So back in September, I had open heart surgery and I was doing some light work from home while recovering. Now for context, the CEO I report to do directly is a textbook narcissist. The man reaps all the profits from custom projects, owns 5 properties he rents out in high end neighborhoods, drives a BMW. The works.
So during my recovery, I took naps every 4 hours to take it easy on my heart and overall keeping the vibes high. Now through this process I am explaining to him that I just had my heart worked on, I can’t go back yet. But he eggs me on daily back “ETA on coming back”. I don’t think much of it. I am his manager and project lead, I understand that he’s anxious. My empathy is going to be the fucking death of me.
So his nagging kinda ramps up to problem dumping. Every night, 1 hour call about the roadblocks he’s hitting and the issues he’s having. At this point, I think he’s venting until he starts unloading on me. Threatening to sever my reduced salary because for some sick twisted reason, he doesn’t have short term disability insurance for us. He’s becoming super demanding at this point, complaining how he hasn’t taken a paycheck because of the massive slow down this year. So I broke and told him to go fuck himself. Again, being the empathetic person. We worked it out to get through the holidays and now we are here.
So I returned to work on light duty. And apart of my leadership style, I am a very vibes oriented person. My guys work the best when they are happy, laughing, taken care of. I’ll come out and talk about the days work and crack jokes with them. I’ll ask them if there is anything I can get them. I’ve even gotten everyone catering one day. I get reprimanded for this. Stating that I am not being productive. To a point I get, but I am handling content for social media, while texting our retailers, writing invoices, processing payments, doing rewrites for SEO, the works. And I am not counting all the trips around the city to handle pick ups and drop offs on my own time.
So I get an offer the other day for another position which pays 10k less compared to my current position. And I been flipping back and forth. And I am thinking back to the unloading while I was weak and recovering. And the first thing that I said “fuck this. I’m out”.
I personally been indifferent to anti-work. But I get it now. People want to be respect and taken care of for the good and invaluable work they do. I don’t see myself as being treated with respect or value. Nor am I his therapist either. I rather go back to being ratty and go gig to gig vs another year where I am just depressed and losing motivation.