Back to Work

I think I’m being bullied at work.

The reason why I only “think” is because it appears people who I don’t know are
bullying me. They work in another department. How do I know this? Because
employees who work for the people in the other department who I have regular and
happy contact with are showing up at my office, closing my door, and saying things
like, “I just want you to be prepared,” and, “So-and-so is pure evil,” and, “We don’t
want you to be blindsided.”

“The emails are going around. She’s going to email all the heads of department.”

About an issue in general in my department?

“No, about YOU.”

I take care of VIPs and company members for a large arts organization. How I take
care of them and the patrons of this organization is tracked in a computer program.
(Basically they get free passes.) It is a very large arts organization with separate
venues. I run one venue; the folks who are ganging up on me are at another. My
boss calls them “Bettys,” says that on the chain of command, or graph of power (you
know, the corporate chart thingy), they are here (he waggles his hand horizontally)
and we are here (he waggles his hand up and to the left.) Confusing? Yes.

I used to be an actress. What happened to being an actress?

I talk to my boss. Unpacked every little detail of how I do my job — a job that is new,
six months’ new. I speak with my HR person. She reassures I am in the right. She
will investigate. She tells me I am well-liked and respected, I’ve done a great job; the
people who are after me have recently unionized and are testing their power. Why
are they picking on me?

My contract ends in about a week. I work nights. I work days. Most of my paycheque
goes to my $10/hour brilliant-yet-bossy nanny and to daycare. Daycare. I finally took
the leap.

And we’ve had colds. And Sir Dick has been away shooting a film in Sault Ste. Marie
for six weeks. Is it good to let your kid Facetime with her dad? I am learning that
shorter is sweeter. I have a feeling it is doing something bad to her brain, seeing him
through such a tiny window.

“I see you soon, Baba!” he ends every call.

Strict Nanny: “You have to tell him he won’t see her soon, that soon to her means ten
minutes from now.”

And it’s true. When he calls, she wants him that night, next morning. Right now. Last
night she woke up screaming, “Daddy Daddy Daddy!” crying, awake, inconsolable. At
1:30 a.m. It’s heartbreaking. It’s annoying.

So today, exhausted, sleepless, over-worked, bullied by an unknown enemy, on day
five of cold, not needing to go to work until later in the afternoon, I take my kid to
daycare.

“I don’t want to go daycare!”

“Don’t you want to see Delores?”

“Noooo!”

We’ve been reading Daycare in the Caillou series. Strict Nanny warns to beware of
Caillou. “If the kids don’t already have the problem and they read about him having
it, they’ll engender the neurosis.”.

Never mind. I take the Guppins to daycare. I put her in Delores’s loving arms, tears in
her eyes.

Dolores hugs her, speaks with her with such quiet, soothing tones.

“Would you like to come sit with me and listen to the story?” Guppins nods. I
disappear from her world. I walk to the car. I get behind the wheel. And I break
down and cry.

Is it so weak? Dolores’s love came right into me too. I needed to hear it too. I need to
feel love in the face of adversity too.

As long as they can feel our love.
As long as they can feel it.
Maybe everything will be all right.

-Drama Mama

[image: photo by Lauren Peich]