What I Learned From Fighting

ONe of the things I learned from fighting is that each win is not necessarily a victory.  In fighting my boss at work I can say I won--kinda.  I'm not being harassed anymore.  She's a little more subdued.  The other day she called me to start a fight and I was trying to explain something to her and she kept cutting me off.  So, I finally said to her, hold on a minute so I can get my notebook.  She calmed down and put me on speaker phone.  I asked her why she put me on speaker phOne, she she said that her neck hurt.  I asked her who else was in the room, she said my other manager. I said, okay and she proceeded to speak to me like I had one head instead of two.

Now, I could have continued to a) uselessly try and convince her to listen and try to understand what I was was trying to explain to her that she had asked me to explain to  her b) hung up the phone and pretended like the call was dropped (that's the advantage of having cell phones, people can't really tell when you hang up on them like they did back in the day). c) simply just sit there in silence d) none of the above.

Frankly, the notebook maneuver was more effective in getting her attention.  And her entire attitude changed.  Not only that, she gave me some constructive  suggestions about the situation at hand and I was grateful. 

The catch though is...no matter how she is, I realize that I still have a lot of changing to do. I came to that conclusion after realizing that, I didn't feel any more secure after my manager got off my case than I did before she got off my case. So, basically, my stress level and anger and upset was not caused by her harassing me.  It was caused by how I perceived her harassment of me.  That's a hard pill to swallow, but it's true.  No matter how someone else is, you have to be.  And how you are makes all of the difference in the world.  In the world of powerlessness, that's powerful.

If I sit here and try  to explain how I came to that conclusion, I will be typing for the rest of my life--alright maybe not but for a longer time than I am willing to sit here and type. I'll explain it another time. Maybe...