she doesn't expect me to be there yet.

I walk in, take a moment to purchase something to drink (which I always do because at the register, I'm talking almost nonstop with greetings, how-can-I-help-you, and the like) and then head into the backroom to clock in. My boss, having forgotten that she changed the schedule, yells at me for being early. I tell her that the schedule says 10:00 A.M., or rather 1D:00 A.M. after she changed it last night. She insists that I changed it, and I'm not supposed to be in yet. Two other employees are in the room, so she can't really go back on what she's saying. I point out that the spot where the schedule hangs is on camera, so corporate will be able to see who touched it and who did not. She glares at me.

I ask if she wants me to go home (just down the street) for an hour and return at 11:00. She says no, and actually says it's so I can't write to my rep at the labor board about the discussion. I point out that since it happened right when I walked in the door, I'm going to remember what time it was. I can just write to him when I get home.

She has me clock in at 9:59, and tells me that since I'm here for an extra hour, I can get some of the grunt work done. She sends me to clean the restrooms, with the admonition to knock first.

I grab the cleaning equipment and head that way. I walk directly from the office, out around the cash registers, and back to the restrooms. Our store is small, so the office and the restrooms share a wall and some plumbing. There is a big sink against that wall in the office. In the restrooms, the toilets are against that wall.

I decide to do the ladies' first because someone is in the men's. I prop the door open and work in the tiny room. I never let the door shut while I'm working in there because the chemical smell gets to me. The ladies' room is never too bad. The worst we usually see is someone not wrapping a sanitary napkin, but I've gotten good at using the end of the broom to scoop that into the trash without touching it. There is nothing like that in here this time.

As I'm finishing the ladies', I hear the occupant of the men's getting paper towels to dry his hands. The dispenser is really loud when you're on the other side of the wall from it - sounds like someone's trying to bang their way through. I bring the equipment out of the ladies' and wait in the hallway. The guy comes out, shuts the door, and walks out past me. Out of habit, I knock anyway. Of course, there is no answer.

I open the door to the men's room, but instead of the sink, toilet, and paper dispensers that should be there, there is a stone stairway going down into a dark hole. Smells of waste and musty dampness waft up from below. I feel a sense of trepidation. I don't want to go down there. I'm looking for a light switch in the doorway, but it's gone. I ask my co-worker for a flashlight, but she ignores me and makes light conversation with a customer instead. Everyone is giving me sideways glances, like some kind of a prank has been pulled and they're waiting for my reaction.


I decide to start down the stairs. As soon as I set foot on the first step, there is a loud roar.

 

I can't tell what it is. It goes right through me and down the hall to my left, then disappears in the sunlight from the windows. I jump back to get away from it. Everyone is looking at me now. Another co-worker tells me, "You shoulda knocked!" 

I reply, "I DID knock. That wasn't some guy in the restroom. Come and look at this!" I point into the cavernous stairwell, only to realize it's gone. There is no stone. There are no steps, no dark cavern below. There's just an ordinary restroom, with all of the expected facilities. It's a horrible mess. The last user has left waste on the floor, the seat, the back of the toilet, and the wall beside it. There is wet toilet paper everywhere, and something gooey-looking all over the sink and mirror. My coworker ignores me. 

I prop the door and grab a bucket of hot water and some paper. I put up a sign that says the men's is temporarily out of order. Thank goodness there's a drain in the middle of the floor!

I start using the bucket to rinse down the wall and the toilet, using the mop to keep the water flowing down that drain. I continue in this manner until the debris is gone, then glove up and scrub the offending areas, including the sink and mirror. I try to do this without looking at the reflection, because I still have a weird feeling about this room. I mean, I really have the heebie-jeebies. I know if I look, I'll see something bad, or something bad will happen.

Once I'm satisfied that the place is clean, I spray the whole room down with sanitizer, then pour some sanitizer-water down that drain to follow the waste and keep it from smelling. Finished, I turn to leave the room, only to see a hand move my doorstop. The door closes. I hear the light switch click, and suddenly there is no light.

I am not claustrophobic, but in the darkness in this room that has changed, I am terrified. Certain that there is something in here with me, I stumble toward the door. Instead of finding it, I hit something low with my foot, trip, and fall onto a set of stone steps going up. 

Oh, my God... I'm at the bottom of the stairs! I shriek and start climbing. I can hear something breathing behind me. Warm, dank air blows across the back of my head, and there is a horrible, low growling noise. Far away somewhere, I can hear someone yelling that the power is out, and the registers aren't working. Somehow, I know that it's happening because of the evil thing that is chasing me.

I scramble toward the top of the stairs, hoping that the exit is there. I can hear something moving behind me, and then there is that roar again. I feel something sharp hit my shoulder and slice down my back. At the same time, I see the door. It looks like always, a bland colored, enamel covered door with a metal handle. I grab the handle, turn it, and shove my way through. As soon as I am out, the lights come on and the restroom goes back to normal. Someone shouts that the registers are working again.

I walk through the store toward the back room. No one seems to have heard me scream, or at least no one is paying any attention to me now. They're all trying to rush through checkout and get on their way. In the back room, I start to put the equipment away, but am interrupted by my boss yelling at me. She's accusing me of having deliberately walked in on her, and says she's going to complain to corporate. 

I point out that since she was in the backroom when I headed for the restrooms, there was no way for her to go past me without my knowing, and, since she had just sent me in there, it was dishonest of her to say I walked in on her. She wasn't in there, and if she'd gone in there, she'd done so knowing she'd just told me to go in there. Not only that, but I'd knocked, and no one had answered. I remind her that the back room is on camera, the part of the store she'd have had to walk through is on camera, and the hallway is on camera. She tells me that the camera to the hallway has been taken out. 

She shows me a door in the wall between the restrooms, and tells me it goes to the men's. Momentarily ignoring the senselessness of that, I repeat that even if she went through that door, it still amounts to deliberately setting things up so I would walk in on her, and it would still be on camera. Also, jumping out at me like that was rude and unnecessary. I tell her that I should be the one complaining to corporate, because putting me in that position is a form of sexual harassment. As I turn to walk away from her, I hear the same growl I heard in the transformed restroom. I turn back, and she says, "You might want to check the back of your shirt. It's a bit torn."

I go to the ladies and turn my back to the mirror. I turn my head as far as I can to see four huge slices in my shirt. Beneath them, I can see that my back is bleeding. As I am looking, I can see that monster coming up beside me in the mirror. I turn to face it, but there's nothing. I hear banging in the men's room again, and the door to the ladies' starts to swing shut. I jump toward it.

I wake without finding out if I get out of the restroom.

After waking up, I laid in bed for several minutes wondering what the heck that dream was for. My boss hasn't been too grouchy the last few days since the district manager talked to her and then ordered me to stop documenting the harassment. I suspect that he ordered her to tone down the abuse. She did give me all of the heavy work yesterday, something she's been doing a lot since I reported the store to OSHA, but she hasn't changed my schedule without notice since that day.

Also, I'm really not that bothered by cleaning up messes in the men's room, and sadly, the mess in the dream wasn't some bizarre nightmare image. It's actually quite common for there to be a mess that bad after one of our male customers has been in there. Only the dungeon-like setting was abnormal. I have no idea where that came from. With the way I feel about work, I'd think I would be more likely to associate it with the back room, where the boss spends most of her time.

The claws are easier to explain. My back is still sore this morning from the heavy work my boss had me do yesterday. There really is no ergonomic way to lift full, heavy bags of trash out of 39 gallon cans. The few other female employees who sometimes (rarely) do the trash get help with this, but I do not. According to my boss, it's because I'm stronger than the other girls. When I point out the danger of injury, she "reminds" me that to apply for the job I had to say I could lift 70 pounds. I then have to remind her that when I applied, the app only said 50 pounds, and that the suction in the trash cans acts like more weight than the trash actually has. 

Since I'm not allowed to lay the can on its side (she calls that beating up the can) so that the bag will settle and air can get in around it, it feels like I'm pulling 100 pounds of dead weight out of that can. She has all ready told me that if I get injured "doing the trash" she's going to put in the paperwork that I've refused assistance with it, even though in reality I've been asking for assistance and she's refusing my requests. I feel like she's deliberately trying to injure my back so I'll have to file another Worker's comp claim, and she can say it's a habit or something. Either that, or she is using "crap duty" to retaliate against me for defending myself against the discrimination I've been facing on the job. I know she is not trying to get rid of me, because she is aware that I cannot just quit. In this economy, there is no place else to go.
I've concluded that the harassment is more of an attempt to dominate and control than to repel.

Yesterday, she did set me up like in the dream, but not with the restroom. She told me to work in the cooler, knowing that doing so required a jacket, then she yelled at me for taking the time to put one on before going in there because she wanted privacy in the back room for a phone call to corporate. I pointed out that I was in there because of her order, and that everyone wears a jacket in the cooler. She got mad and stormed out of the room.

I guess the stress is really just getting to me. This has to be one of the strangest work nightmares I've had yet. I guess now I'm dreaming that my boss is the boogie man.

Conspiracy to psych out

I'm wandering through a mall. It has a mix of stores including some from the mall I used to shop in as a teen, and the mall my kids like to shop in now. I'm looking for something, and I have money to buy it, but not much extra. I know that I have somewhere else I have to go next, and that's going to take up the bulk of the rest of my day, but right now, the shopping is more important.

My reason for shopping is kind of vague. I'm not looking for a specific thing. I'm here because I "have to" buy something for myself. It feels like fact of the source from which the money came to me somehow makes it by definition something between a gift and "found money," but I also have a sense of having earned it. There was definitely some reason why it was owed to me.

I have a sense of responsibility and burden related to how the money is to be spent. It has to be something I'll want and like, but not something totally frivolous. I'm trying to also make sure it is something that won't get used up, expire, or quickly become obsolete. It feels as though failing to meet those conditions will mean I have wasted the money.

The feeling is partly related to the fact that it is being spent on me and not members of my family, on whom I am usually focused when shopping. It's a rare thing for me to buy something just for myself, and when I do, it's usually because there is a practical and necessary reason why I am buying it (like work clothing or allergy medicine) and not just because it's something I really want.

The feeling I have is also partly related to how the money ended up being owed to me. I have the sense that personal sacrifice was wrongfully forced upon me by the source of the money. That personal sacrifice cost my family things we needed. The source "gifted" me to avoid some being made to pay me more. I had accepted the amount to avoid the risk of getting nothing. Now, I feel kind of pinched, like I have less than I need, and need to make every penny count.

Everywhere I go in the mall, people are watching me. I feel like they are judging everything I look at, weighing whether or not I should even be considering this or that item. I have the sense of these people thinking I don't deserve to use any of this money on myself, even though I am supposed to do exactly that. At the same time, I have the sense of them keeping track, with the intent to report back to the source from which the money came, as if a wrongful purchase would justify the source taking it back.. That would not be the case, but I'm not sure the source wouldn't try, and having to deal with that would create a huge inconvenience for my family.

I feel upset about being watched. I feel stalked and personally invaded. Most people are trying to be subtle about it, making sure to appear to be checking out something near me if I actually look in their direction, but there are a few who are blatantly following me around and staring.

I can't even interact with the people around me. I compliment a woman's manicure, and instead of thanking me, she tells me I don't need a manicure. I had no intention of seeking one, nor would I want one. I was just enjoying the sight of hers, which was pretty cool. I have no use for a manicure. However, I'm really put off that she said that to me. It felt like she was telling me that I'm beneath her, that I'm not quality enough to qualify for a manicure. Even though I am uninterested in my fingernails beyond utility and prevention of injury to my fingers, I'm offended that this woman feels entitled to give or deny permission for me to have a manicure, and also that she jumped to the conclusion that I even wanted one. First, it's my fingers and my money, and therefore my decision. Second, a stranger has no right to make assumptions about my personal choices like that.

Another bystander won't let me pass when I want to go down one aisle at a shop and ask him to please excuse me. I'm told, "you don't need to look down there. There's nothing you should be interested in." The aisle has craft supplies that I'm considering using to make things I can sell. The man says, "No one wants to buy your doilies," but that's not the image I was thinking about. I have patterns for jewelry and other accessories, including hats, gloves, and bags. Again, I'm offended that he feels entitled to make that determination for me, but because everyone is watching, I'm nervous about any kind of a confrontation.

I'm also offended at his attitude toward my crafts. I've sold them before. I have had a decent response at small flea markets. People do like them. I just don't have the time to make that a regular activity because I work full time. Regardless, a complete stranger has no way of assessing the desirability of my work, and no business critiquing it unseen or making assumptions about the potential success of a venture. Even if he chooses to do that, he has no right to enforce his opinion of me upon me this way. I don't feel obligated to tolerate what he has said.

Looking around, I see a lady speaking into what looks like either an old cell phone or a two-way transmitter. She's staring at me, and speaking quietly, but I catch a couple of words and phrases: "Willful" and "refusing to be shaped" and "seems to feel entitled to decide for herself." I'm pretty sure she's talking about me, but I feel like some kind of a paranoid egotist for the thought. Then she says my full name into the phone. Of all things, this makes me feel very relieved, because I was beginning to feel nuts for believing this was all about me. Now, I feel justified in resisting it because it's real.

I levitate into the air and fly over the jerk who won't let me get my crafts. Lowering myself down on the other side as he stares at me with his jaw dropped, I assess the benefits and drawbacks of this potential purchase. I still have several months of visitation with my stepdaughter during which I'll be riding back and forth in the car to her place twice a month for an hour each way. I could get a lot of crafting done during this time.

I could spend about 10% of the money, buy the supplies, and set up a shop online that would only allow the amount of product I've added to it to be ordered, so I couldn't get behind. I take out a little notebook and write down the idea, the cost of the supplies, and give it a rating. As I'm doing this, everyone in the store begins rapidly moving toward me in an aggressive manner (except the cashiers, who appear oblivious of the whole thing.) The woman with the communication device is shouting into it, something about broken rules, decisions, and my not being boxed in. People are yelling at me, "You can't do that! You're not allowed!" A woman from the organization from which the money came demands my notebook, yelling that I don't have the right to keep notes, and if I'm going to make any claims, I have to do it all from memory.

Just as the other patrons approach, I fly up and away from the spot. I move on to another shop which has household items that I feel would reduce the amount of time I spend doing housework, while simultaneously increasing the tidiness of my family's apartment. As I near the store, I notice there is a barricade of people blocking my path, standing with their arms linked and angry expressions on their faces. They tell me I can't go in there.

I move around them, open a hole in the wall, and enter the store. Then, I pull down the mesh door that keeps patrons out after the store is closed. As I shop the store, the people outside of it scream at me and pound at the mesh door. I concentrate for a moment on repelling them from the door. It crackles, and then suddenly they are all zapped like they had touched an electric fence. Everyone jumps back, surprised into silence.

Among the crowd, I see three people I recognize as part of the organization that is the source of the money. I realize they are manipulating the crowd. I point at them, and shout "LIGHT!" Each of them is now surrounded by brightness as if shined upon by a spotlight. Then, I shout, "TRUTH!" All three people begin to look uncomfortable, as if trying really hard not to lose control of a bodily function, while simultaneously knowing that relief is not readily available. Then, they look like they are going to vomit. People start backing away from them. I walk away, and begin assessing the possibilities for the items available in the store, making notes in my little notebook and writing down prices and ratings of benefit to my family. These are the pros and cons of the decision (as in, pro - it will tidy up the clutter in the bathroom; con - it costs 5% of my little budget.)

I can hear one voice telling everyone in the crowd what led to my receiving the money I'm here to spend. It isn't the voice of one of them, but another, bigger voice which seems to be coming over the loudspeakers. I stop shopping and look out the door to see everyone backing away from the three. The faces in the crowd look appalled and outraged, and some of them begin muttering and pointing. The three look nervous, then scared. One of them starts shouting counter-accusations, but no one listens. People in the crowd start throwing things at the three. Some of the items are actually heavy and solid enough to hurt.

Righteously indignant as I am about what originally happened and about the conspiracy that followed, I know this is wrong and am highly averse to letting it happen. As soon as I desire to exit the store and interfere, the mesh door rises back into the wall on its own. I bellow "STOP!" at the crowd, and they do. Everyone looks at me. I tell them that what happened has all ready been taken care of, that the organization has settled with me, and I accepted the settlement. The debt is paid, and we're even. No further action is necessary. I ask that everyone just let me shop in peace. Even though I still feel anger over the incident pulling at my heart, I know it's wrong to wish harm upon someone who wronged me after penance has been done for the wrong, and it's not these people's battle to fight, anyway. Getting them involved would be dishonest and manipulative of me, and mean both to her and them, because she would be unjustly harmed, and they would be guilty of that harm.

I see a sense of letdown settle into the crowd, and they begin to disperse, going into other stores and wandering along the hallway of the mall. The two men sort of back off and fade into the crowd. The woman of the three tries approaching some of the wandering shoppers, inviting them to "hang out" and shop together. They blow her off in no uncertain terms, some of them demonstrating disgust, others anger, and still others a simple lack of trust. She seems surprised by this, and I realize that until this moment, she's never not had a rapport with the local public and she doesn't know how to handle it. There's nothing I can do to fix that. She showed them a false face and now they know differently. The only one who can repair that bridge is her.

She glares fiercely at me. Her face looks really creepy. I almost expect her to bite me. Instead, she points a finger and wails, "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" She begins cussing me out, claiming that I had no right to buck her authority and protect myself from her. She shouts that I'd better watch my step, because she'll be waiting for an opportunity to get me back for this. I don't feel intimidated, but I'm kind of miffed that she feels entitled to any authority over any aspect of my personal well-being. She can be in charge of that which is her territory all she wants, but I belong to myself, and I have the right to be unharmed.

Because of the way the money came to me, I am no longer involved with that which is her territory. I'm not required to have anything to do with her, and I'm not required to permit her any involvement in or access to knowledge of my existence. If she attempts to enforce upon me even the least bit of exposure to her, I can file charges and she will be in trouble. I let her rant for a moment, then smile and tell her, "That's really not your call."

This infuriates her so much that she totally loses control. She starts grabbing the items on the floor around her and flinging them at me. Nothing hits, but other people notice what she is doing. The lady with the communication device starts speaking into it again. The angry woman runs out of things to throw. She looks flummoxed for a moment, then reaches into the back of her pants, pulls out a huge turd, and throws that directly at me. I hold up a hand and think about pushing it away. It flies up into the air, hits the ceiling, and sticks.

Two mall security guards arrive and tell the woman she has to leave. They are accompanied by two higher-ups in the organization from which I received the money. The higher-ups aren't directly requesting anything, but they do identify the woman for the guards. They walk away. In the crowd, I can see her two compatriots trying to look uninvolved. She notices them, and says, "I'm with them! You can't make me leave because I'm with them!" The guards ask the men, and the men tell the guards that they don't have anything to do with her. They basically disown her to keep from being thrown out with her.

She tells the guards she has the right to be here, and that I'm the one who should be thrown out because I've disrupted the whole mall by being here when I wasn't welcome. The lady with the communication device, which I can now see is some kind of smart phone with what looks like a mini-hard drive on the back of it, tells the guards that the disruption was caused by manipulative lies fed to the shoppers by the organization, not by my presence. She states that the woman had become violent and was throwing things at me. She points out the things on the ground around me and says that the woman threw all of them.

The woman says there is no proof, because there is no video. She tells the guard that I'm covered in feces and I'm a health hazard. The lack of feces upon my person is clearly visible, and the guard gives her a wary, concerned look you usually see given to people who are starting to sound crazy. At that moment, the poop on the ceiling falls on her head. It runs down her hair onto her clothes. The lady with the smart phone tells the guards that the woman had thrown that at me, too.

The guards inform the poop covered woman that they now cannot believe anything she says. They pull out what look like a couple of those extended reach grabbing devices used by short people to get things off of high shelves, only these are metal, and the grabber at the end looks like a handcuff. They quickly snap these onto her wrists, and step apart. Keeping her at arms length with her hands out from her body, they march her toward the mall exit.

Finally, I have what I want. She is not going to bother me any more. No one is paying any attention to me. I am free to decide how to best invest the money I've received, and then I can get on with my everyday stuff. I turn to go back into the household goods store. Inside the store is my Grandma. She's going to help me shop. I haven't seen her in years, and I'm so happy to see her I run up and give her a huge hug.

I'm so relieved for this to be over that I almost start crying, but Grandma reminds me that we have things to do, so instead I turn to look with her at items on the shelves. There are items for storage. I am worrying over whether to get a set with several different sizes, or a set that has several bigger sizes but less of a variety. It is also a few dollars less than the other, because it's not brand name. Grandma reminds me of one of her old sayings, "That which holds a lot will also hold a little." Knowing she is right, I write down the price and benefits of the bigger items.

I nearly burst into tears when I woke from this one. The reason I haven't seen Grandma in years is because she died in 1994. She was a huge guiding influence in my life over many things, including the aspects of my attitude that would lead me to do something like telling the crowd in the dream to stop attacking the people who had hurt me, because that situation was all ready over. Grandma did not have a vengeful bone in her entire body. She was a very caring and compassionate woman who had an aversion to unnecessary drama, but sought to heal the hurts of the people around her. To this day, I often make decisions based on the thought of "What Would Grandma Do?"

This dream, I think, was based on a specific situation I'm going through in waking life. A few months ago, I was injured at work.. It was a life-threatening injury, but one with a fairly quick recovery. I was given permission from a doctor to return to work, but with a restriction that my employer refused to accept, so I was put on a temporary leave until the restriction expired. I filed a complaint with OSHA while receiving treatment for the injury during that time. 

OSHA investigated and cited my employer for two serious violations, and levied a fine for each. The next day, my employer changed the requirements for my return to work, and refused to let me use earned vacation hours for my time off. I fulfilled the new requirements, but was not returned to work. Instead, my employer changed the requirements again. This continued for two months. During the first month, my family ran through our small savings, and I had to apply for government assistance, including unemployment. 

During the second month, I realized what my employer was doing, and filed a retaliation complaint with the labor board After my complaint had been initiated, my employer attempted to prevent me from receiving unemployment by claiming that I was on voluntary leave due to an illness. I had to write to my case worker explaining what was going on, and it was ultimately the case worker's choice to award me unemployment that got me approved to return to work. Then, the company used my originally doctor-approved return to work date to keep me from receiving Worker's Compensation for any of the time I'd been kept off of work following my injury. The industrial commission found in my favor for the medical bills, but in the company's favor for the lost time.

It is the combination of those two communications, the choice to alter my return to work requirements, and the choice to withhold my vacation hours during my absence that are cited in my retaliation complaint. My labor case worker has assessed an amount owed totaling what I would have earned between the doctor-approved return to work date and the date I actually was put back on the schedule. My employer can choose to pay the amount, offer a smaller settlement, or fight the claim. 

The case worker has advised me that most employers offer a settlement, and that I'll get paid much sooner if I accept it. Given my situation, if they offer a reasonable settlement, I'll take it. I'll have to pay the state's portion of the unemployment I received back to the state (not because the state will make me, but because it's the right thing to do) but by my definition of reasonable, I should be left with a full month's worth of pay after doing that. 

In the meantime, I'm back to work for the same boss who allowed the conditions which injured me. The company was aware of the existence of the conditions, having been informed of them repeatedly during the past 5 years. The boss basically said that she didn't have to follow OSHA regulations because of the size of the building, a ridiculous statement. 

She is furious with me for having filed a complaint for the dangerous working conditions. I am now being subjected to a hostile work environment. I think that environment, and my concerns about reaching a settlement with the company, are what this dream was about. I think the shoppers represent my coworkers and people from the neighborhood who shop at my workplace. I think the shopping represents my boss's efforts to get back at me for my complaint, my efforts to defend myself, and my concerns about whether or not I will even receive anything in response to the complaint.

My boss waits until we are alone and off camera and makes threats. She has told me that she's going to "get me on something" and as soon as she gets an opportunity, I'm "out of here." She gives me the hardest jobs we have, and I am the only employee not permitted breaks. I even get the third degree for having to use the restroom or needing to have anything to drink during a 9-hour shift. I more than half expect her to make up an excuse to fire me. I think the loudspeaker portion of the dream is my recent decision that if she does, I'm going to the local press with my story.

My boss is trying to use psychological abuse to psych me out and make me screw up. She messes with the area I'm assigned to work in so that things are out of place and conditions are in place to create messes for me to clean up (like propping breakable containers of liquid overhead where they'll fall when I touch the unstable shelves they are on). She sends me away from what I've been told to work on, to go do something else momentarily, and rearranges my stuff so that it's just disorganized enough to slow me down a bit when I return. This has included putting bills in the wrong slots in my register so that I have trouble making change for customers.


She has given me orders and then yelled at me for following them, even going so far as to threaten to "write me up" for doing exactly what I was told moments earlier. However, she refuses to write down what she wants me to do.

She has said things to my customers (who are also my neighbors) about me, and had friends of hers come into our store and give me a rough time at the cash register. She has brought things she knows I'm allergic to into the store in order to cause irritation. She has lied to my co-workers about me. She spends the day periodically stopping her activities to stand and glare at me as if I've just done or said something wrong. She has taken my paperwork so that I can't keep track of what I'm doing. 

She makes a point to give derogatory, condescending, or insulting replies to things I say, even when I am not talking to her. Often, these are statements designed to insinuate that I am challenging her authority when nothing I've said indicates that, such as replying to an "ok, got it" (an acknowledgment that I comprehend the meaning of an order or other statement given to me) with a comment like, "Well I HOPE that's ok with you. It better be, because I'm in charge" as if I'd offered approval instead of confirmation.


If I have a question or have to inform her that a customer wants to speak to her, she ignores me. I can stand two feet away and say her name loudly, and she will pretend she did not hear. She's not very good at that. She has a visible "flinching" kind of response to my voice, in which she starts to turn in my direction but checks herself before she thinks she's given away that she's heard me. If I repeat the request or further attempt to get her attention, she'll busy herself to appear distracted. 

Upon my third attempt, she will strike up a random, frivolous conversation with another nearby person in order to avoid answering me. Only when I go back and tell the customer that my boss is deliberately ignoring me does she acknowledge that she hears me, and of course she yells at me for saying that and tells me she didn't hear me before because she was "in a conversation." I have had several customers see this act, offer sympathy, and tell me they are surprised that she does not realize how transparent that behavior is.


She has also given me "orders" related to my private life (like where to shop and what to buy,) and has taken personal offense when I refused to follow them.


The two creepiest things she's done so far are the aforementioned staring, and the habit of only coming to my cash register when making purchases at our store on her way out or at lunch. She will wait in my line, even when the other working cashier is unoccupied, until it's blatantly and openly awkward for her to do so. She also crowds me behind the counter to do this, insisting on standing inches away from me. If I move away, she steps closer until there is no place further for me to move. This week, she's had me so creeped out that I am making mistakes at the register. 


I've been documenting the harassment in a cheap little spiral notebook I keep in my pocket. She is angry about the notebook and has complained to her superior. She made sure I overheard her telling the co-manager (our P.C. term for assistant manager) that she was bringing him in to "discuss" it with me, meaning that they are going to badger me about it. I've contacted the human resources department over the harassment, but they have been no help. In fact, everything I discussed with H.R. was repeated back to my boss, so now she knows my complaints.


Everything that I've written here has been documented in detail, but I cannot share the details here at this time. However, I have shared all of that documentation with my case worker at the labor board. I do have hope that I will receive help with this situation from there. My biggest hope is that the company will transfer her to another store so she'll stop harassing me, and that they'll offer me enough of a settlement that I can at least undo the financial damage that two months of missed work did to my household. If I get enough, the crafting idea may not be such a bad thing. I make some pretty cool stuff. Maybe I will try to sell some of it on the side for extra cash.


In the meantime, the poop-throwing thing from the dream, I think is actually related to recent events. While I was gone, she told my neighbors who shop at that store that I had taken leave to recover from my injury. I've had to explain to a lot of them what really happened. Several are offended that she lied to them, and most are outraged at the treatment I received. She doesn't understand why they are less friendly with her than they used to be, and she's pissed off that they seem more friendly with me than they used to be. Her response to that has been behavior that has proved to be kind of off-putting to the people she's trying to persuade. Although the situation has been highly stressful to me, in the end, I do feel like I'm having a battle of wits with an unarmed person, and in the end I know that this is all temporary. I will survive it, and I will move on (we're leaving the area when the school year ends, hence the "someplace else to go" feeling in the dream) without having been defined by the attitude of a power-happy big fish in a little pond. 

Prison Escape

I'm in a truck that's normal sized, but souped up to do tricks like a monster truck. There is a battle taking place in an arena between myself and an authority figure who is chasing me. She is piloting a giant robot called a mech.

Somehow, I've gotten my truck onto the top of a tall, narrow, flat tower of rock so that I'm up as high as the mech. I intend to jump the truck onto the mech, but the device that does that malfunctions, and I end up on the ground at her feet. I dodge in and out and shoot, but the authorities decide that the battle has been won by the mech, and I have to go with the woman inside.

We leave the arena through a normal sized door, leaving our vehicles behind. She takes me into a building. It's a familiar place. I've escaped from here before. I ready myself to escape again.

We enter the room where I'll be kept, and I'm told I'm considered guilty and dangerous, and I'm to be executed because I cannot be held for a full sentence. I accept the ruling without any struggle, because I know I'm going to escape again. I'm not going to permit this; I've done nothing wrong, and these people have no right to do this to me. They are not the real authorities, just people who have the arrogance to think themselves that important, and behave like it. The woman speaking to me is put off by my attitude, and says she doesn't think I understand the gravity of the situation. She tells me I won't escape this time. After that, sge and everyone else leaves the room.

I know the layout of the part of the building from which I previously escaped. The room I'm in has huge bay windows, but the glass is unbreakable. However, everyone driving by can see inside. Outside my door is a hallway stretching away from the room, with two other doors immediately to the left and right, then a receptionist's station on the left after the first door. That opens into kind of a lobby with an exit, and there is more building beyond that.

The door to the right leads to offices and workrooms for employees of the prison. On the left, there are other cells, and another hallway that leads to the execution chamber. There are also supply closets and a couple of utility rooms. It was in one of those closets that I hid for several moments after my last escape, while the search fanned out from the facility.

An employee brings me a change of clothes in an overnight bag. I change in full view of the windows, (because there is nowhere else to change) but with my back turned to them and sitting down to prevent anyone seeing anything important. Even so, there is an immediate traffic jam as cars slow down because the drivers can see the back of a naked woman.

The employee returns, and helps me finish changing. She also gives me a magazine with an address in it for where my brother is being held. This gets my attention, as I did not know that "they" had him. Immediately, I am able to see into his room, and speak to him. I tell him that when I show up and say it's time to go, we have to leave without delay, so be ready. He agrees, and then it's time for me to leave this room. The employee leaves, but she leaves the bag with me, along with a bunch of balloons. Before she goes, she tells me to hurry, because they've rescheduled my execution for earlier. She leaves the door unlocked on her way out. She also did that when she brought me the bag, but the receptionist noticed and came to lock the door again. This time, I am able to sneak out of the room.

I walk down the hallway, right past the receptionist's desk. I hear the employee chatting with her, asking what activity I am scheduled for prior to my execution, telling her that she'll take me to it. The balloons hide my face, and the receptionist is distracted, so I am able to slip by. I hear her reply: "Gymnastics."

Gymnastics? Seriously? That's a new one on me. I figure they are trying to keep me too busy to try to escape. I also figure if I head in the direction I'm supposed to be going until I get to the exit, I'll have a better chance of getting out undisturbed. I spot several people in brightly colored (some fluorescent) gym clothes, and decide they must be headed for the gymnastics room. I follow along with them until I get to the big exit. Instead of continuing on to the room, I leave the building.

Several other people are leaving with me. They are completely uninvolved, and don't know who I am, so I'm unconcerned that they will cause me to get recaptured. As I hurry along, though, a tall, blond woman spots a cut on my cheek. She takes a tissue out and wipes off the blood, then wipes the excess not absorbed by the tissue on a pillar that supports the canopy in front of the building. Great. That'll tell 'em I was here when they start searching. Now they'll know which exit I used.

The woman is about to put the tissue in her purse, creating another DNA sample, but I politely thank her and tell her I'll dispose of it for her. I take it, fold it up, and put it in my back pocket. I can't get rid of the blood on the pillar, but maybe they won't see that.

I turn right and head toward the prison where my brother is being kept. The direction takes me across a courtyard with a fountain, gardens, and natural stone steps. From the outside, the building looks a lot like a school. The window pattern is especially similar.

People are coming from the direction I'm headed. I hear them talking, and someone says here She comes. "She" spoken with a capital "S" is how the entire staff refers to the woman who brought me in. Everyone here is intimidated by her. I am given to understand that she is in charge, and is kind of a bitch. I change direction and go up the other set of stairs closer to the building. At the top of the stairs, I find a setup similar to a camp. There are several poorly constructed little shacks. I know my brother is in one of those shacks.

Afraid the woman is following me, and that I will be discovered and recaptured, I slip in behind one of the shacks, the one I am pretty sure he is in. It has a lot of thin wood chips (the same type of wood the shacks are made of, as if the chips are pieces that have fallen off) on the ground behind it, and the back of the building bows backward. Since it's very close to the building I was in, it becomes difficult to get through. About halfway through, at the narrowest point, I realize I'm having to push really hard to squeeze in between the shack and the building.

At the same time, I see prisoners and guards sweeping up more wood chips. They are shoving them in behind the building. If I don't move, they'll see me even though it's dark back here. To hide better, I lay down on top of the chips, which are piled at least a foot deep. Down here, it's even darker. I can see them, but they can't see me. I notice that among the guards are some of my classmates. I'm glad they can't see me. They'd be sure to recognize me, and then I'd never escape.

My plan is easy. I'll wait a few moments until the guards have gone, grab my brother, and we'll run. There is a path from the yard into the woods, where there are carts we can use to escape. Once we've gotten a distance, we can abandon the cart. There will be another family member waiting to take us home.

The guards are just finishing up. As I wait, I can feel the wood chips digging into my side. I have the feeling of certainty that my plan will work, as long as I remain patient and follow it. The only big challenge now is going to be getting up from where I am laying, given how narrow the space is.

The feeling of the wood chips digging into my side woke me. I'd been sleeping on that side all night, and was feeling uncomfortable for real. On waking, I realized that several of the characters in the dream were familiar. Because of who everyone was, I think the dream was a manifestation of the anxiety I feel related to my work and everything that has been going on there. At no point in the dream did I actually feel that I was guilty of something and deserved imprisonment. Rather, the whole time I felt unjustly treated as guilty, and wrongfully imprisoned. I felt that my brother deserved it even less, because he was totally uninvolved with them, and I was angry that they'd taken him.

The "authority" who took me into the building had represented my boss at work. She didn't look like her, but the giant robot did. IRL, my boss is really authoritarian and very impatient toward me. Everything I do is either wrong, not enough, or not necessary, even though it's in my job description or what she told me to do and how she told me to do it. She drives me nuts!

The employee who helped me was a lady who had trained at our store before moving on to a management position. She had noticed that there was unequal treatment by my boss between me and the other employees; I had a heavier workload, wasn't allowed breaks, and couldn't even go to the restroom without getting questioned about it, while most of my co-workers get a break an average of once every two hours, plus restroom breaks, and have time to stand around doing nothing. Sort of mixed in with that identity was the identity of the person who has replaced me in that position as I have moved on to a new position. In my new position, I'll partly be working a different shift, and will not have to deal with my boss as much.


The receptionist was a co-worker who doesn't believe the position I'd been holding was that hard. She is also a gossip monger, and has the tendency to assign blame for anything that she thinks has gone wrong in the store. She frequently communicates that blame to the boss, trying to get people into trouble. It often works, even when the evidence shows that she is wrong. Once the boss has been told by her that someone did something they shouldn't have, or didn't do something they should have, it doesn't matter if it's true or not, that person will be in trouble for something.


The lady who wiped the blood from my cheek, I think represents the regional human resources manager for the company. A couple of months ago, I was injured at work. A doctor authorized me to return, but with a break restriction. Even though the company has allowed that of other employees, my restriction was rejected, and I was taken off of the schedule for a little over a week until the restriction expired. I believe that was done because I filed worker's compensation for the medical bills associated with the injury. I had to, though. I don't have any insurance, and I was hurt on the job. Anyway, it is the HR manager who deals with that, and she's the one whose decisions have kept me off of the schedule for so long.


The condition under which I was hurt has existed at the store for years, and is dangerous. I called OSHA, but found that the particular working condition which caused my injury isn't directly regulated. OSHA offers advice, but doesn't have specific policy. However, OSHA found two other serious violations in the store, and cited the company. The day after the inspection, when the citation was received by corporate, the company changed how my injury was being handled. They used odd paperwork and red tape to keep me off the schedule for nearly two whole months, and refused to allow me to use any of my vacation time to get a pay check during those months.


I fought back by applying for unemployment, and have filed a retaliation/discrimination complaint with OSHA making four specific points which demonstrate discrimination. Because I'd filed unemployment, the company had to put me back on the schedule. They tried to use part of the mandatory paperwork to claim I was on voluntary leave (I wasn't) and get out of paying unemployment, but I had kept a journal, and was able to cite phone calls in which I was ordered to fill out and return those papers and told I couldn't be returned to work without them.

In the end, the company has been left with the choice of either acknowledging that I was laid off, or putting me back on the schedule. In the meantime, they had me out beyond the date of the switch in position from one that comes in early in the morning to one that doesn't.


I've been left with the feeling of having checkmated my way back to work. I'm going to continue to see the OSHA complaint through to the end. Regardless of the outcome of that, it sets a precedent with OSHA and the company that I've felt retaliated against by my manager and by corporate, so that in the future, if they retaliate further, OSHA will be ready to handle it.


I think that my brother in the dream represented my son in real life. My family has been subjected to financial hardship because of what has happened, and it feels like my son has been punished for the company's attitude about safety and employee rights. Among other things, we've had to give up on allowing him to play the instrument he wanted in the school orchestra, because we can't afford to buy one, and we don't qualify for credit to rent-to-own. This is a direct result of my being kept from work. 

I want to make things better for him, and I am sure that will happen, but I'm going to have to be patient and stick out the time it takes for the OSHA complaint to go through, and for the unemployment case to be decided. In the long run, I'm leaving the company; my husband and I are going to move our family back to the area where he grew up after the end of this school year. We'll be able to get the instrument next year, and he'll be able to catch up. There are more and better jobs in that area than where we are. I think that is what the waiting in the dream represented. In real life, though, it's a LOT harder than in the dream!

Cornered

I get out of bed. It's still dark. I've gotten up because my alarm went off. It's early, about 3:30 A.M. and I have to get ready for work . I haven't gotten much sleep, and I am so tired that my head feels heavy. However, I have to get up, or I will be late for work.

Coffee!

I just need my coffee, and then I'll be okay.

I grab my glasses and my phone and head out of the bedroom to go downstairs and get ready for the day. I walk around the end of the bed and reach for the door handle in the dark, but instead my hand hits a wall. I hear my husband's breathing change, but he doesn't wake up.

I move along the wall, looking for the door handle. The room isn't that big, so I should be right next to it, but I can't seem to find it. Finally, I give up and open my phone to use the light it puts out. It's not very bright, but since I've been asleep, it should be enough for me to see. Oddly, somehow I've gotten into a corner. I see the door, and I head that way as my phone goes out. I reach for the handle, and boom! I run into the wall again. Opening my phone, I see that I have gotten turned around and run back into the corner.

What the heck? How did I get here? I put my hand on the wall, and start moving to the right, toward the door just two feet away from me. My phone light goes out again, and I am again in the dark. After a few seconds, my shoulder bangs into the wall. Turning on my phone light, I see that I am now facing as if I'd turned to my left. My fingers are in the corner, my shoulder is against the wall, and the door is behind me!

Now, I am really frustrated. I must be very sleepy, to keep doing this. How did I get all the way around the room and not realize it? I figure maybe I am sleepwalking.

I reach behind me. I am touching the door frame right now. With my fingers on it, I turn around. I can see the door. As I reach for it, my phone light goes off again. My fingers slam painfully into the corner, and I hear my husband's "half awake" breathing again. This time, I have not moved, and I know I did not go back to sleep. I turn on my phone light, and sure enough, I am back in the corner.

Now, I am a little bit scared. I say my husband's name. He sounds like he is almost awake, but he doesn't answer me. In a panic, I call his name again. He does not wake up. I put my fingers in the corner, and stretch to reach the door with my other hand. I can't quite get to the door handle, only the middle of the door... but I can feel the frame against my arm. With that to guide me, I slide along the wall, reaching for the edge of the door... and bang my fingers into the corner.

Now, it's no longer dark in the room. The sun is coming up, and I know I've been doing this for a couple of hours. I am all ready late for work. My phone rings, and my husband wakes up. He asks why I'm still home, and I start to move toward him so I can explain, but instead I run face first into the corner.

The impact of the corner on my face has awakened me. I have dozed in front of the computer. I woke early this morning and came downstairs before my husband left for work. I've been off work for a month, as my company has been dragging its feet with regard to getting me back on the job after a minor injury. I've been really frustrated with the process, and yesterday they sent me another item of paperwork to fill out that isn't even related to my injury. They had a whole month to send me that page, but they held it until a full work week after the last item was turned in for evaluation, and I am starting to think they are deliberately delaying my return as a means of retaliating against me for filing worker's compensation. Why else would they send me paperwork requiring a doctor to evaluate physical capabilities that were never in question, and why else (if this paperwork is so necessary) would they have waited until just now to make it available to me?


I think this dream is a function of my frustration and feelings of helplessness due to that process, and my feeling that I'm not contributing to the household because I'm not bringing in any income. I really do feel like my employer has stuffed me into a corner, and I can't get out. I think the part about slamming my fingers, though, had more to do with the fact that they are sore this morning, and my slamming face first may have been because I slumped down and hit my head on the desk . I'm fine, but the spot where my face impacted the desk is right where it hit the wall in my dream. (Don't feel bad if you laugh at this. I am!)