A Cry in the Dark

Friday, April 07, 2006

what do you do when your actions are killing a friend?

I didn’t want to blog for a while. I wanted to walk away, thinking it would help me focus on what is truly important in my life right now. The problem? I can’t talk to anyone about what is going on. If I talk about it, I get upset. I feel guilty. I feel like I’m a horrible person. But I also know I need to get this out, as it’s festering and causing even more pain.

I am killing a friend of mine. Literally.

I usually try to be friendly with the people I work with, but maintain a significant distance from them. I don’t like to be “friends” with co-workers. It leads to problems, you see. When you get involved with the personal life of someone, it bleeds over to the professional life. Without intending it, I’ve become friends with a couple of guys in Finance. We’ve worked so closely together the last three years that it’s been impossible to maintain a clean separation. I truly care about both of them, and I know they care about me. That’s part of what has made this whole acquisition nightmare a bit easier to deal with. We were able to laugh at ourselves. There was a commonality of agony with the requests and impossible deadlines. We felt like the three muskateers, fighting off the idiocy of others.

The nightmare I’m now living started almost two months ago. The details are convoluted and ugly, so I’m not going to give you all of them. The end result was that I have been forced to “drop” a lot of the work I have done to support other departments. If I didn’t, then I would be forced to work for Finance. While that isn’t a bad thing on the surface, once you go to a level above the two guys described above, things get horrible fairly quickly. Their boss is truly an animal. He is devouring these guys, chewing them up only to spit them out in pieces. They are being slaughtered on the alter of his ego, pushed to do the impossible and held up for public ridicule when their efforts are deemed unacceptable.

Mr. Ego started a push to have my position redefined. Of course, his purpose was to force me to take a position that answered to him. See, he doesn’t like the fact that he can’t push me around and can’t force me to meet his idiotic deadlines. He also is pissed off that I refused to accept the position Finance offered me. Oh, it was all sugar coated with a nice big raise, a couple of people answering to me, all that crap you could ask for. I’ve seen everything that has happened over the last six months, so why would I choose to be a participant in that game?

So, I had to start playing a game of my own. As much as I hate them, it was play or go find another playground. I had to define my own job, the reason I was hired, as my only priority. I had to refuse to accept any projects from any other department. I had to decline any requests for help until I had my own work completed. There could be no more working 70-80 hour weeks to meet company needs. My own sanity had to become a priority. Regardless of who got dumped on, I had to stick to my guns and stand my ground. Unfortunately, that meant that my two friends in Finance took on a tremendous burden that they just couldn’t handle.

T is the most senior of the three of us in job title. He has ultimate responsibility for all the financial reporting that comes out of the US. I told both T and C why I had to do this when it first began. They both understood that it was not personal and why it had to be done. Without their support, I don’t know that I could do it. However, T has to accept the blame for things not being done and deadlines not being met. It pains me, tremendously, to know that I could help them and not dare to. I’ve walked away from my friends, and left them holding the bag. Believe me, I feel like a total shit for doing so.

I’ve watched T very closely the last couple of weeks. His color isn’t good. He looks as though he’s going to have a stroke at any moment. He hasn’t laughed once that I’ve heard. He barely talks to me. The stress and pressure is killing him. Literally. And I’m guilty for adding to it.

Living with myself these days is almost too painful to bear.

Posted by WistfulWench :: 10:31 AM :: 8 comments