Urbanjourney
Newcomer
In today's journaling, i wrote about being micro-managed by a previous employer at a company that was meant to be my dream job and my escape from the bullshit chameleon sales life i'd been living previously but in fact turned out to be exactly the same.
I recall the excitement about finally following my passion (design / architecture / landscape) and working for a company that i'd admired for years only to start to see the wheels falling off quite soon.
The owner of the business was a female and had another linked company that she'd had to build up in a male dominated construction products arena. It became evident quickly that when taking me around to start meeting my new clients that she was being disingenuous and trying the bulldoze her way into getting a sale. I found it very cringeworthy and could feel the clients were not appreciating the approach but i kept my mouth shut for fear of losing my 'dream job'. It was the total antithesis of the genuine approach i believe in - real relationship building and respect.
Each meeting i was taken to i could feel the pressure building and that i was expected to just punch my way through and we didn't have time to build relationships- we needed orders to make things work. Product issues were expressed my large clients and she'd say "yeah yeah we'll get back to you" only to not get back to them.
I really started to have this fear that i would be resented by these clients as I was just the 'typical' sales person who didn't care but just wanted money. This went against everything my character believes in. I was being severley micromanaged and really had no idea who i was meant to be anymore.
After around 8 months at the business, my wife and I took a holiday to Borneo to climb Mt Kinabalu. It was the most amazing time and i was able to just be in every moment. On returning, we had a wedding to drive to a few hours away and so the arrangement was for me to pic up my company car and head there. The owner of the company wasn't there but one of the staff told me "sorry, but she forgot you'd need your call and it's not here" This made me angry and frustrated but we grabbed our own car from home instead. I also noticed that my company emails were not being received or sent from my phone which i thought was weird but didn't pay more attention to it.
At the wedding venue, i was playing tennis and on bending over to pick up a ball i felt my lower back lock up in an excruciating spasm. I rested up and couldn't go to the ceremony but on driving back home a few days later, i was hit with another almighty spasm (as a passenger in the car) so bad that i wanted someone to kill me. I got an injection of pain meds from hospital then went home to rest up. Did not feel good about ringing my boss to tell her i'd injured my back and would need the week off but did so then on limping back into work, she had this very fake "you poor thing" look on her face. Immediately she said we need to talk to you in the office then was let go as "this was jut not working out" It made sense now why my car was unavailable and work emails turned off. After trying to explain myself and my thoughts on her sales approach, she was disinterested in hearing it and i was marched out straight away.
Fear, confusion, sadness and anger ensued.
What i realised from this is that I seemed to have a re-occurence of the lower back spasm every few years or so and usually in roles where i was being highly micro managed. All of the previous spasms I recovered from reasonably quickly but the one i had this year has continued to plague me for nearly 11 months. Although i absolutely loved the work place i had been in for the past 9 years, there was starting to be some micro managing emerging last year and this year so this to me makes more sense that anything of the relationship to my current symptoms...
I recall the excitement about finally following my passion (design / architecture / landscape) and working for a company that i'd admired for years only to start to see the wheels falling off quite soon.
The owner of the business was a female and had another linked company that she'd had to build up in a male dominated construction products arena. It became evident quickly that when taking me around to start meeting my new clients that she was being disingenuous and trying the bulldoze her way into getting a sale. I found it very cringeworthy and could feel the clients were not appreciating the approach but i kept my mouth shut for fear of losing my 'dream job'. It was the total antithesis of the genuine approach i believe in - real relationship building and respect.
Each meeting i was taken to i could feel the pressure building and that i was expected to just punch my way through and we didn't have time to build relationships- we needed orders to make things work. Product issues were expressed my large clients and she'd say "yeah yeah we'll get back to you" only to not get back to them.
I really started to have this fear that i would be resented by these clients as I was just the 'typical' sales person who didn't care but just wanted money. This went against everything my character believes in. I was being severley micromanaged and really had no idea who i was meant to be anymore.
After around 8 months at the business, my wife and I took a holiday to Borneo to climb Mt Kinabalu. It was the most amazing time and i was able to just be in every moment. On returning, we had a wedding to drive to a few hours away and so the arrangement was for me to pic up my company car and head there. The owner of the company wasn't there but one of the staff told me "sorry, but she forgot you'd need your call and it's not here" This made me angry and frustrated but we grabbed our own car from home instead. I also noticed that my company emails were not being received or sent from my phone which i thought was weird but didn't pay more attention to it.
At the wedding venue, i was playing tennis and on bending over to pick up a ball i felt my lower back lock up in an excruciating spasm. I rested up and couldn't go to the ceremony but on driving back home a few days later, i was hit with another almighty spasm (as a passenger in the car) so bad that i wanted someone to kill me. I got an injection of pain meds from hospital then went home to rest up. Did not feel good about ringing my boss to tell her i'd injured my back and would need the week off but did so then on limping back into work, she had this very fake "you poor thing" look on her face. Immediately she said we need to talk to you in the office then was let go as "this was jut not working out" It made sense now why my car was unavailable and work emails turned off. After trying to explain myself and my thoughts on her sales approach, she was disinterested in hearing it and i was marched out straight away.
Fear, confusion, sadness and anger ensued.
What i realised from this is that I seemed to have a re-occurence of the lower back spasm every few years or so and usually in roles where i was being highly micro managed. All of the previous spasms I recovered from reasonably quickly but the one i had this year has continued to plague me for nearly 11 months. Although i absolutely loved the work place i had been in for the past 9 years, there was starting to be some micro managing emerging last year and this year so this to me makes more sense that anything of the relationship to my current symptoms...