Employment trauma is how my husband describes my irrational fears of being disliked or fired by an employer and ending up homeless and never able to get a job in my field again. It comes from years of bad supervisors, unethical and even dangerous workplaces, and struggling to find that first job when I finished school during the Great Recession.
So this job I went above and beyond to impress. Received great Evals and feedback from supervisor and coworkers. So I tried not to freak out when I knew I’d have to quit due to having a newborn. I lost sleep a couple of nights wondering how I would tell my boss, how she would hate me or scheme to not pay out my unused time or whatever.
But I remembered all the positive rapport we had and thought, “quit being paranoid and just tell her. She’s a human being. she won’t bite. Especially not after having done x# years of good work.”
All I can say is, I was wrong .