2007-09-18
Hiss
In the last two weeks, I've come across people who have quit things.
Like their jobs or their long-term relationships or what-have-you.
I am not quitting my job and I haven't been in love since the tail end of 2004 so there's no relationship to quit, per se but I am quitting something.
A friend told me this fable today as I was complaining about a project I'd been trying to make work for a really long time:
A woman spies a snake who is almost dead in the path.
She brings it home, nurses it back to health, and enjoys many long evenings sharing stories with the snake.
One day, the snake bites her and she cries out, "Why did you do this to me? I saved your life! We were friends!"
And the snake replied, "You knew what I was when you picked me up, my dear."
Hisssssssssssssssssssssssss.
I was told by a lot of people about so and so and about the other person whose help I would've needed to be successful.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt and trusted what I was being told.
I should not have been so naive but I like to give a chance where it feels like a chance is the right thing to do.
And, there's no disaster by my stepping down my efforts, not at all.
In fact, it's likely that I'll be a lot happier.
I think I was a person who volunteered to people who would have preferred that someone else had raised her hand.
Instead of working with me, there was a lot of whispering behind my back and saying things that were disparaging yet still relying on me to do the things I had been doing with regard to the project.
About a month ago, when I started learning of these things being said and of the blocks that had been placed in my way on purpose, I stepped back a great deal.
I didn't tell them I was stepping back but I quit reading messages, quit worrying about things, and started being snarky to their faces.
The more I've learned about things, the happier I am to leave abruptly and to leave a couple of people hanging.
I don't do this spitefully; I do it because I can't justify helping out people who were dishonest with me and who used me.
The obvious metaphor is a woman who has a shitty boyfriend.
Let's say I worked with someone and dated him but he was kind of a dick who told people he thought I was too fat to be taken seriously as his girlfriend.
Say I dated him for like, a year.
Now, in this hypothetical, I like my job a whole lot so I don't want to leave my job but I obviously have to break it off with the dickhead soup, right?
Right.
And so I'm breaking off my heavy, heavy involvement and dedicating myself to being a lot less involved.
I'm not raising my hand to help with certain things anymore and I'm not really open to playing nice with a couple of people. I'd rather be truthful with them than politically correct because political correctness got me walked on like an abused girlfriend.
I don't know why these couple of people needed to treat me that way or why they were not only unresponsive but downright mean-girl style in the face of my trying to get the things accomplished I'd been tasked to accomplish.
I could have taken some bigger risks to get it done but you know what?
I'm 33 years old.
I really don't thrive on that kind of in-your-face assholitude unless I know it is only going to affect me and the person in whose face I am screaming.
This would have impacted a lot of people and I'm not willing to be a jerk to prove a point that I can better prove by refusing to do the task at hand.
But no worries for me; I've got one other thing I'm covering and it's actually headed up by someone else.
Once it's done, I am committing to a downward spiral of disengagement.
People who really are my friends will get my help, word.
Man I wish someone would write an inspiring rap song about me.
arizonasarah at 4:11 p.m.