The Working Girl Blog #52: All alone in the middle of a crowd

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Roberta J Cabot

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Blog #52: All alone in the middle of a crowd

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I've been having lunch at work alone for the past few of weeks, or just eating in my office by myself. Pretty lonely actually. Yes, it is possible to be alone even if you're surrounded with people.

But everyone was afraid to talk to me, I suppose for fear of saying the wrong thing, and maybe lose their jobs. More than half of the branch's staff has been re-assigned to other branches or out-and-out retrenched, while a handful was offered accelerated retirement packages.

Can't really blame them, actually. What with the "incident" and the problems of the economy and the company. Yesterday, I was actually in the main office, trying to convince the top brass to lift the hiring ban for our branch. Didn't work, though, and I'm still trying to figure what to say on Monday, and help figure out what to do about having to manage with just half of the staff. Maybe I can call my boss for some advice. Or rather, ex-boss. I did call Sammi after the meeting and told her what happened. So the news is probably all over the office by now.

Anyway..

Truth is I feel a little demotivated nowadays. And, although eating alone is nothing major and things like these never used to matter - now, it does. I've been wondering why. Anyway, like I said, I'm a little demotivated.

Anyway, a couple of days ago, as I finished the lunch I barely tasted, all alone again, a couple of my jogging mates came over, proffering an ice cream bar.

It was a peace offering of sorts. Maybe not a peace offering exactly, but they said they were through avoiding me. I was touched by the gesture - a bit teary-eyed, actually. And we had a good time catching up on things as we finished off our ice cream bars. But I had to cut things short, and said we needed to get to work. Had to provide a good example, y'know. But I said I'd treat them out to dinner or something some other time, and have a proper visit. That's what girlfriends do.

And it would have been nice if that was the start of things going back to the way they were, but that would have been too good to be true. Happy endings only happen in movies, like in the movie, Love Actually or something like that - where everything ends the way you want it to. The people who didn't like me still didn't, and those that were still afraid to talk to me still were. And, I suspect, my two friends won't be too popular.

I guess we'll manage.

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I wish I could give you a hug.

As I remember, this thing sort of blew up on you basically because some guy got attracted to you, and was mad when he found out. It was all about him, not you. It is not your fault that his fragile male ego could not handle it. Still, we have unfortunate realities to face.

I really wanted you succeed with that job. You seem to have put your heart and soul into it. I don't know where you will get the strength; I don't know where I would get the strength, but hopefully you can somehow reach deep inside yourself and pull out the strength to go to work, focus on the job, act normal, and once again begin to cultivat normal work place relationships.

I don't have to face the work place any more, and I greatly admire your pluck for sticking it out there. We are all cheering for you here. We want you to make it.

Gwendolyn

I completely agree

I can only add my cheers hon. Be glad for the peace gesture, anyway.

It's important to remember ...

... that the incident did a number on everyone's idea of what their day-to-day reality was, and it's going to take a while for most of the people you work with to figure out that nothing much has really changed as far as you're concerned. A lot of times, people react to changes by imitating a small animal. They hunker down and freeze, make themselves small, and wait for the ground to stop shaking, hoping with all they've got that whatever changed things decides to go back to sleep.

Most people do their best to avoid Change because it hangs out with its sister, Risk -- and both of them live in that mysterious subdivision called Unknown. But eventually, like jumping into a pool, the ripples cease and suddenly there's a new normal.

The long and short of it is, even though it's hard, things will settle down again. Because change by its very nature is an exception, not a rule.

*soft hug* Hang in there, honey. It'll get better. *smile* And hang onto those two friends -- they're the first to come out of the fear-induced freeze and come back to you with a peace offering. I'd say that's a pretty clear indication they're a cut above the crowd.

Randa

Thanks for sharing...

The isolation's got to be bad - and certainly demotivating. The "feeling" from this blog (& the others since the incident) is so different from the upbeat sound you were able to manage before. Thank you for being willing to share with us.

There have been times when I wished I were on a project down DC way, but, right now it seems you need your close friends (not strangers - specially strangers that might be strange). I wish there were something I could do. I know you're not asking. I'm just strange this way.

I hope that these two friend's "breaking" of the "wall of silence" is just the beginning of the office returning "more-or-less" to normal. For others, events like this have had that effect.

You have my best wishes.
Anne