High Road in Current Events

On my drive home with Linda, from work, I ranted a bit about our boss. The blatant double standards that she has. There is one set of rules for some and a completely different set for others. Linda is on the receiving end of privilege and got a little defensive because she wants to protect her privilege, I assume.

The next day on our drive home, as I got suckered into picking her up and taking her home every single day, she told me that she had a meltdown at work and told our HR everything I had said. I asked her for some context, I had no idea what it was that she was talking about when she said “everything.” We do a lot of talking. She told me that she wouldn’t have applied for the same position as me if she had known it would hurt our friendship. Then she told me that she explained that I felt like there were double standards etc. Also, I did mention the optics of how it looks that I am the only person of colour that she has ever hired for her team. The other people of colour, that she inherited, are not on the receiving end of special treatment but on the receiving end of bad treatment. It just looks bad.

She would have had to of signed an NDA after her meltdown and she broke that, again. To tell me something that she wasn’t supposed to, again. Causing me to react, again. This woman cannot keep her mouth shut and I decided that I would not react this time so that this whole saga could end. This all started because she cannot keep her mouth shut. An investigation is what followed and I was ready to own up to my part.

What she told me. what she warned me about, was not at all what she told HR. The story she told them was that I was disrespecting my supervisor. That I am trying to get my boss fired to punish her for not giving me the position that I applied for. She told a story in which she was the victim of all of this and that I am trying to make her life hell. Essentially. Everything was taken out of context except the brief stint about double standards which I did discuss with HR and the manager. I mentioned that my boss and I already started that conversation, regarding the two sets of standards but they wanted to investigate that as well. They completely understood what I was talking about and now we are all going to work together on that.

I had to clear up the context that Linda gave them. I said that I was upset and that I didn’t want to punish anyone. That I didn’t want anyone to think that I was just trying to get someone in trouble because I am being a big baby about not getting what I want.

I owned up to my part in all of it, cleared up what was taken out of context and accepted my write-up. It wasn’t appropriate to bring up my concerns to Linda, our relationship is complicated because we are friends and I made a mistake. However, I cannot forgive her for twisting what I said so badly in a way that would only make sense if she was trying to get me fired. I am not allowed to retaliate but we did discuss, with HR and me, that it would not be retaliation to discontinue driving her. I told Linda yesterday that it was no longer appropriate for me to drive her. I honestly don’t owe her anything but that is neither here nor there.

She will have to spend $30 on a cab five days a week to get to work and that is not my problem. I am taking the high road, however. For the next couple of weeks, I will let her drive us to work so she can get some practice as she is still working on getting her license. I haven’t told her yet that she is to find her own way home. I’m only going to give her a couple of weeks of that. I will commit to having a professional relationship with her but that is it. I don’t mind just keeping things professional with everybody at work. I don’t like the character I was during this saga.

I did get to discuss Linda’s performance with HR and the manager. The separate set of performance standards is clear to us all. She will play games on the computer while the rest of us are struggling with our service list. We time our work and she will just run a timer and go socialize with everybody. She does this and discusses this with our boss. She will lose track of what she is even supposed to be doing because she neglects her job so badly. She is rude to everybody when she is having a bad day and I was pulled into the office the other day for not being my usual peppy self the other day. I also complete every project that is assigned to her also and have to support her in everything she does. Then she got rewarded for being deeply mediocre which is why I took this so hard.

Monday is a new day. I am already over this drama and ready to just start again without any baggage.