The difficulty level has just been increased… in These Days:

So this week I started going back into the office. Tomorrow will be my third day back, and thank goodness I’ll have Thursday and Friday to work from home… but I don’t know how I’m going to make it. I feel so depressed right now.

Asides for two small part-time jobs I’ve worked, my entire career has involved working in a “professional” environment (basically, always an office job). I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed a job of mine, but as you go you learn how to play office politics and you can eventually make it so it’s easily tolerable. Surely there was always that certain someone (or multiple someones) I didn’t like, and then I guess surely some who just didn’t like me, but in over a decade I have never met someone as power-hungry, two-faced, self-serving, and just an all around unpleasant person that I’m now forced to work. This person does not even have any business being in a position of leadership, but she is! “Teamlead” to the exact.

Maybe I will make another post eventually about everything that has been so messed up, but for right now I’ll just say that the toxicity is almost unbelievably unbearable. Now I am forced to be in the same space, forced to listen to her pettiness, her negativity, and her dehumanizing nature…all because they now make us come in to the office and she sits a few feet away from me.

Twice a co-worker of mine had to message me on the side because our teamlead made her cry. She called me for help and was literally crying during the work day because of the condescending and abusive tone our teamlead had with her for no substantial reason. I wanted to encourage her to reach out to HR but our Teams chat is monitored, and I know for a fact it would have gotten back to me.
There are others who also cannot stomach our teamlead and feel just as defeated. However, we have no bravery to go to HR as a group, either. Our company is going through a massive overhaul/restructuring and we are all moderately concerned about our jobs. (And, no, I can’t even go to my supervisor because she and the teamlead are as thick as thieves.)

All I want to do is keep my head down and count my days to getting out. I am not looking for a new job right now because my partner is still looking for work themselves in this State, and neither they or I know how long that’s going to take. So I don’t find it to be a sound decision to be putting out there that I’m looking for a new job (someone else on the team did this already and they got notable backlash), and I would stress out so badly about finances until my partner had their own steady income.

So, that’s the plan, I guess. Work, keep my head down, hope my partner gets something soon, make sure their income is stable, and then look for a new gig of my own (unless my company can magically fix my mental/emotional stress with a raise). But it’s just so hard, and the older I get the less reserved I am about crap and I want to speak out. This isn’t healthy for me. I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I can’t even tolerate my own mood because at times I get so disgusted/angry with the teamlead, and yet all I can do is bottle it and act like all is hunky-dory. Then that makes me feel worse for allowing myself to feel disrespected by someone who clearly has their head up their own rear.

And this is why it’s so toxic. I have to find some kind of way to cope that isn’t simultaneously hurting me subconsciously.

I’m thankful for my job, and I don’t hate what I do. I remind myself to be grateful…but I absolutely detest bullies.