Swan Dive

I feel myself taking a swan dive into depression. Working for a boss who meets my every positive comment with a glare and a raising of the bar of performance is taking a toll. I have decided that I won't fight the process anymore. He wants to break me. I don't think that is a particularly difficult task he set himself, but whatever. I will go in and make a total fool of myself being unprepared to teach tomorrow. I will practice today, but there is no way to be a success, not even any way to mitigate the absolute failure. I'll either get a total ass chewing, or a total cold shoulder. I will probably get told that I am not meeting my requirements to be able to teach within 90 days, and another ultimatum of some sort, totally unattainable by me with no training. Whatever. I don't care anymore.

I want to do the hike. I see it as a way to strip all the expectations of others away and deal only with myself and my own abilities. If I can't make it, it won't be because of anything other than myself, my preparation, my strengths and weaknesses. The things I see as my strengths others seem to only want to smash. How dare I think I actually have something to offer?!? Then, of course, once I'm pathetic, they can be oh so comforting, saying soothing things from their perch of superiority. As long as I am below them, they can be pseudo-sympathetic. Patting themselves on the back for not being as fucked up as I am.

Who is 'them'? Most men I've been involved with, most specifically my x-husband. Most bosses. Most of the men and a lot of the women I've worked with. I have been accused to 'walking around like I know what I'm doing' at work by a co-worker. The big boss, who left, my first day as I walked up to him as an employee for the first time with my boss, said 'Walking around looking smug, I see' which totally floored me. Yes, I was in a good mood and was smiling. I was glad to be there. Apparently that wasn't proper protocol.

This is Veteran's Day. I am working with a lot of retired military. A few of them seem to be examples of the shining best examples of what the Army teaches about life and leadership. Most seem to spend a lot of time telling stories about how great they are, and looking down on everyone else. Several seem to think that they are owed the respect of their (former) rank even in civilian life. Seems they confused the rank with some personal glorification. The ones who are quiet, and only refer to their past if asked tend to have the more interesting stories, ones that don't rivet around how wonderful/smart they were in relation to the rest of the goons around them at the time.

I'm bitter. Can you tell?