How can people from the same time and place have such diffrent memories of it? Our memories are tricky things. I can understand how little details can be remembered differently but what I've come across latley is so odd.
Recently, I was made a member of a Facebook group from an old workplace. I do not have good memories of this company. I made a few really good friends there and I am forever gratefull for that but the rest of it was horrible. As I read through some of the posts, I couldn't believe how many people had amazing memories from when they worked there. Some of them even said how much they missed the company. I kept thinking, are we talking about the same place?
It occured to me that maybe I was living in a parallel universe. Maybe it was just me who hated working there but as my thoughts wandered, I remembered the few friends I had there were miserable as well. More thinking and I realized that we were all in the same department. The happy people had been in a completley different department. Ok, it's settled. It was just the accounting department. But it wasn't. I knew someone who transferred from accounting to sales and still wasn't happy with this company. Furthermore, my aunt was in sales and she wasnt' all that happy either. She also seems to now be living in the happy memory land and forgetting that she was fired for her performance. She had some health issues and was in and out of work for about a year. How the heck was she supposed to perform if she wasn't there? She worked there for about 15 years and that's how they treated her.
I narrowed it down. There seems to have been some glory days somewhere from the late 80's to the early 90's. From there, things spiroled downhill. I worked there from 1992 to 1997. I got the tail end of the happy times. Most of the happy stories peoople told were from those early years. They may have still worked there when I was there but it wasn't the same.
I have to be fair here and mention that I, too, was fired for performance issues. I was a bad employee. I was late all the time, I didn't care about my work, I called in sick quite a bit. I was always on probation for one thing or another. I deserved it. I asked for everything I got. I blamed the company for my unhappiness for a while but the truth was, I was just miserable in general. The crappy job didn't help but it wasn't the reason. When I wasn't happy after leaving, I had to sit back and take a hard look at myself. In a way, they did me a favor by firing me. I had to take responsibility for myself and I did. The thing is, a year later, I found out that my ex-supervisors wanted me to fail. We totally didn't like each other but I don't think they wanted to fire me. I didn't give them any choice. If I got a new job and failed there too, maybe they wouldn't feel so guilty about firing me. But I didn't fail. I found a great new job at a company I loved. (Now, if they had a Facebook group, I would be living in happy memory land with them!) It wasn't the job that made me happy. I was happy when I started the job. There's a huge difference there. It was an awsome company with some of the best co-workers ever. That wasn't it though, I was different.
I sat on it for a few days. Should I stay on the company group? None of those people were horrible. In fact, the few I remember were very nice. In the end, I decided to defect. I realized that none of those people were anybody that I have missed in the last 14 years. The ones I did miss I have re-connected with already or I have stayed in contact all along. Seeing posts from certain people brought me right back to that young girl I was. I felt angry, sad, confused, inadequate and small. I still occasionally have those feelings but not all at the same time and certainly not as strong as I felt them back then. I don't want to feel that way again. I am not that girl they remember and as much as I would like them to see me now, the truth is, I don't care enough about those people to make the effort.
So for now, I respectfully decline Seton. I do hope that everyone is doing well but I choose not to go back.
No comments:
Post a Comment