An Epilogue (from my previous post).

I meant to follow up last night on my post from the day before, but by the time I got home, I was exhausted and I just wanted to sit in silence. I didn't have a spectacular day and it progressively got worse. It would be much easier if I didn't go into detail, but I can say that my anxiety levels, instead of decreasing, actually increased again (why do some of my employees just not GET IT??!). And to cap it off, on my way home, I spoke to a friend and he and I got into a "discussion" about my previous blog post.

Thus the need for an Epilogue.

Well, even before I begin my post, let me preface it with this; I got my sorry ass up about a little bit ago after laying in bed, playing with Tic Tac, and forced myself out of bed, made some coffee, took a shower, got on the phone to order something, drank more coffee, and now I'm here... Exciting huh? Yeah. I went to bed around 1o PM last night...I just didn't feel right....more specifically, I was tired, just super tired and I wanted to lay down and sleep.

Alright, so let's start:

(I love my dog...he knows his daddy is sad right now and he hopped onto my lap. I LOVE my dog.)

I'm driving home last night, still reeling from my thoughts from the day before (you know it because it's all in the post I made).

So, I'm on the phone and we got into...gosh, I can't even really call it a debate, or even a discussion...it was a very light, simplistic defining conversation of my post. He made it evident that after reading my post, it wasn't about work really or co-workers, although they played a major role in exacerbating it; it was the resounding situation, message, voice, deliverance, whatever you would like to call it, that left the mark on me, to the point that it's almost a scar.

We reconstructed and then deconstructed the entire situation and we agreed it boiled down to this:

I was told the truth. But it was not the complete truth. But it was still the truth. At this point, can it still BE the truth? Our response was the same; "No." It cannot be considered the truth because had the WHOLE truth been told, then two instances/situations would happen:

Number 1 - the half-truth statement would not be the same, it would not hold the identical structure when said completely, in it's entirety; it simply would not mean the same.

Number 2 - the half-truth would have a specific outcome, a positive, complacent outcome. People only speak half-truths because by doing so, there would be a positive, complacent outcome - by telling the entire truth, the outcome would turn to a negative one.

Speak half the truth and all is good.

Speak the full truth and all is not good.

I actually stopped and thought about this conversation, and then back played in regards to my co-worker.

And I was absolutely right. My reasoning, logic, was correct.

I then contemplated WHY my department head would boldy lie to me, to tell me a half-truth...what was she so scared of? What fear did she have? Losing her job? Being disciplined? What was it? I shook my head and sighed...here I am, showing my department head the highest level of kindness, of respect, showing her that even though I'm not her friend per se, I AM a good manager, that I could be counted on to help, to do what I could do so she could succeed and be the best department head I had.

What was she so afraid that I would think? What was she so afraid that I'd find out?

Then the light bulb went off in my head. As you know, I wrote earlier that I had internal problem at work and it kept popping up all the time.

I would like to repeat, "What was she so afraid that I would think? What was she so afraid that I'd find out? Why was she so afraid. Period."

Then I knew.

I knew, that with identifying the half-truth, it would open up a pandora's box. The puzzling things happening at the office would all make sense. It would come together. Why certain things were coming up missing, why certain information was incorrectly being passed on...she told the half-truth to so many people and in turn, they perpetuated the half-truths...they trusted her and assumed she was telling the full truth. They were an accessory and didn't mean to be.

I find it frustrating just writing about it now.

Luckily, and this is me NOT having anxiety, but finding my center as a manager of so many people...I have the solution.

I'll talk to Bree. I will ask her, one last time, if she was my internal leak.

She'll give me 1 of 2 answers; the right one or the wrong one.

If it's the right answer, I'll smile, thank her, and doing what I can to help her.

If it's the wrong answer...then I'll be disappointed...not in her...but in myself. Disappointed in myself because I wasn't able to save her.

While my bud and I were talking, he asked a question to me that caught me off guard. I had touched upon it earlier, but didn't really think about it:

"MJ, now that we have this shit cleared up, what did your instinct tell you? I'm only asking because, well, you know dude, I think you already knew the answer" he said.

He was right.

I had completely forgotten about my "instinct." My gut instinct. My instinct had told me a long time ago that something was wrong and to delve deeper into the problem. He simply reinforced the fact that sometimes, I don't need to go into fact finding (in this case, with HR and Legal involved, I didn't really have much of a choice). He reinforced the fact that I just need to go into my instincts. Because, quoting him, "As long as I've known you dude...you're the ONE person I know who has instincts that even I would follow..."

This meant a lot to me. I should have just followed my instincts. I knew I was right.

And from this point on, that's exactly what I'll do. And I'm positive my instincts will help me find a solution to Problem #2.

So there you have it. My epilogue from my previous post. Believe it or not, it feels good to be able to write about it here. It's relieved my tension and anxiety, and I'm happy about this.

One down, two more to go.

Excuse me, have to go run errands now.

MJ