Staying put

"I think I need to quit."

I heard my words hanging in the slanting sun, indiscreet and huge. But I wasn't startled; it felt like breathing. It was right, and necessary and proud. He stared back at me, the new sun glinting off his name tag, reflecting 'SUPERVISOR' into my steady gaze. "Uh---" was all he got out before the torrent began. Something about his momentary display of kindness, his odd-ball personality,the way I'd never considered him a sounding board in the past, and perhaps the horrendous ordeal of uncovering nasty gossip (again) made me plow forward. I told him that I had once loved working here, had become disillusioned, and somehow liked it well enough still. I explained my attempt to view work as intrinsically worthwhile, as solid and steady, and as an opportunity to teach myself the art of becoming a cog. I told him that I wasn't in it for self-actualization, to be unique or pursue vocation, but to sculpt my own inner-fortitude, to be reliable, hard-working and pay my rent. And I told him that I'd been weighing and considering all these things for two years, and I didn't need to consider it anymore. I was done.

In January, I asked to write an order. January passed, order-writers swapped; my name stayed off the list. Then in March I was asked to be a part of a special team, and I accepted with pleasure. And yet, the ordeal that followed is too exhausting to type out here: the miscommunication, the pressure of shifting management, my own frantic ineptitude, the dead ends, the promises that still hang in the air unanswered and now just plain unmentioned. In May, for whatever reason, I was taken off morning shifts. Adjusting to the tasks of mid-shifts was apparently more strenuous than I imagined, because in the last week of May I was pulled aside by my favorite supervisor and asked 'if you even want to be here anymore since you refuse to help customers,' a sentiment I am still puzzled by. (When he transferred out of our store a month later, I hardly knew how to feel.) And then, in the end of June as we came upon our annual summer hour slump, I found myself moving from 36 hours a week to 20,(a cut so drastic I can't even fathom paying my rent this month- thankfully I don't have to. Instead I have to move) and then this past week to 14. Yes, 14 hours of work this week.

So when a coworker offered her Saturday morning shift, I had no reason to say 'no.' 'Yes!' I said, 'Wonderful!' But that's precisely when the shit hit the fan. In the (nearly) two years of my employment, I have worked so many Saturday mornings, I can't even begin to count, and yet for some reason when we asked our supervisor for the switch, he pulled me aside and said:

"Kristin, I just want to be honest with you. I need to tell you that there's been a lot of bad feeling about you working a Saturday amongst crew members and, you know, a lot of the [supervisors] have been saying it too, so we'll probably just put you on flowers or something, and you've really got to, you know, go full-throttle-- I mean, everyone's been saying that you always say, 'I'm not really worried about getting done this morning because somebody always comes to help me,' and that just doesn't reflect well on you, and-- you know, its not always true. we're really tight Saturday mornings and I just want to be sure you're not going to have that attitude-- I mean, I like you, Kristin and when I hear things like that, I take it with a grain of salt, but I'm like, okay, if she said that, its bad news and you're really going to have to work hard to lose that perception of you, because like, everyone is really having a bad feeling about it, and I just want you to know, its going around."

I don't have the first clue what to do about this. This is called gossip; I know that much, because I remember it from high school. But in high school all you have to do is look him or her (or your bathroom mirror, depending on how its going) in the eye and say, "nuh-uh!" and its done. When you're 16, this sort of thing flies, but I'm 24, and you know, a professional. So I just looked at him. "Well, I'm not sure how to respond to that," I told him. "I have never said that. I certainly don't feel it. I'm just wracking my brains trying to think how I could have said something close to that." And really, who would be annoyed enough with me to report something like that, even if I did say it, which I didn't. Why would I?! I am worried about getting my job finished in the mornings, excessively so. What's more, I really like everyone I work with during these shifts. We laugh together, we swap stories. Doesn't it seem that everyone who wakes up before five in the morning must share some kind of special kinship? Which one of these good-natured morning sweethearts went and ratted me out when I had my back turned, took some comment (though I still can't imagine what) and twisted it to mean I was flippant, unconcerned, and sure someone else would pull my weight?

And then, (back in the office) he did something horrible, and reached out and touched my arm. It was light touch, but intentioned, and said, "I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, honey." And that's when I burst into tears. I am just so exhausted of working against some perception. This sort of thing has just never happened to me before. I've always been a star student, a team player with a positive attitude that isn't an effort for me to muster. I turned and left the office, fled past Patrick in the wine section whose face froze as the sight of my tears, and into the bathroom where I sunk to the floor for the hundreth time and sobbed. Just cried, and cried, because I am so tired, because I don't feel like myself anymore and mostly because somebody doesn't like me, which is a horrible, horrible fault of mine (so damn sensitive).

And two minutes later, I picked myself up, wiped my eyes and resignedly asked my supervisor for a chat. He said yes, and that we should go out and catch a little sun. I smiled, and told him I want to quit. That I'm done, that I want to leave high school behind once and for all.

And after an hour of wonderfully humanizing conversation (in which he actually offered me--off the record of course--career advice!!) I told him, give me some time, I'll think about it.

Since then I have talked to some friends- including Pat, who was (probably appropriately) furious with me for even considering quitting without talking to him about it and simultaneously devastated on my behalf- who have offered a little perspective. And just as liberating as it was to stand up and say with assurance, "I'm ready to move on," I feel a vice close over my chest as I admit, I just can't quit my job. There's not enough money. So tomorrow will be another day as usual, one to nine.

I'm so overwhelmed I'm not sure where to turn, but it helps to think of my dad, who worked in a job he disliked for ten years to help me through college. (What a wimp I am.) It also helps that my sweet sister and brother-in-law have forced me to pray every day, multiple times a day for the rest of my life as I manage to sneak my precious niece into every conversation I have: Kyrianne, Kyrianne:

Lord have mercy,
Lord have mercy on it all.