Have Cheap Luggage, Will Travel

"The Man" vs. the enablers

A friend of mine at work had a panic attack last week at a conference. It was really unsettling to me because he has been one of several people at my job to have panic attacks in the last few months.

Most of my life I have griped about my jobs. The only job that I can think of that didn’t make me crazy was my 4 year stint as a sandwich artist that was housed in a local gas station. Even as I write this I am starting to realize what made me love it so much. It wasn’t the job so much as it was me. I was in high school but I was balanced in the things I was involved in. I worked a ton, but I had drill team. I did a ton of drill team stuff, but I had great friends. I hung out a ton with my friends, but I spent a lot of time making sure I had good grades. So I had balance in all things.

It is very difficult to have balance at Women of Faith and it only gets worse the higher you are in the organization. Now that I am older I am starting to see the bigger picture and that people are not always victims of “the man”. There is usually a well functioning system of abusers and enablers. At my current job, too much is asked of my superiors and they ask too much of me. The problem is that people never say no more. They just quit. Or have panic attacks.

When will it be enough? Well, I am not waiting for somebody else to yell fire. FIRE!!! I am on fire and I need help! I am not so sure that bitterness or a panic attack or a new job is not waiting for me down the road because I won’t say anything.

You guys can pray for me because I don’t imagine that this conversation with my boss will be a fun one. Maybe it just is what it is, but I guess it’s not very fair to not give my job a chance. I wonder how she will react. “Hello, I’m on fire. Can you help?” :)