Chewing my foot off.

First – maternity leave in Norway – if you have a permanent 100% position – is full pay for 8 months or 80% for a year. Sweet, right? And it took me many moons to get the position that I have, which is 8 to 3:30, Monday to Friday and every 6th weekend. Which – like – GOOD, right?

Yet the fact is they passed over me for a promotion for someone who does. Not. Speak. The. Language. Nice person, yes. Experienced, yes. Maybe even more cojones than me – let it not be said that I like confrontation – but who does not understand large chunks of what is being said around her. ARGH.

So here I sit. Angry. Bitter. Melodramatically betrayed. Looking through the Help Wanted ads knowing that I can’t ought not give up the position I have. Because it will happen sometime. Not this time, but sometime.

And now I’m off to buy more B vitamins, Robitussin, some ovulation predictor kits and boxer shorts.

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I need a nap.

I am going to attempt to be nice at work. I feel okay with being a bit distant, but I want to be nice. Pleasant. After all, it’s not her fault they hired her instead of me, right?

I am aware that I’m feeling childish – wronged and hurt and pouty – but as long as I act professional, that might be okay. Though how do you know that the faking it til you’re making it isn’t transparent? I’ve been in work situations before when I thought I was being completely unreadable and oh, just really wasn’t. And that feeling of thinking you’re keeping your true feelings well below the surface only to find out 6 months, 2 years later that simply everyone knew exactly how you felt is so icky.

And it’s not like I even wanted this job. I was feeling ambivalent about it from the get go. I found out it was open the day I got back from vacation and made the decision to apply without really giving it any thought. I wasn’t sure I wanted the stress or the having to deal with some of the upper management – some of which are really, truly nutty people. (It’s not normal for the boss-boss to not make eye contact under any circumstances. It just isn’t.) I wasn’t sure I wanted to have to hire new people or have to reprimand wayward employees. I wasn’t sure I wanted to have to think about the economy and how we can’t afford to have someone stay that extra half hour so that everyone gets to … like … lie down after dinner. I didn’t want to talk to the intensely crazy man who is in charge of IT/janitorial services/laundry. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be the one to whom everyone whined.

But I sure wanted them to want me.

A new day

So tomorrow is the first day of work with the new boss. I’ve worked with her for a little over a year now, trained her, taught her the language, asked her a million times “are you sure you understand?”. I like her. She’s cute. But I’m not sure why they chose to promote her rather than me. She has less experience than I do and in pediatrics, not geriatrics. I’m suspecting she’s going to have to struggle a bit.

And, really, that’s okay.