Waiting & the Rest of the Story

My daughter brought over a bucket of tomatoes picked in Woolwich before an overnight frost. Must be a low area. We haven't had a frost yet and my tomatoes are still out in the garden on the vines. So I will wait and see if these will ripen. G likes fresh tomato soup.

Riley is waiting to go on yet another long walk. He has chipmunks to chase and birds to track and grasshoppers to catch and lick. He also has neighborhood dogs to visit and romp with. This dog's life is pretty great.

Riley let me sleep till 10am this morning. What a dog. He's curled around my feet as I type this. Licking all kinds of good things off my shoes. If a dog can love me--I can't be that bad a person, right?

My birthday experiences. Let it be stated here that the day was completely ruined and any tears shed that day were over my ruined birthday and not any painful guilt over wrong doings. They had two. In nine and a half years. Two. No coaching by my direct supervisor. At the time of the incidents I was told "don't do it again". Period. That was the extend of any warning, management or anything. Don't do it again. And I didn't. But when they needed ammunition for their attack--those two incidents were numbers 1 and 2. Number 3 was my blog. They read to me parts of my blog which offended them. Showed disrespect to them and the library. This post will also be thought to be disrespectful.

After one hour of this, I was expected to go out for coffee or lunch to "hash things out and clear the air". And then they announced to the staff at the desk that they "were whisking me off for a celebratory birthday lunch". I nearly vomited.

I did not eat. We did not hash things out. We didn't clear the air. They ate lunch and we talked about mundane items like mice and bats in the house. I had an iced coffee and tried not to be sick all over myself in public.

We returned to the library and the birthday congratulations of staff who were working and of the patrons who overheard. Hugs, smiles and good wishes. Can any of you imagine how strange and awful this was for me? I was in shock. Blindsided. And THEN, dear readers, I was expected to work the remaining two hours of my scheduled shift.

After work, went home to walk the dog, eat the birthday sushi a library patron had made for me and delivered to the library with a sweet note and sit and think. I decided I could not agree to the terms necessary to continue employment. I emailed. And during my work shift the next afternoon the director came down and announced that "Joanne is going home, now". So that was how my dream job ended. Joanne is going home, now.

I'm finding out that my daughter was very right about what would happen "after". That's when you discover who was really your friend all along and who was only a co-worker with no loyalty to you as a person. That's all sifting out right now and it's a revelation to me. I've never been in this situation before and I have worked all my life.

My husband was a corporate trainer for over 30 years and he was stunned by the incompetent and unprofessional behavior exhibited. Even at the store level in his business, job coaching was done in a more professional manner-- and not by college graduates or people holding a masters in business management. Rather, by people trained to manage employees effectively.

So that's the story. I was rude to one patron, once. Don't do it again. I made a statement that a staff member took offense to and complained about. Once. Don't do it again. I won't even get into to the fact that someone was standing right next to me when this statement was made and didn't hear anything offensive. Also, the statement as read and printed in a letter is incorrect. That isn't what I said. Or how I said it. They also don't have a record of what the staff member said to me. It involved a physical impossibility. I never did it again. Co workers not wanting to work with me? Who. I have worked with one person for over a year (11 hours a week) and she has no complaints. I asked. I think she would have noticed if I had "poor customer service skills". I think everyone would have noticed that over the nine and a half years I worked customer service. I don't think I would have been given performance increases if I had such poor skills. Disrespect? Guilty. I am posting this.