Interlude…

So I recently resigned from my job, a place I felt overworked and underpaid. The sad part about it though is how I was starting to question my own intelligence, you know how doing the same thing day in and day out does not challenge you intellectually and all your skillset wastes away due to it. Of course there were other factors, like the sexual harassment, most of my friends were actually surprised that it took me this long to finally call it quits but it’s finally done now.

Whilst the sexual harassment was dealt with and I got transferred, it came with a lot of backlash , especially from my new colleagues at the different work station who were friends with the perpetrator. I remember the first week I got there, one of his; perpetrator, female friends came to me and told me to stop wearing the dress I was wearing because the slit was too long and they didn’t want to have another case of “sexual harassment” on my account when I’m the one who was tempting the men with my thighs.

The majority of the people there were really old so I can somewhat understand their thinking where dress code (which did not exist) was concerned. But what I found repulsive was how a woman was blaming me for being sexually harassed by my choice of dressing, these are the same women who sweep abuse under the carpet to “protect the image” of either the family and in this case company. To make it all worse, I was 5 months pregnant at the time and my emotions were all over the place, I we to the bathroom and cried for a good 3 hours and came out when my friend finally came looking for me after she hadn’t found me at my work desk.

As if that was not bad enough, the stares and constant snide remarks would just continuously rub me off the wrong way. I remember one of his other friends had the audacity to say to me, “aah you’re the beautiful ones who cry harassment when you’re complimented, no wonder you fell pregnant out of wedlock”. Phew, the rage I felt made me want to grab her by neck and give her a thorough beating, but I had to restrain myself and my tongue so I simply walked away to my bathroom stall and let the waters flow.

The following week when I went for my doctor’s appointment he was worried because everything was haywire and he advised me to try and not stress. Easier said than done, especially when you have a pack of wolves constantly circling you. To protect myself and my unborn baby, I requested to be moved to another location. Thankfully, everyone at the new work station was friendly and kind and working there was blissful.

When I handed in my resignation however, it wasn’t as smooth as I wanted it to be. Some of the seniors felt the need to have a meeting with me to tell me that if I was leaving the company just to write then they’d advise me not to because I was going to regret it. They gave an example of a lady who got a scholarship/fellowship because of writing and when she came back “she thought she was better, exposed and well informed”, so she quit. But apparently she never got to write and came back looking for a job later on and she didn’t get it, they say she still regrets it and the same fate was going to befall me.

I’m not one to tell people about all my plans, but I did not appreciate that meeting or what they said. No one has the right to speak negativity into a person’s life as if to curse them in their new path. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t share all my future endeavors with them. The one my husband and I found most amusing was how one of the colleagues openly told me that they would not call me by my married name and would stick to my maiden name. He called out to me so many times one afternoon in the office by maiden name and I ignored him until he came to my desk to say excuse me lady I’m talking to you. I simply told him to respect me and most importantly respect my husband because he had done a lot for that name change to be effected. He got the message because after that he acknowledged that I was a Mrs and not a Miss.

Have you ever felt so happy that you cried? Well that was me on my last day and I the relief I felt as I stepped out of the office, well, I’m still trying to find the right terms to put it into words because honestly it was beyond the greatest joy. So here is to me, and all my future endeavors.