20 years

Exactly 20 years ago today I started work for Texas State University. It was a weird time for me. My family was living in Temple and I was staying in San Antonio and Austin. I'd worked the previous nine months for Prime Time Newspapers in San Antonio, which had the most ethically challenged, incompetent management I've ever had the misfortune of working for (and that's after leaving my previous job because of a terrible, terrible boss as well--honestly, I've had great bosses and bad bosses, so I know the difference. My bad ones outnumber the good ones 2:1. My luck is absolute crap in that department). They were terrible (the staff working there were great--it's just the management that was awful). Texas State offered me a lifeline, but there was a catch: Orientation only occurred once a month, so if I didn't start on the December date (10 days away) I'd have to wait until January. That meant spending another month working for those terrible people whilst making less money.

Oh, and because of the academic calendar, if I came to Texas State on December 16, I'd work four days then get two weeks off for the holidays. Paid. I hadn't had any kind of time off in two years at that point.

The decision was not difficult. The management at Prime Time called me all sorts of names, accused me of betrayal, being unprofessional and a litany of other insults because I had the nerve to give only 10 days notice rather than a full 14. I served my time then got the hell out of Dodge. And you know what? I soon found out that they sold one of the magazines I'd edited the following week. Those kind of deals don't happen overnight. It had been in the works for some time, and when it happened they'd planned to fire me and pass the other magazine on to one of the other editors there. I'd seen it before. Talk about a bunch of rat fink bastards.

I did not expect to spend the next 20 years at Texas State. The first 12 years were the best job I'd ever had. My coworkers were great, my supervisors were friendly and supportive. It was the best environment ever. Then there was a change in leadership, and suddenly I had another rat fink bastard making my life miserable. She was pathologically incapable of telling the truth, insisted she had expertise on everything (often with disastrous results) and believed good leadership meant firing someone every three months. And yes, I looked for a way out, but nothing ever quite worked out although I got very close to leaving a couple of times. Her bullying got so bad that I finally had to file a formal grievance, which despite dragging out almost two years, ended with her adopting a hands off policy on me. I enjoyed some well-earned schadenfreude when she pulled her shit on the wrong person and was escorted off campus by police earlier this year.

Now, I'm in a new division with new leadership and finally getting the staffing help that I've desperately needed for the past 8 years. I'm not quite ready to say things are back to being the greatest job ever, but at least they're trending that way. I will not be sticking around for another 20 at this point I suspect this is the final stop in my career as a media relations professional.

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...and two of them are bad.

I don't post a lot of personal content on this blog. It's uncomfortable, for starters, and secondly, it's not my place to invade the privacy of the people inhabiting my day-to-day life. And some sharing can come back to bite you if you're not very careful. But sometimes, things reach critical mass and the pressure within builds to unsustainable levels. That brings us to now.

I am at a crossroads in my life. This has been building for a number of years, and I've done my damnedest to manage the situation. But, like most ugliness, it won't be appeased or reasoned with. It's affected my health--both mentally and physically. I know it's affected my family. It's impacted pretty much every aspect of my life, and even my small triumphs over the past few years have been undermined, in part, because of this. I'm perpetually looking over my shoulder, second-guessing myself, doubting my competency.

But things change. I've been backed into the proverbial corner, and from this position I can see but three outcomes, and two of them are bad. So yeah, I'm throwing up my Hail Mary (how's that for mixing football metaphors?). Taking action to defend myself sets things in motion. I may prevail, but the odds aren't exactly in my favor. Falling short means retribution will be swift and sure. But taking no action at all means retribution will only come a little more slowly, while remaining just as sure. Think of me as a modern-day Ned Stark, for all of you Game of Thrones fans out there.

Maybe if I were a gambler, I'd feel more confident. But I seem to lack the gambling gene and Las Vegas is probably my least-favorite place in the world. So instead of confident, I'm angsty and stressed. I don't believe in a God who micro-manages the universe, who directly intervenes in the personal affairs of mere humans, as that would pretty much undermine that whole free will thing. But the pattern-recognition parts of my brain have been working overtime of late, and from a writer's point of view, I've seen so much foreshadowing and the positioning of plot devices recently that I can't help but wonder, on some level, if I'm playing out a narrative someone else is writing. That's a roundabout way of saying any positive thoughts or wishes or prayers you want to send my way would be welcome. Think of them as letters to the editor. If I am indeed approaching my own, personal 1-900-Does-Robin-Live-Or-Die issue of Batman (how's that for an old-school reference?), I'd much rather have those phone lines lit up than not.

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