Failure

Failure: refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success.

I am NOT a failure! I refuse to use the word! That definition does NOT describe me at all! Last Wednesday as our year end event approached (the next day) my co-workers and I were called into a meeting and told that we were failures.

To explain, each year we have peer awards that are given out at the year end event. None of my co-workers and I were nominated nor did we nominate anyone. Yes, we should have nominated one of our own or someone else on another team but we didn't. This does not make us fail. In fact, I have had MUCH success this past year. Our whole team has. I (and several of my co-workers) worked very LONG hours and weekends implementing the new ARRA standards. I have streamlined processes, written procedures, developed new applications to reduce the time it takes to post payments, trained/supervised 4 contract employees, trained a new team member, coordinated many social events for the team, and of course did my normal day to day job. This to me is not failing. I did not receive a bad review either, in fact it was a very good one.

In fact, if any one failed, he did. He failed us by not promoting, supporting, encouraging, and backing us up. He has no clue what we do day in and day out. He really has no clue what we have to put up with! He failed us by calling us failures!

I have been quite upset for the past week. I am hurt, angry, confused, and defiant. He wants to call me a failure, let him. I know that I am not a failure. My team knows we are not failures. Our supervisor (the one just under the manager, who by the way was as blind sided by all of this as we were!) knows we are not failures. So what am I going to do? Well, I need my job considering I have a mortgage and bills to pay. But, my plan is the same as it was a week and a day ago. To go to work, do the best job I can, and be satisfied knowing I have done the best I can do! We joke around a lot at work, and are quite cynical about it and are laughing A LOT about it.

I have to admit I have lost respect for him. He lost a lot of credit with me. And, I don't know how or if he will gain it back. And that is pretty bad I know, but I am being honest about it. He knows he has screwed up by telling us that. And he is sucking up a little. I am polite but not overly nice to him. My Mother did raise me to be a lady. I don't have to like him, but he is my manager and I do have to smile! (And say really mean things in my head....OK OK just kidding!)

I have been called a failure before. Proved that one wrong. In the 6th grade my teacher told my Mother that I would be a failure, never go to college (or graduate), never really amount to anything. WRONG!

I will succeed and come out the better person. A stronger and wiser person. He just doesn't know what he really did to all of us!