#Workplace bullying

[ominaterthegreat]

My sister, who spent four years at Mailchimp, just got laid off yesterday. She called me sobbing to let me know she got the email. No amount of a fat severance package can fix the damage to her psyche this job did imo. Her birthday is coming up soon. So i made her this cake.

(i only decorate a cake like once every few years lol don't come for me)

She started in customer support, and sure enough was skilled and talented enough in apprenticeships with a higher up team in a different department that she was happily brought onto the team.

She ran events, improved entire workflows that saved the company thousands of dollars, delivered tasks on time and of high quality, and was highly praised by leaders of other teams and from those above her boss. She kicked ass and took names.

On that team, she spent two years experiencing bullying and discrimination for having ADHD. Yes, arguably the most common ND condition out there just about. She had to take 2 months off for mental health leave to get her ADHD diagnosis to defend herself from all the corporate bullying. She documented her boss literally making things up and her coworker refusing to communicate with her and then blaming her for things not being done how she wanted. They actively ignored all the times she went above and beyond expectations and all the times she did receive praise from other teams. I watched two corporate goons crush the confidence my sister had finally closed together for herself.

The CEO of Intuit called her and 1800 other employees that were laid off "low performers" in a public statement. A convenient 10% of Mailchimp was completely laid off. We knew this was coming because over the past year or so, Intuit has been forcing managers to label a specific percentage of people as "Does Not Meet Expectations" on year end reviews to justify letting people go, no matter how much they actually did meet expectations.

I look in the Intuit Mailchimp tags and only see one post about them Union busting. The only posts are just geared towards companies comparing and contrasting products and marketing strategies. Reddit isn't much better because the only sub on there is the official one modded by MC themselves. This isn't the biggest fire rn by any means but it's once again proof that the people behind these corporations are as soulless and evil as the corporations themselves. No matter how much good you do they will never appreciate you.

I hope the company eats shit and dies. Intuit is ruining everything people liked about MC, from the product to the culture. Fuck you.

[merthwyn]

People probably wonder why I don't quit since I'm fed up with my current job environment. Well, I've been searching for job for 7 months now. And I've found quite many that I could apply for and I'm sure they would choose me. But I still don't. The current job and the interviews I had for other jobs opened my eyes so now I'm extra careful and suspicious when I read a job advertisement as it is easier for me to spot the hidden red flags. For example:

Do they brag about how like a warm family or an amazing team they are? STAY AWAY. You will certainly be the black sheep of that family or being expected to be the doormat of the team

Do they brag about equality, respect, diversity? STAY AWAY. You will probably experience the worst amount of disrespect, inequality and favouritism you've ever experienced.

Are they trying to "seduce" you with promises of opportunities, training, development? STAY AWAY. You will end up doing the same things forever while others less capable are getting promoted because they are the bosse's friends or simply narcissists.

Too much enthusiasm in the job advertisement with many exclamation marks and excitement? STAY AWAY. You will soon find out that the job you applied is the most boring and abusive thing you've ever seen.

Only saying things like "amazing holiday scheme" or just "holiday entitlement" instead of mentioning exactly the actual amount of holiday allowance? STAY AWAY. Otherwise, you will get like 20 days of holiday and you will have to fight to manage to get them approved.

If they mention e.g.28 days of holiday ALWAYS CLARIFY whether it's actual 28 days or just 20 + bank holidays. If it's the second, STAY AWAY. You may be ok with this (I would be ok if I liked the job environment) but they should have clarified this in the job advertisement. Who knows what other maybe more important things they are hiding..

Never go somewhere where the salary is not mentioned. If you find advertisements saying "competitive salary" or "salary negotiable" STAY AWAY otherwise you'll be lucky if you get minimum wage.

Always check their website and read their policies. If it's too much about equality or whistleblowing STAY AWAY. You will probably get bullied for refusing to use pronouns or for being a Christian and this whistleblowing will never protect you from the bullies. You will not be allowed to wear a cross but your Muslim coworkers will have breaks for prayer. And if their bullying doesn't work, you will end up falsely accused of theft or rape.

If it's an entry level or apprenticeship compare the salary they give with the amount of work you will be expected to do and the experience they ask. I've found dozens of APPRENTICESHIPS out there which want you to have loads of certificates and qualifications and do the job of a fully experienced person with half the minimum wage and with the prerequisite of having 3 years experience.

I'm sure there are more things to add. For me, it's all the above PLUS those which they don't come to mind right now PLUS the fact that I want a Mon-Fri day job. Because, imagine if you end up working with bullies and have to sacrifice evenings, weekends, Christmas and time with friends and family for them, as it happens with my current job.

When you truly value respect, discipline, accountability, responsibility, honesty, team work, equality, development, work-life balance and generally moral values, it's damn hard to find a job.....

[skjam]

Anime Review: Kengan Ashura

Anime Review: Kengan Ashura Kazuo Yamashita is 56 years old, and it’s been a pretty miserable life. He works as a salaryman in the sales department at Nogi Publications with a manager who’s constantly bullying and belittling him. Kazuo’s wife left him years ago, and he’s estranged from his sons, shut-in Kenzo and delinquent Yasuo. Every dream he’s ever had has been crushed by reality. But he is…

[eva-knits12]

Romantic Bath

Trigger warning: workplace bullying, angst, fluff galore, cuddles galore, exhaustion, romantic vacation, Andy Barber

Summary: You've had a day and Andy makes it better

The smooth jazz you put on your phone is playing. You have a glass of wine in hand, and you've already gathered everything you need. Your panties, your pajamas, your socks, your slippers.

You had a very long day at the doctor's office. It was backed up, which wasn't your fault. Yet, every patient was screaming at you, yelling at you, even calling you names, and belittling you over something that was beyond your control. You were working the front desk, having to take people back, check them out. It was cold and flu season, so that meant that right now, someone was always out. It actually wasn't your fault. You got your flu shot, the doctor got his flu shot, so did the nursing staff. That didn't stop people from getting sick.

Plus, the temps that were hired, thanks to your two co-workers that were out on maternity leave, just sat there, playing on their phones, doing NOTHING. But, they even managed to criticize your job and your work ethic when they were sitting on their ass doing nothing but playing Candy Crush. The doctor was getting pissed. You were having to do everything. You were exhausted, and it wasn't even noon!

You needed Andy. You needed him now. This has been going on for quite some time. If something wasn't done to improve this situation, you were going to snap. You even managed to document everything. You knew this would come in handy.

When you got home, you curled up on the bed that you and Andy shared. You just started crying, letting your tears flow.

You've been crying at the doctor's office. You need to find somewhere to escape to and just cry. You don't feel any better.

You finally get up and go into the bathroom, and you get the bath ready. You don't hear Andy come home.

"Sweetheart, I'm home," says Andy.

"Sweetheart? Sweetheart?" says Andy.

He finally finds you in the bathroom, and you've gotten in the tub.

"Is everything okay?" asks Andy.

'Oh, Andy. Just join me," you say.

"Okay," says Andy, who's strips down to nothing and gets behind you.

You and Andy just relax and soak, and to be honest, it's feels so comforting. The soothing jazz still playing in the background, you start to nod off. Andy and you get out, and Andy dries you off, and helps you get into you pajamas. Andy dries off himself, and he gets into his sleep pants, and long-sleeved T-shirt.

Andy picks you up, bridal style, and carries you back to the bed. He puts the covers over you, and sees that you've passed out from exhaustion. Andy cuddles you for a while, putting you into an even deeper sleep.

Andy fixes dinner, which is a frozen pizza. Andy wakes you up when it's ready, and it's your favorite, a nice Hawaiian pizza that you were going to make when Andy went to his friend's bachelor party for his upcoming wedding. His friend's bachelor party was tonight, and they were going to a local sports bar to celebrate it tonight. Instead, Andy gave it up to spend the night with you.

(If you've never had Hawaiian pizza, it's actually really good. Don't write it off. I know it's not very popular.)

"Andy, you didn't have to do this," you say.

"Shh, I want to sweetheart. Listen, please talk. Please tell me what's going on, I hate seeing you come home upset every day," says Andy.

You tell Andy everything. He's getting more and more upset, and you pull out the journal of the things said at the office, the documentation of all the dates, and times, all the texts, all the e-mails, etc.

You start crying again, and the tears just don't stop. Andy has his arms wrapped around you. He's gently rocking you, and you're crying even harder than you have in you're entire life. You've never cried this hard. Not even when you're abusive ex did horrible things, hit you, even called you names, you never cried that hard.

Andy is getting more and more pissed off. His lawyer training kicks in, and he quickly realizes that you're now in what's considered a toxic work environment and you're being bullied in the work place.

"Sweetheart, I hate that you're going through this! Tomorrow, I'm having a talk with your boss. It's non-negotiable. If I have to take his ass to court, then that's what I'm going to have to do," says Andy, who's given up going to the bachelor party so he can spend time with you. His buddy from college is a doctor, and Andy knew a therapist who specializes in this. Being a lawyer, and after what happened to his ex-wife and son, Andy sought therapy. At Andy's next appointment, he would ask his therapist for a recommendation for one for you.

He knew that a lawsuit on your behalf just needed to happen. Andy was writing down everything, and going through your documentation, texts, e-mails, and voicemails. He's writing everything in his laptop, and will have his assistant print everything in the morning. He was going to pay a visit with your boss tomorrow, and try to avoid a lawsuit if he had to.

Andy told you to have your notice already written, and you would wait until the morning to do that. You wanted to really think about what you wanted to write, and you were glad you did. The next morning, you had your notice in hand, and that it was effective immediately.

Andy and you tried to watch a movie, but you fell asleep just when the movie began. Instead, Andy carried you back to the bed, bridal style, and put you in it, covering you. Instead, Andy read his book until he fell asleep.

Andy had his work cut out for him. He knew that he needed to support you in this, he knew that he needed help you find yourself again. He also knew that there needed to be accountability.

The next morning arrives, and you've already had your notice written. You're teeth are brushed, and you've already eaten a piece of toast that was dry. Your stomach was in knots.

"Shh, it's going to be okay, sweetheart. I'm going to make this better. I'm also going to make sure that nobody else goes through this," says Andy.

Your phone rings, and it's the doctor screaming at you for not being to work yet. You have it on speaker, and Andy is recording this in record time. Good! This is just what Andy needs right now.

"Get in the car!" We're going right there now!" says Andy, who's now even more pissed off than you. You decide to drive, seeing how pissed off Andy is.

You're more nervous than you're letting on. Andy's right-this needs to happen.

Andy asks for the doctor. The staff just sits there, until Andy says he's here to talk. The staff eventually let's Andy in, with you in tow.

"Look, I have all of this documentation. You've done nothing but create a toxic work environment, and have bullied my client," says the lawyer that Andy hired personally to represent you.

The doctor is trying to defend this, but Andy isn't having this, and he isn't budging. The doctor calls his lawyer, which means that Andy has to now talk to the docs lawyer. You're sitting there, Andy holding your hand, telling you it's going to be okay. He's not wiling to let this asshole get away with treating his staff like this. He's not going to let the girls up front get away with their crap. Andy has a talk, and will sue if the doctor doesn't get rid of these two.

The docs lawyer comes, and says that the work environment is safe, that it functions, that this is how it is. Andy isn't buying it. Andy stops this. Andy finally decides he's heard enough. You hand in your notice a few weeks after this. Things never improved after this, they just got worse.

You've never felt freer, and when you get back home. It just hits you. You start to cry in Andy's shoulder, and it doesn't stop.

You spend the rest of your time catching up on the household chores, resting, and relaxing. You sleep as much as you can, since you're exhausted on so many levels.

Andy made reservations at the restaurant where you had you're first date. You have a nice dress, and nice shoes. You need this.

You both come home, and take a nice, romantic bath together, complete with wine, candles, scented bubble bath, dimmed lights, the works. You and Andy just cuddle in bed after that, falling asleep on his chest.

Andy and you even spend more time together, he even takes you on a nice, weekend getaway. You've been needing some couple time lately, and with you temporarily out of work right now, it's the right time. Andy even calls you at home, during his lunch hour, just to talk and see how your day is going so far.

Your weekend getaway was much needed. You had a nice, beach house that Andy's doctor friend let him borrow for the weekend. Plus, when Andy's doctor friend got back from his honeymoon, you would start working for him. Right now, the doctor was working, planning his wedding, and getting all the last minute details done before the big day came.

The weekend getaway involved you and Andy watching the sunrise and the sunset, making love, and just reading and talking, and you were also knitting. You guys just spent the time without any devices, TV, or anything to distract you.

Plus, Andy was due for a much needed vacation, and this was perfect. It was all about the both of you, and spending some much needed time being a couple again. You and Andy fall in love even more. A year after this, Andy pops the big question. You also get pregnant with Joy, and have your honeymoon in the same place.

[cassandrahill80]

Dr. Bailey should be alive today. Unfortunately, she is no longer with you as a result of mistreatment and bullying. Sign the petition to demand justice!

[rosejacksonwright]

I have a group who are trying to ruin my life by intimidation and discrimination because I am European & Catholic, they have one leader who controls it. They are trying to cut off my income. I cannot say their religion but they are white American. Bullying can destroy lives.

[malecaptions]

[exlibrisfangirl]

Hey, hope your doing okay! I was just wondering if you had any advice about how to deal with ableist co workers? I have Crohn’s disease, so I have a weakened immune system. I have been out of work a lot recently due to flares and RSV, so I’ve been having people covering my shift. I asked someone to in the group chat and this girl said I should just quit. I kindly said I have an invisible disability and tried to be polite. She continued with ableist comments and even asked if Crohn’s was even a disability like I didn’t know what I was talking about. Just trying to think about how to handle the situation and if I should bring it up to management. If you have any advice, I’d be glad to hear it! Thanks!

Dear Nonny,

I am... SO sorry it took me forever to respond to this. I saw it, and then... shit kinda hit the fan in my personal life, and I forgot about it. *hangs head in shame*

I am actually dealing with a slightly similar situation at work at the moment. A coworker has been bullying me for a couple months now, which includes: a) giving me the silent treatment, b) undermining my authority with our clients at every opportunity, and c) talking shit about me to our other coworkers, including saying that she thinks that I am faking my medical conditions/don't actually have any "valid" medical conditions, and that she won't believe anything I say until she sees my "medical records" (which, of course, she has no right to demand). I have just recently met with my boss and HR and filed a formal grievance. I'm still awaiting the outcome, but, in the meantime, my boss has changed my schedule so I don't have to work with that coworker.

Unfortunately, this is not my first rodeo, and I've learned a lot over the years regarding how to deal with workplace/coworker issues as a chronically ill and disabled person.

Here's my advice...

First and foremost, know your company's policies on bullying/harassment and workplace discrimination, as well as your state/federal rights. (I don't know what country you live in, but I've dealt with this in the USA and in the UK, and I know they have similar protections in place. Here's an overview of your federal rights in the USA from the ACLU website.) At my workplace, in our staff handbook, there is a section which outlines our code of conduct and explains that any employee can face disciplinary action - up to and including immediate termination - for violating any of those expectations. Bullying and harassment are specifically mentioned. There is also a section which explains our rights as employees, including disability rights and what to do if we believe we have been discriminated against and/or wrongfully terminated.

Secondly, document EVERYTHING. Document what this coworker says to you and when. If there were witnesses, document that, too. If/when you choose to bring your boss/HR into it, they may ask for specific details, dates, and whether or not there were any witnesses present. I keep a running list in the note-taking app on my phone, so that I can easily access it during meetings, as well as copy and paste easily into emails.

Last, but not least: in my experience, the earlier you involve management the better, and be persistent. If you let the behavior go unchecked for a long time before you say anything, your boss *might* interpret that as "it must not be thaaat bad, so I can put it on the back burner". Make it very clear from the beginning that you a) want to be there/want that job, b) know your rights, and c) expect action to be taken and follow-up to take place. Employers generally do not want to risk being sued (or risk losing employees... or at the very least risk getting a bad reputation, which might deter potential future employees), so this will usually get them to take your concerns seriously and address them promptly. If that is not the case, and your workplace has an HR representative/department, telling your boss you'd like to meet with HR will likely do the trick; your supervisor/boss doesn't want to get in trouble with HR. The same goes for your union rep, if you are part of a labor union. Don’t hesitate to seek support from higher up the ladder (e.g. your boss's boss, etc.) if your boss doesn't seem to be taking you seriously or isn't taking prompt action to address your coworker's behavior.

Let me make this very clear: You don’t owe your coworker SQUAT. She is not your boss. She has no right to your personal medical information, and you do not owe her an explanation. If you really want to, you could perhaps send her a link to an educational website where she can read more about your condition on her own time, but please don't waste any further time and energy trying to educate her. If she truly wants to learn, she will. If she just wants to be an asshole (which is what I suspect is the case), she won't even bother reading the info you provide. Either way, your coworkers do not have the right to demand details or proof of your disabilities/illnesses, and you should not have to disclose personal medical information to your coworkers in order to be treated with respect and dignity in your workplace.

Read it... and then read it again. And again. And again.

You should not have to disclose personal medical information to your coworkers in order to be treated with respect and dignity in your workplace.

Feel free to plagiarize me and borrow/quote/adapt as much of this as you like for use with your coworkers and management. (Is it still plagiarism if I give you permission? 🤔)

I hope this has helped, even just a little, and I truly hope your situation improves soon! Stay strong, Nonny. Spoonie solidarity! 🥄💜

[ollieofthebeholder]

to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest): a TMA fanfic

<< Beginning < Prev || AO3 || My Website

Chapter 67: May 2017

Melanie swore a blue streak as her laces snapped beneath her hands. She’d been yanking them way too hard and way too tight lately—she couldn’t help it—and they were bound to give at some point. Just her luck it was now.

She threw the snapped-off piece to one side and yanked the remaining lace out of her boot, then flung it as far away from herself as possible. It was only after Blynken pounced on it in the hallway and ran off with it like it was the greatest prize in the world that she remembered she didn’t have any spares.

“Jon!” she shouted, kicking her laceless boot in frustration.

“Your pumps are in the hall closet!” Jon shouted back from somewhere else in the house, probably the kitchen.

Melanie kicked her other boot for good measure and slammed her bedroom door behind her as she stomped, well aware that it was less impressive in her stockinged feet—which made her even more irritable—down the hall. “I told you to fucking stop doing that!” she hollered at the kitchen door, yanking open the hall closet.

Jon appeared from entirely the wrong direction, nearly scaring the life out of her—he’d been in the living room, not the kitchen—and scowled. “I didn’t do anything except watch Wynken try to steal your broken boot lace from her brother. And since I don’t wear boots either, I know you weren’t going to ask me if I had any spares.”

“And how the fuck did you know where my pumps were?”

“Because that’s where I put them after you convinced me to borrow them to go to the pub with Martin.” Jon’s voice cracked on the last word, and for just a moment, his scowl flickered into pain.

“Just because you’re right doesn’t mean I’m not annoyed,” Melanie grumbled, but she didn’t slam the closet door shut after retrieving her shoes.

May had always been one of Melanie’s favorite months. It was the prettiest and mildest part of spring, something fun was always happening at school, and nobody she knew had been born or died. Right about now, though, she hated it with a burning passion.

Ghost Hunt UK was officially dead—the seventh anniversary of the premier had come and gone with barely a mention on social media and only one or two desultory comments on the YouTube feed from megafans, and there’d been nothing from any of her former colleagues, either on the show or in the wider ghost-hunting world. She hadn’t been wrong when she’d told Martin she’d burned through almost everything she had by the time she got back from India. She was struggling with the rent on the house, even with Jon helping with expenses, and she was already trying to cope with the knowledge that she was probably going to have to move before the summer was out, maybe even before it arrived. Elias was a rat bastard and it was taking all of Melanie’s self-control not to kill him most days, and it didn’t help that he kept giving her that knowing, condescending smile that practically sang I know what you want to do and you won’t actually do it across the floor whenever he saw her. Gerry looked more like a ghost these days than he had even in the initial weeks after coming back from the literal fucking dead, and the two of them snapped at each other more often when she went over to the bookstore than they had in the entire time she’d known him to date, which had resulted in her visiting as little as possible.

And then there was the little fact of Martin having been fucking kidnapped by the Stranger.

She hadn’t worried at first. Well, she had, of course she had, but Jon had fainted as soon as he realized what had happened and she hadn’t been able to catch him before he hit the sidewalk, so the first forty-eight hours had been spent tending to him and his concussion and reassuring him, over and over, that she didn’t blame him, that it wasn’t his fault, and that they’d be able to get Martin back as soon as he was stronger.

Two out of three wouldn’t have been bad, as long as Martin getting back soon had been one of the two.

Melanie didn’t blame Jon. She didn’t. She snapped at him, but she wasn’t angry with him, just…in general. And God knew he snapped back at her. But that was really just the tension getting to them both as days stretched into weeks and there was no sign of Martin. She hadn’t thrown him out of her house, she didn’t want to kill him as much as she did…pretty much everyone else, and when she heard him crying out in his sleep late at night, she was usually there and wrapping him in a hug before she was consciously aware of having got out of her own bed. It was no different than Martin or Gerry crawling into bed and holding her when she had nightmares. A tiny part of her mind was relieved they’d had that talk about being asexual, so he knew she wasn’t putting any moves on him and vice versa, but still…he was another one of her brothers. Just the one that was most like her, and the one she needed to comfort and protect more than the other way around. And he was hurting just as much as she was—more. She’d known Martin longer, but Jon had fallen for him hard and fast, even if he hadn’t said so out loud, and it was killing him not knowing where he was, what was happening, if he was okay.

And it wasn’t like they could just call out of work and go looking for Martin, as badly as they wanted to. Tim had already told them what had happened when he’d been away from the Institute, which didn’t ease their worries about Martin, and while Melanie suspected that a big part of it was that he’d been punished by the Ceaseless Watcher for trying to leave altogether rather than just not being within the four walls of the Institute every day, she also suspected they’d need to be closer to the locus of the Eye’s power in order to have any chance at finding Martin. After all, if he was with the Stranger…it was more or less their opposite. They would need all the help they could get.

Didn’t mean she had to like it, though.

It was raining, go fucking figure. Not hard, but still, Melanie covered Jon’s hand on the handle of the umbrella with her own and made sure to lock step with him like they were running a three-legged race. Jon, for his part, huddled into Martin’s jumper—not the one he’d given Jon after the attack on the Institute, but one he’d left on the back of his chair in the Archives and one, Melanie suspected, that still smelled like him—and concentrated on moving forward. By the time they got to work, it had mostly stopped, but Melanie was under no illusions it wouldn’t start again.

They were early enough that nobody was in but Manal, and probably Elias, and one or two people from other departments who came in early to talk or make tea or work on personal projects without their coworkers butting in with questions and requests and demands. Jon offered a distracted greeting to an elderly black man mopping the floor by the steps and led the way down into the Archives. As usual, they were the first to arrive.

Martin’s desk was neat as a pin, his chair tucked under the desk, his laptop on his desk where he’d left it when he and Jon left for King’s Cross, all the drawers shut and all the stationery tidied away in them. The rest of the desks looked as though they’d each in their own way been hit with a small localized tornado. Basira’s desk, as usual, had several precarious stacks of books unrelated to one another or anything going on. There were a few books on Tim’s desk as well, most of which Melanie thought had to do with circuses in some way, and also an assortment of files and memos scattered haphazardly across the surface. The files on Sasha’s desk were more neatly stacked, but there were still a lot of them, with papers sticking out at all kinds of odd angles. Melanie’s desk was also covered in papers, lists, and maps, some of which strategically covered a book or two that were tied to the Slaughter; in the center of the mess, however, was the log from Breekon and Hope.

“Anything?” Jon asked, a bit hopelessly, as he paused and looked at the log book.

“If there was, I’d have told you last night,” Melanie reminded him. Jon grunted unhappily. “I’m still looking. The biggest repeat delivery so far has been to the Trophy Room, and—we’ve already decided they wouldn’t be stupid enough to take him there, right?”

Jon hesitated. “I—I don’t know anymore. Maybe? They, the statement we had before, it mentioned a basement. Maybe…maybe that is where they’re keeping him?”

“So let’s go look.”

“No,” Jon said, so sharply Melanie actually took a step back. “You’ve already been Marked by the Stranger. You’re not going near that again.”

“Well, you’re not going alone. Martin will kill me if I let you get hurt,” Melanie shot back. “So either we go together, or neither of us goes.”

Jon, whom Melanie had long ago realized wore his heart on his sleeve when he trusted the people around him, could have shouted from the rooftops of the Institute that he was sorely tempted to say we go together then and it would’ve still been more subtle than the look on his face. After a moment, though, he sighed and shook his head. “See—see if you can find something else. Anything else. If you get back to the beginning of the log and don’t find an alternate site, we’ll try it.”

“Fine.” Melanie didn’t bother asking what Jon was going to be doing all day. She just stomped over to her desk and unpacked her laptop.

About ten minutes later, Tim came storming into the Archives, his face black with anger. “Where the fuck is Jon? Did he manage to get himself kidnapped, too?”

"Don’t you fucking say that.” Melanie jerked a thumb over her shoulder without looking up from where she was queuing up her music for the day. “He’s in his office.”

Tim didn’t respond, at least not directly. But a moment or two later, just as Melanie popped her earbuds in, she heard him shouting behind her, and Jon yelling back. She pulled one earbud back out and listened for a moment, then deduced that Jon had forgotten to unlock the secondary door when they came in and Tim was pissed he’d had to walk around the building to come in the main entrance.

Not her problem. Melanie replaced the earbud and hit PLAY.

It was slow going. The last entry in the log had been from March of 2013—around the same time as Gertrude Robinson had burnt Mary Keay out of her Book, if Melanie remembered correctly, and she couldn’t help but note with some dread that it had been exactly one year after the incident at the Mermaid Inn—and four years was a long time in the ordinary scheme of things, but she’d gone back even further than that now. People moved, businesses closed or changed hands, and it was hard to pinpoint which entries had been made by Alfred Breekon and which ones had been made by Breekon and Hope. Jon had told her, when he’d handed over the log, that Martin had been able to tell the entries apart, but Melanie wasn’t Martin and she didn’t have his eyes. It all looked identical to her.

She rubbed her eyes and reached absently for her mug of tea. Her hand grasped at nothing, which is when it occurred to her she hadn’t made any. Three weeks and she still hadn’t broken the habit of expecting it to be there whenever she reached for it because Martin just…got tea for everyone any time he went to make his own. That only served to irritate her further.

Yanking out the earbuds, she slammed the laptop closed with probably unnecessary force and stalked to the breakroom. There were a handful of other people in there, none of whom she knew or cared about, and she had to wait her turn to get at the electric kettle. She took the opportunity to check her phone—for what, she didn’t know. A text from Gerry that Martin had stumbled in safe and sound, maybe.

“Good morning, Melanie!”

The voice was too smooth and too suave and too close, and Melanie practically jumped out of her shoes. She whirled around, arm drawn back to punch if necessary, and found herself staring up at a blond-haired, blue-eyed man with very white teeth in a face made for radio. He knew her name, which meant she was probably supposed to know him…or he was one of those men who learned everything about his potential partners-slash-victims before he ever spoke to them in hopes of either impressing or intimidating them. He clearly thought he was God’s gift to women.

If he was, Melanie sincerely hoped God had left the receipt in the wrapping paper.

“Sorry, have we met?” she asked, because she wasn’t in the mood to play guessing games.

The man’s smile amped up a few notches. “No, not yet, but I am delighted to make your acquaintance at last. I’ve been hearing so much about you—and I was thrilled to find out you were a member of the Institute now.” He stuck out his hand. “Scott Corletto.”

“Hi,” Melanie said. She didn’t accept his hand, instead turning to grab a pair of mugs out of the cupboard.

Scott clucked his tongue when he saw the second mug. “Your boss making you get his tea for him, too? Typical. They always think it’s the woman’s role on the team to be the tea lady.”

Melanie glared at him as she reached for the cocoa powder. “You’re making an awful lot of assumptions. He didn’t ask, and I’m not usually the one that makes it anyway.”

“You must be miserable in…which department are you in, by the way? I’m in Accounting.”

“Archives.” Melanie dumped a packet into each mug and reached for the kettle.

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” Scott pulled an exaggerated grimace. “Who’s worse to work with, Sims or Blackwood?”

Melanie stared at the kettle in her hand, mentally arguing with herself about the pros and cons of pouring it down Scott’s pants. “Why, are you trying to decide which one to pull up to Accounting? Don’t bother.”

“God forbid!” Scott looked equal parts disgusted and affronted. “Honestly, they’re both…Sims is such an arse, seriously. Completely stuck on himself and a know-it-all to boot. And Blackwood’s just pathetic. Really, I don’t know how he got himself assigned to the Archives, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason he’s ‘out’ right now is because someone finally got fed up and murdered him.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Did you help? I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

“Say a word against my brothers again, and the next dead body in this building will be yours,” Melanie snarled. She brought her foot down on Scott’s hard, only remembering after he howled in agony that she was wearing kitten heels and not her combat boots, then pivoted on the other and stormed out of the breakroom with a mug of cocoa in each hand.

When she got back to the Archives, she took a moment to scan the room, just in case Martin had miraculously returned while she’d been gone. Basira sat in her usual spot, head buried in what looked like one of William Hays’ books; Tim was rocked back on two legs of his chair, reading one of the circus books. Sasha was bent over her laptop, intent on something, a file spread open beside her. Jon’s door was open, but his office was silent, and Martin was nowhere to be seen.

She stomped into Jon’s office and plunked a mug on his desk, careful not to slosh it on the papers there. “If your paycheck is short this month, tell me and my shoe goes up his ass.”

“Corletto?” Jon looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he seemed grateful for the interruption.

“How’d you fucking guess?”

“He hates me. We started out in Research together…we got into an argument about his sloppy research, and since he had some kind of financial degree as well as whatever degree he used to get into Research, he transferred a couple months later. I figured if anyone from Accounting was giving you hell about me, it would be him. He tried it with every new Researcher we got, and Martin—” Jon’s voice cracked again “—told me he did the same thing after he transferred to the Archives.”

Melanie snorted, perching on the corner of Jon’s desk. “And I take it Martin didn’t answer the way he wanted, considering the way the bastard spoke about him.”

Jon’s eyes flashed. “What did he say?”

Melanie repeated Scott’s words exactly, inflection and all. Jon’s hands tightened around his mug. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Pick a date. I’ll help.” Melanie took a sip of her own cocoa. “Bet Elias won’t even care as long as we keep doing whatever he wants us to do about the Unknowing.”

“Probably.” Jon stared vacantly at something on the corner of his desk. “Want to do it now? I’m avoiding recording that file.”

Melanie followed his gaze to a seemingly innocuous file on the corner. “Why, what is it?”

“I’m…I’m not sure, actually. It was in the stack I grabbed to record, I haven’t opened it, but I just…it’s real, but I don’t feel…drawn to record it. And that has me curious, but at the same time, I’m more tempted to find another real statement, and…I can’t. I don’t even want to look at it.”

Melanie picked up the folder. She needed no more than a glance to recognize it. “That’s because it’s already been recorded.”

Jon looked up, startled. “What?”

“I remember this file number. I was supposed to be the one recording it, but Martin traded me at the last minute. He didn’t explain why. It would’ve been the one he recorded…uh, the week you got back.” Melanie scowled at it. “Isn’t there somewhere we put completed files?”

“Back on the shelves, in the correct order.”

“Is there a way to tell which ones have been recorded and which ones haven’t?”

“I—I don’t know. We should, but—i-it’s never come up before.” Jon looked a bit shaken.

Melanie sighed and slid off the desk. “Hold on. I’m not doing anything other than going through the log.” Before Jon could protest, she stalked out of his office.

She did, at least, know where the recordings were kept. There were several cabinets in the climate-controlled document storage room full of those long, flat drawers meant for storing maps or blueprints or that kind of thing, or so Martin had said—they were kind of a staple of archives the world over. Only a couple of the drawers were used for that purpose. Someone, probably Martin, had designated the rest of them for storing recordings in. One drawer had a number of carefully-labeled flash drives for the statements that didn’t touch on the Fourteen, and the rest had the tapes in them, labeled and lined up in neat rows. In theory, anyway.

In practice, while some of the tapes were neatly organized, others had been haphazardly thrown into the drawer, and everything was jumbled up. Some of the labels were upside-down in relation to Melanie; others weren’t labeled at all. There weren’t a lot of them in each drawer, but there were enough that it would prove difficult for Melanie to find the one she was looking for without some kind of guide, or at least some attempt at organization.

She slammed the drawer shut and stuck her head out of the room. “Who put these fucking tapes in here?” she demanded.

“That’s where they go, apparently,” Tim snapped, throwing his book on the desk in front of him and rocking his chair back further. “For whatever fucking reason.”

“I know that’s where they go, but they’re just…thrown in here. How am I supposed to find anything?”

“Why do you need to find anything? Use the fucking paper statements. Not like we have students coming down here to pull the recordings anymore.”

“Why not, did you scare them off?”

“I’m not the one pulling spooky bullshit all the time.”

The argument escalated. After a while, Melanie wasn’t even sure what they were actually arguing about, but she also didn’t care; she and Tim stood practically face to face, screaming at one another about something that had absolutely no relation to the tapes. It ended in Tim slamming the door of the Archives on his way to the bathroom and/or the breakroom and Melanie storming back into Jon’s office to see him hovering anxiously, like he wanted to intervene in the fight but also wanted to see how it played out.

“Fuck it,” she announced. “Let’s go save Martin from the eldritch taxidermy shop.”

Jon exhaled heavily and set his mug down on the desk. “I thought you’d never ask.”

They hit every station exactly right and made it to Barnet in near-record time. Melanie had rarely been this far up the end of the Northern line, but it was about what she would have expected from the area. The Trophy Room wasn’t hard to find, either, a run-down building with faded paint and a tattered awning. Jon’s steps slowed as they approached, and he gripped her arm. “The cat’s gone.”

“The what?”

“In the original statement that mentioned the Trophy Room, he described a very old taxidermy of a big cat in the front window. We should be able to see it from here. It’s not there. It’s gone.”

“Jon, it’s a shop,” Melanie reminded him. “Didn’t the statement also say they were having their taxes audited? That means they actually sell things. Even if it’s niche stuff. Someone might have bought it.” She pulled a knife out of her jacket and added, “And if you didn’t want to do a frontal assault on the place, you’d have told me to wait until after dark. Let’s go.”

She charged forward, Jon rushing alongside of her, wrapped her hand around the handle of the shop’s door, and yanked hard, intending to fling the door open and pull herself into the shop in the same fluid movement.

Since the door didn’t actually open, and she couldn’t stop her forward momentum in time, she slammed face-first into the frame, hard enough that she dropped the knife.

“Melanie!” Jon reached for her chin. He stopped himself just before making contact. “Uh—are you all right?”

“Think so.” Melanie turned of her own accord to face Jon and tilted her head slightly, letting him study to make sure her nose wasn’t broken. He nodded, evidently understanding and reassuring her. “Shit. Didn’t expect the door to be locked…do they have the hours posted?”

Jon glanced over his shoulder, probably to make sure the coast was clear, then peered in the window. After a moment, he drew back and shook his head. “It’s—it’s empty.”

Before Melanie could react to that, though, a gleam came into Jon’s eye, and he straightened up. “Which means this is it. They—they must have closed down the shop, cleared out all the taxidermy—they probably got Breekon and Hope to carry it off—so that they didn’t have customers coming in. That must mean they’re using it as the site of the Unknowing.”

The tiny, tiny part of Melanie’s mind hanging on to rational thought, which had been shouting that this was a stupid idea regardless of whether Jon was right or not since she first made the suggestion they come out here and was being consistently ignored or talked over by the desire to hurt and/or kill something, apparently took temporary possession of her tongue before the anger could stop it. “Are we sure they’re keeping Martin in the same place they’re going to do the ritual?”

“Yes,” Jon said without hesitation. “That’s why they wanted—well, why they wanted me. For the Dance. They’re using Martin instead—” His voice cracked once again, but he rallied and continued. “—so if they don’t expect us to be able to find him, or him to be able to escape…”

“They’ll want him close to where it’ll be.” Melanie considered that for a moment, then bent to retrieve her knife. “Let’s see if we can break in around the back.”

She only had the half-rusted antique tools Martin had picked up as a teenager, not the good ones he owned now—he’d had those on him when he and Jon went to Newcastle—but she was decent enough with them, and in a pinch, she supposed she could break a window. It turned out not to be necessary, though. One window hung slightly open, swinging on a damaged hinge. After five rounds of scissors-paper-stone where both of them threw paper and a sixth where they both tried to outsmart the other and threw scissors, she gave up and pulled a coin out of her pocket; Jon won, so she boosted him through the window first, then followed. Jon was already stood in the doorway of the small room, peering cautiously out through the doorway. The second Melanie came up behind him, though, he moved into the shop proper, Melanie hot on his heels.

He hadn’t been kidding. The place was empty. You could see where things had been, maybe, if you squinted, but Jesus, even Pinhole Books hadn’t looked this bare after Melanie and Martin packed everything up in anticipation of the new proprietors moving in. The building that had once housed the Trophy Room had been stripped right down to the woodwork. Their footsteps echoed in a way that shouldn’t have been possible in as relatively small a space as the shop was.

“This building,” she said, standing in the center of what had once been the shop and looking around suspiciously, “seems like it was designed by an amateur horror film maker who’s banking on the viewers being too accustomed to staples of the genre to question why they’re happening here.”

“More like an amateur horror writer banking on the fact that they haven’t described the building in enough detail for readers to call them out on it not making sense,” Jon said distractedly. He looked around, something gripped tightly in his right hand. It took Melanie longer than she would have liked to admit to realize it was the fucking tape recorder. “There should be a basement…somewhere.”

“Right, you mentioned that. That’s likely where they’re keeping him.” Melanie shifted her grip on the knife to be sure it was secure. “Where did the statement say it was?”

“It—Scaplehorn mentioned a, a-a ring pull in the floor. In the office.”

“Which was the room we came into in the first place.” Melanie sneered at the slightly sheepish look on Jon’s face. “Right. Let’s go find it.”

She didn't think it would take long to find. After all, all the furniture, along with anything that had remotely made the place a taxidermy shop, had been removed, so it would make sense that the door would be extremely goddamn fucking obvious when they looked. Honestly, she was just surprised they hadn’t literally tripped over it when they left the room in the first place.

Upon entering the room and looking around, however, there was…nothing. No sign of a ring set in the floor, no obvious doors, no nothing. It was just an empty, barren room.

“You’re sure the basement is in here?” she said, trying not to sound skeptical.

“Positive,” Jon said, and there was just a hint of a desperate note in his voice. “It…t-they must have taken the ring out.”

“Why the fuck would they take the ring out?”

“So nobody could find it? I don’t know, Melanie, I don’t follow the Stranger,” Jon snapped. “I can’t just fathom its every whim and motivation like it's nothing. Even if I was…i-it’s not something I can do. Just…let’s just look.”

Melanie grunted, but she joined Jon in scouring the room carefully. Both of them took opposite corners and dropped to their hands and knees, crawling slowly over the floor and testing every joint and board. Finally, Jon hissed for Melanie’s attention, and she scrabbled over to find him pressing on a board. The one next to it rose up slightly.

“Help me pry it up,” he said urgently. “My nails aren’t long enough.”

“Hang on.” Melanie pulled out her knife and gently leveraged it into the crack, then slid it a bit deeper. After a moment, the section of floor lifted away, very slightly. She kept at it until there was enough space for her to toss the knife aside and slide her fingers into the gap. Jon joined her then, and together they pushed the door up enough that they could see beneath it. A flight of stairs led downward into the darkness.

Jon exhaled slowly, staring down the stairs. “No face. That’s good,” he said, more to himself than to Melanie.

Melanie was the one who responded, though. “I’m sorry, no what?”

“The original statement—didn’t I tell you about that? Scaplehorn described a face in the basement, swaying back and forth and repeating the same stock phrase over and over again. I’m fairly certain it was the Anglerfish that was the subject of our first real statement, o-or something similar. But…it’s not here. Which makes sense, if—” Jon broke off. “We’ve got to be careful.”

“And quiet,” Melanie agreed. “Come on. I’ll go first.”

She gave the door a hefty shove. It flopped back and rested at an angle against the far wall. Gripping her knife in one hand, she started down the steps, Jon close behind her. She reached back without looking and took his hand in her free one.

The stairs creaked slightly underfoot, and they went down further than Melanie would have expected. There wasn’t a great deal of light coming from above anyway, but after they’d gone down fourteen steps, she realized she couldn’t see any further. She turned her head over her shoulder, opening her mouth to ask if he’d brought a torch with him. In that moment, she stepped forward, met no resistance below her foot, and tumbled headlong into the darkness before she could stop herself. From the yelp behind her, Jon did the same.

She didn’t fall down the stairs. It quickly became obvious there were no stairs to fall down. She did at least have the presence of mind to let go of the knife rather than stab herself somewhere vital by falling on it. It clattered to the ground a split second before she herself did, and she only just managed to roll to one side before Jon landed on top of her. Something crunched unpleasantly, and she just hoped it wasn’t a bone.

A hand grabbed hers, and she almost lashed out in panic before registering the ashy ridges of Jon’s worm-scarred hands. Instead, she laced her fingers through his. “Jon? You okay?” she hissed.

“Y-yes.” Jon didn’t sound terribly sure. “Are you…?”

“I’ll live. Come on. Do you have a torch? We might have passed the point of stealth here.”

There was a soft click, and a slightly crazed beam of light cut across the floor between them. It illuminated just enough of Jon’s face that Melanie could see his worried expression. “I think I landed on it, but it works.” He pushed to his feet and reached for Melanie’s hand; she let him assist her in getting up as well.

Much like the shop upstairs, the basement was far more echo-y and spooky than it had any right to be. Melanie also couldn’t help but think that it was…off in terms of size. “This is way bigger than the property.”

“I doubt the Stranger cares that much about building regulations.” Jon swept the torch around the space. It didn’t reach far enough to touch the walls, which was disconcerting. The space was also completely empty and unfinished. “Which way do we go?”

“Left,” Melanie said unhesitatingly. In response to the inquiring look Jon gave her, she added, “Sinister and dexter, left and right. The creepiest part is always to the left.”

“If you say so.” Jon kept his grip on Melanie’s hand and set off for the left.

Despite Melanie’s words, they did move carefully, cautiously, trying to make as little noise as possible lest they be discovered. When they reached a solid wall, they turned, as if in unspoken agreement, to the left again and kept walking, searching for a door or a corridor or something. After a few minutes, though, Jon slowed and tugged her hand. “Listen.”

Melanie listened, straining her ears, but all she could catch was the faint whirring of the tape recorder dangling from a strap on Jon’s wrist. “I don’t hear anything,” she began, and then realization hit her like a ton of bricks. “Which is the point. This basement’s empty, too. He’s not down here.”

“Martin!” Jon suddenly shouted, his voice cracking. It echoed off the walls in a way it absolutely shouldn’t have. Melanie was suddenly, vividly, for the second time that day, thrown back to an October night in Oxford almost twenty years previously and tightened her grip on Jon’s hand, not caring if it hurt. She was not going to lose him, not here, not now.

There was a loud and ominous thud that made both of them jump, and Jon swept the beam of light around frantically. There was nothing. No sign of another being, no hint at what had made the noise.

Something…prickled. That was the only way Melanie could describe it. She felt an odd sensation along her shoulders and back, like a thousand ants in stiletto heels were marching up and down, there and gone in a second. She also felt an almost oppressive weight on her chest, and there was a change in the smell of the air, almost as if…

Oh. Oh, no.

“The door! Someone closed the fucking door!” Melanie hissed, trying not to panic. The fact that she knew what was going on and was trying not to lose it only made her angrier. “We’ve got to get the fuck out of here.”

“But—”

“No buts! If we stay trapped down here too long, something you don’t want is going to get in down here and we are in enough shit as it is.” Melanie started back the way they had come, dragging Jon along behind her. “Hurry up!”

Jon stumbled along in her wake for a moment before finding his feet and hurrying alongside her, the beam of light bobbing crazily around them. It glinted off the blade of the knife ahead, and Melanie swooped down to scoop it up and stow it in her jacket before looking around and up. “There!”

Jon pointed the torch upwards. The stairs were solidly built enough, but ended rather suddenly a foot or so above their heads, as if the basement had been lowered by a story but without continuing the staircase. A new smell hit Melanie’s nostrils—something harsh and wrong—at the same time as the beam of light flickered and died.

She heard Jon shake it a couple times, then curse and cast it aside. “Can you reach the bottom step? I’ll give you a boost, but you’ll need to pull me up.”

“Just like the scrap yard.” Melanie reached up and just brushed the bottom of the step. Gritting her teeth, she crouched, then leaped into the air and managed to snag the step. Her pumps fell off before she could stop them, but she didn’t care, she had the step and that was what mattered. “Give me a push!”

Something—presumably Jon’s hands—caught the soles of her feet and pushed upwards. She hauled with all her might and managed to roll onto the step, then turned and reached down. “Come on! Hurry up!”

The smell was getting worse, and it was starting to get hard to breathe—not just because the door was closed, but because of something equally sinister. Melanie gripped Jon’s arms as tightly as she could and hauled him, with his assistance, onto the bottom step. They didn’t take a second to recover, merely scrambled up the steps, still clinging to one another’s hands. By the time they reached the top, they were both coughing as thick, acrid smoke wreathed the air around them.

There was no longer any denying it. The shop above them was on fire.

Martin would probably have insisted they test the wood above them with the back of their hands. Melanie didn’t bother. There was no other way in or out of this basement, and if they stayed down here, they would suffocate. Instead, she looked over to where she could just make Jon out in the faint light coming from the cracks.

“On three?” she choked out.

Jon nodded, hooking the jumper over his mouth. Both of them placed their hands on the wood—it wasn’t too hot, which was good—and Melanie counted to three before they both shoved upwards with all of their might. For a moment, it didn’t budge. Then something above them clattered, and the door flew open, which let a lot more smoke down in with them. This time, Jon was the one to grab Melanie’s hand and drag her forward.

Sure enough, the shop was on fire. It seemed to have multiple points of origin, and it was all around them. Melanie stayed on her knees, frantically looking around, but the smoke was filling the space and she couldn’t see, she couldn’t—

“There!” Jon shouted, his voice slightly muffled.

Melanie still didn’t fucking see where he was pointing, but she let him drag her forward and then to her feet. Then she saw it. The wall where the window was located was burning, but the window still hung open, so if they jumped…

They ran. They jumped together. They tumbled ass over teakettle and landed on the grass outside, and they scrambled away from the building as fast as they could, both of them still coughing.

By some goddamned miracle, they managed to make it to the street and the Tube station without being caught, or noticed. Melanie heard the wail of the fire engine coming down the block as they disappeared into the station, but there was nobody else there and nobody on the train, and they collapsed into seats without comment.

It wasn’t until they were almost to the point where they would have to change trains that Jon spoke, a single word laden with all kinds of emotions. “Fuck.”

“That’s my line,” Melanie grumbled. She tucked her feet back as far as she could so she didn’t have to look at the socks, which she’d only just realized didn’t match. “Do you think someone knew we were down there?”

“Yes,” Jon said without hesitation. “But I don’t think they knew it was us. I think—and I-I think it was Jude Perry, I’m pretty sure I saw someone matching the description Martin gave me—I think she just saw the door open, deduced it was someone from the Institute looking for Martin, and tried to trap us in there to, to feed her god.”

“The Trophy Room must have meant something to someone then,” Melanie muttered. “But…Jesus.” She looked away.

Jon hesitantly put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Melanie tried to stay stiff, but something in her broke. She’d been scared—not for herself, for Jon—and she couldn’t help being both angry and devastated that they’d been wrong. Martin hadn’t been there. He was…wherever he was, it wasn’t somewhere they could find.

She hugged Jon back, leaned her head against his, and cried.

Jon cried with her.

[novembromancer]

I still get anxious and stressed even thinking about the ex-assistant manager from my work. it's getting easier with time, having supportive coworkers and a manager that knows how awful she was (he had to clean up from prior management's bad decisions). just man, the remaining sunburn from dealing with her for a year and a half still really stings sometimes. I know she is still in the industry and so I am still afraid to run into her through my work - every time I have run in with her since her firing has just been incredibly uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing, and she has tried complaining to my new manager about me before (he did not buy her shit thankfully). like, how do people manage to be so fucking miserable to other people? where do you even get that energy to do so? fuck, that's exhausting to even think about.

wonder if there will come a time where it will no longer affect me so much. I know the answer to this is yes, because it's now to the point where stuff my ex did does not affect me like it used to and I am not as afraid to run into him as I used to be. and I cannot rush the healing process. I know this. but it is frustrating sometimes when something will happen that reminds me of That Time at Work and then I just want to hide and withdraw. but I suppose that is the fun thing about trauma is that it absolutely makes itself known and one just kind of has to sit through it and try to find cracks that are ready to be healed in it. this makes more sense in my head but

anyway idk where I am going with this but my brain feels like a jumble lately for a bunch of reasons so i might start using my blog to complain (like the old days lmfaooooooo) because shit is a Struggle recently

but I persist. despite it all

[tryinganythingtobehappyagain]

You ever have a coworker who constantly bullies and nags you and management doesn't help like it's the point this person needs to be fired but you feel so alone and ugh

[having-conniptions]

I don't know who needs to read this but you have probably made such a big (positive) difference for someone just by being yourself, just by being kind or even just by being there.

Let me tell you a little story that I've been dying to share because it has impacted me so much.

Half a year ago, I changed workplaces as a trainee because the place that I worked at was slowly but surely eroding my self-confidence, my motivation to do the job I love and my will to keep going. There was one coworker in particular who must have felt threatened by me because I was "only" a trainee but she was "only" part-time help. And she had it out for me. She constantly criticized me, patronized me, berated me, scolded me for mistakes I didn't make and regularly raised her voice at me. The person who was in charge of my training didn't do anything about it and also didn't really know how to train me. Other workers jumped in to fill in those responsibilities but unfortunately those were the ones that were barely there due to health problems or part-time or because they just worked in a different part of the building most of the time.

I sat in my car during my lunch break and cried nearly every single day for weeks. I felt like I was just not good enough, like I could never get it right, like I would never learn what I needed to learn.

Now, I hear you asking, where is the feel-good story you promised?

Well, we had an intern. A 17-year old kid. He was suffering as well, probably as much as I was. He also usually didn't work close to me BUT sometimes we got assigned tasks together that we could do without everyone else looking over our shoulders the entire time. Those were the only times we didn't feel judged or scrutinized or looked down on. We took our sweet time completing those tasks, often goofing off until we thought people might suspect we weren't actually working.

One time, he found two huge bottles of bubble liquid (or whatever it's called) while we were working on something in the pretty isolated break room. He opened one and started blowing bubbles. After approximately 15 seconds of "that is definitely not allowed", I grabbed the other bottle and joined in on the fun. The childlike joy I felt in those five minutes that we spent just blowing and breaking bubbles felt like a freshwater spring in the middle of a desert. That kid really saved me a little bit with those bubbles.

Another time, we were supposed to carry old boxes filled with books and photo albums from one floor to another, and we just started looking through the photo albums and showing each other what we found. It was so mundane but wholesome and most of all it gave us a fucking break from everyone else.

Every time we crossed paths during our regular work we'd vent to each other if we had a couple of seconds alone. He noticed that that one coworker was targeting me specifically and I felt so validated. He told me he couldn't bear working there anymore and I let him know he was not alone.

I don't know if this kid (I'm still calling him a kid even though he should be 18 by now) knows how much he saved me just by being there and being a kid and reminding me that in my heart I was also still a kid. And I hope I managed to return the favor even just a little by being there and listening.

We never talked outside of work and I wouldn't say we were friends but we kept each other going. Saved a little bit of each other's sanity.

I got out of there six months ago and shortly after I left his internship ended. I hope he's okay wherever he is now.

You don't have to be a hero in order to save someone. Most of the time it's enough to be kind and to be yourself.

[merthwyn]

I used to have breakdowns and panic attacks at work quite often. Now, it's been more than six months since I had one.

What has changed?

Got rid of self-hate, suicidal thoughts and most of my insecurities.

Saw my colleagues' and employer's real faces when I asked to be moved to a less stressful section (like everyone else in the team do and get what they ask for). Loads of fake promises of training, favouritism, double standards and lack of equal treatment since I requested this. Apparently, I was there to do the job that everyone hated. I was there to do the job alone as they didn't bother to help. Up until 6 months ago I thought this was the rules for everyone (a.k.a everyone had to do the job alone and that everyone had the right to change section). Nope. Rules for them and rules for us.

Whenever I was having breakdowns I was feeling useless. Now I see why I was having breakdowns. It was mainly because I was being bullied and taken advantage of without noticing.

So, my point is: If you have breakdowns at work and, before you call yourself useless because of them, check 1. your mental health and 2. your work environment and the wannabe kind and loving people you work with. Try asking for what others get. Try setting boundaries like others do. You will be surprised by the outcome and see who your friends are.

[rosethornewrites]

So I came across this article today, wherein the Miami University student-run newspaper ran an expose on an administrator who was workplace-bullied into suicide.

Widow of Miami assistant provost sues university, former provost and two administrators for wrongful death

And as an academic who just left due to toxicity… This is not uncommon in academia, and it can be insidious.

I left because I recognized that I would not survive if I didn’t. I know more people who have left universities for that reason as well as academia in general.

This guy stayed because he felt trapped, as in if he left he’d never be able to retire and everything he’d worked for was so much smoke.

[awkwardrube]

An Impending Death Anniversary and Some Workplace Hostility

You ever feel like an impending date is just looming over your head? Also, I have to find a new internship 😞

[witchygalaxys]

Conversations with my self

My heart: I don't want to go to work tomorrow.... im just going to be treated badly again.... im just going to be talked about behind my back (continues to go on and on about what is going to happen.)

My mind: Just stop! Yeah all of that could happen! But right now you are safe... You are at home, in your bed with your comforting fairy lights on. That stuff has taken to much of your peace and when it happens it will pass just as quickly as it came.

My heart: I just wish I had some one on my side...

My mind: You do! You have your family and your friends who may be far away but you can reach with just a single text. But you are being to stubborn and keep trying to avoid the world. I know work is hard right now and it hurts being there but you are not there now. So don't let those people take more from you than what you already gave them. Now sleep and have sweet dreams of adventures and magic.

My heart:.... If I go to sleep now the sooner I'll have to be there.....

My mind: okay.... ONE EPISODE OF GREYS ANATOMY! Then turn it off and close your eyes and think of that story you made up about being an amazing witch who can jump into different realities....

My heart: Okay...

Talking to myself like I'm two different people strangely helps calm me down. When you can't find any one sometimes you just need to turn to yourself.