My husband has been asking me to quit my job for weeks. Maybe months at this point. The routine is set- I come home after a horrendous day of being screamed at, having had things thrown at me (or at least sent whizzing past my ear), having heard the latest bitchy comment made behind my back, and the second I hit the front door I fall apart. Sometimes that means I cry. More often than not I've already cried at work in a bathroom stall, or on the drive home, so by the time I get home I've entered into rage mode. I recount my day with rhetoric that would make my deceased grandfather (WWII sailor) proud. Or maybe cringe. Ben (the husband) listens. He always listens. He gives me hugs. He agrees with me that the bakery manager, aka "Mussolini," (a passive-aggressive, menopausal- read "hot flashing "- Jekyll and Hyde type) is a bitch; he tells me that my Borderline Personality Disorder decorating lead, aka "Fearless Leader," is a nightmare. And then he asks me the question that any sane individual would ask, "why don't you leave??"
The truth is I think about leaving every day. I've watched three of the 5 of us core decorators quit. The latest one of us to go leaves on Saturday. After that it's just me, Mussolini, Fearless Leader and two part-time interns. But I can't just quit. True, if this was any other type of relationship I would have called a spade an abusive spade long ago and walked out, but this is a job. I have to stay if only for the health benefits (Ben's don't kick in for another 3 months).
For the past 11 months I've repeated this routine. Cry-rant and rave-claim defeat-wake up at 3 am to start it all over. And then Sunday came. Every week a list of openings within the company (it's a chain) goes up next to the time clock. This Sunday an opening came up in a store that is literally 3 minutes from my house. 15 with a foot of snow. Today I got the paperwork to make the transfer. I will turn it in on Friday. It will get faxed and finalized before anyone in the bakery knows what hit them. And hopefully, in two weeks, I will be FREE. I am terrified that the new bakery will be as bad, or worse, than this one- but I know what will happen to me if I stay. At least this way I'm breaking the cycle of learned helplessness.
Wish me luck.
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