Never stick your finger in a socket....or anyone elses for that matter...

Shocks: Electric, emotional, physical, they all leave a metaphoric scar, don't they? If you'd once pulled out a plug and your body lit up in the manner of a cartoon character, wouldn't you approach said plug with anxiety for ever more? At least until the memory fades.
Physical shocks. Haven't we all had a paper cut, a whack from a cupboard door left open or walked into a lamppost? (well that lamppost thing might just be me, I do have a tendency to not look where I'm going *blush*) Eventually you start to check that it can't happen again. Basically, you ensure that your surroundings can't hurt you. So why do we allow people to hurt us on a regular basis, why do we give nasty toxic trolls the opportunity to poison our lives?

The Dutch have a saying "drie keer raak" which means third time lucky, without the "luck" bit. You get three chances and that's it. Somebody I gave credit to for being a grown up, well rounded person, quite frankly, isn't. I think I'm a relatively strong person, I'm not afraid of confrontation, I don't like it but will not hide from it. Yet, other bit of me, the one that's scared to approach someone who I know is going to deal badly with anything that resembles criticism, usually tries another approach to deal with a situation that may turn uncomfortable.
Silly Sharon.
What I didn't bargain for is this person taking my clumsy attempt to be neutral, blabbing it to half my colleagues whilst painting herself as the victim...and then, said colleagues making nasty, insidious complaints about me to the boss. Not to my supervisor, who would have told me because she's pretty cool like that - not afraid of confrontation either - but the big boss, the head honcho, the dude in the leather chair.

How did I discover this? After being called into a meeting to discuss the fact that this colleague had made some damaging and self serving complaints to my supervisor - my supervisor decided enough was enough and it needed discussion (there ya go, see - I sad she wasn't afraid to confront) for which I was grateful. Being bad-mouthed to all and sundry and having no idea is not a pleasant thing. After this meeting, the complainer accepted my apology for being clumsy and not dealing with the issues in a manner that was beneficial to her - which basically I gather, is ignoring them - she pulled me into a hug...A HUG? As you can imagine, this left me mightily confused. The next day after a lot of heart searching and some unusually strong profanity, I asked the Boss if I could have a chat and avail myself of his open door policy. This is when I discovered that some colleagues had also popped in for a poisonous chat. I’m also being held accountable for noxious gossip, it seems. Well, to be honest the gossip bit might be true :) – but never noxious and you know, if I've heard it, somebody told me and usually it was the person who says I’m being cruel to her. Who, then, responsible for gossip? Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I've been called to account during my time at this company and although the other times I was completely vindicated, the nasty, nauseous feeling stuck. Whereas the previous Director seemed to thrive on the old "Divide and Conquer" adage and encourage his staff to back-stab, thankfully the new guy doesn't. He told me about it and I am so grateful. Ignorance however, is bliss and since discovering this, I've felt quite sick. Mostly because the people responsible haven't once mentioned their problems to me and even more telling, have been very, very nice to me. Now, I know there are many people who function quite happily in this way; I'm just not one of them. Therefore, have finally made a decision I've been pondering over for a long time.
It's time to go.
11 years in the same job is a long time, possibly too long. I'm not hugely happy there anyway. The job gives me no intellectual challenges and can be quite stultifying. The technical name is "a bore out" which is the opposite of a "burnout" (in case you hadn't made the connection - hehe) Also, after this school term some of the people I really enjoy working with are leaving. Why waste my precious life worrying about people I actively dislike, who obviously passive/aggressively dislike me? Tony, our beautifully insightful eldest son asked me yesterday if I was going to let these people chase me away. Answer: "YES".

What I’ve learned?

It is possible to smile sweetly and be ultra nice to people whilst actively sabotaging them. Not just possible, in some it’s practically an art form.


Never trust someone who laughs after everything they say. Seriously, “I just went for a glass of water – giggle giggle” is a bit odd. You realise it’s a nervous trait and never realise the reason for the nervousness – they’re scared they’ll be caught out?

Personally, I’m incapable of that level of sneaky.

I have bloody great kids (but this I knew anyway)

I have bloody great friends.

I have a bloody great husband, who has suffered my whining about this with stoic devotion.

There are two sides to every story and am aware I’m sometimes …huhum…difficult to deal with but now know how much I appreciate straightforward people.

It’s not so easy to tell who’s straightforward.

And lastly but really, the most important…..

I get massive spots when I’m stressed.


“Drie keer raak” – toodleoo.