Fuck 'em

That was my mantra at meditation last night. Not exactly Zen-friendly, but it felt so good to breathe in and out to those words after the day I had had.

If you’ve been following my rantings, you are aware there has been a problem at work that has caused me great consternation. My boss is thankfully now on board. But there are others at my level who continue to try to make my life miserable.

In the spirit of the season and just because I really prefer harmony, I offered an olive branch to the most vocal of those opposing me. I suggested we go out to lunch. She accepted and proposed to actually go out – outside the fence as opposed to eating in the cafeteria – probably because she didn’t want to be seen consorting with "the enemy."

Lunch was actually pleasant until just about the time we were leaving the restaurant, when all of a sudden the accusations started. But the time I reached the elevators in our building, I hadn’t admitted any guilt, but I felt my eyes hot with tears. My olive branch had been snapped and ground into the dirt.

One of her colleagues laid into me later in the afternoon, accusing me of being intransigent and difficult to deal with. My next-door-office neighbor, who managed to hear the latter conversation through the paper-thin walls, advised me to get a stiff drink as we both headed out last night.

Two glasses of wine later as I ate dinner with one of my nearest and dearest friends, I conceived of the meditation mantra. She laughed and said, "You should Blog about that."

Actually meditation is hardly conducive to sustaining anger. After about five minutes of Fuck ’em IN and Fuck ’em OUT, my breathing took on a life of its own and the mantra fell away.

I arrived home to find a message from someone who works for me that could only spell real trouble. I called him to learn what the latest production problem was and started immediately to strategize. My poor brain was moving slowly, but it has been trained like to rat in a maze to deal with processing problems.

As I headed upstairs to check my e-mail and check for comments from Blogger friends, my husband wondered why I had so little interest in just sitting down and talking to him since we hadn’t seen each other all day long. Uh oh, just one more person that I was not able to please. We lit the Hanukkah candles and talked for a little while, but my day was catching up with me and I already knew I would be getting a very early start at work.

I got into work at 6 AM this morning, had the worst of the crisis over by 10, and settled in to read a 45-page document which I wrote and a contractor is being paid megabucks to edit. Blah!

My friend says it’s just the holidaze. I don’t really know. But I’m tired of being made to feel guilty when I haven’t done anything wrong.

I’m somewhat tempted to go up to the top floor of the building, where there is actually a decent view of the city, find a door leading to the roof, and go up there and yell "Fuck ’em" at the top of my lungs. I can only imagine how good it would feel.