Diminished.

Usually, I work out what I want to say before I share something, but this is not going to be that.

A year ago, I was a 49 year old woman with a large resume gap (in the USA, you must work constantly, and if you take time off from the grind, you must be able to explain your years of absence from slaving for your betters), and I found a job that i really liked that didn’t work out. Which was a pretty unpleasant experience.

I have been working steadily online, but I wanted to do something outside of my house, for various reasons. When the first outside job hit the shitter, i was pretty devastated. But i found another job pretty quickly, at another food based business. It was just above minimum wage, but it fit my needs pretty well, I wasn’t complaining.

This food based business is in a building that is attached to a financial business. Half of the building is food, the other half is finance. Both are owned by one xy.

The manager that hired me was a new employee himself, let’s call him Addict, he  had called me after I applied to offer me an interview, wherein he offered to let me try some of the food as he interviewed me at a table in the middle of the shop. Which is exactly what happened.

I thought nothing of it.

So I worked there for a few weeks when the only employee in the finance office asked me if I would be interested in helping out on her side. I had no idea what the business consisted of, but i was happy to learn.

And that’s where i have been, ever since. It’s an office, with office hours, the pay is a little bit more than I was making on the food side, and I find it really interesting. I am learning all kinds of interesting money stuff, and I really like the only other employee, who is my age and we have a lot in common.

Addict, the xy that hired me on the food side, and who still works there, has recently been outed as an addict. I have been on the finance side for 2 months, or so, after spending only a few weeks on the food side, and his behavior has become increasingly unstable and erratic.

Addict came up as a subject of conversation today in the office, between my lone coworker (who is also my direct boss) and the xy business owner.

My direct boss is responsible for some of the food side, like making employee schedules, ordering some supplies, things like that, but she hates it, mostly because it’s additional work for which she is not compensated, as well as this extra responsibility leaves her open to blame for all sorts of things that she is unable to control. I get roped in, too, but i don’t really care, I am getting the same rate of pay no matter what the owner asks me to do and my level of responsibility is much less.

Also, I have the magic power that is not giving a shit if a male is tantruming. Even if he is paying me. And trying to blame me for all manner of shit that is not my fault.

So when the 3 of us were conversing about the food side, and about Addict, the owner was complaining about Addict being unreliable and undependable, and I said that addicts are notoriously unreliable, because I thought that he knew that Addict is an Addict, he IS the owner, and he hired the male, and i just don’t know how he could have missed an Addict being a fucking addict.

My direct boss has been telling him for weeks, and he has ignored her. But i guess that he finally decided that her observation had some weight since i had brought it up, too.

That’s when he says that Direct (Female) Boss wanted to bring me over from the food side to the finance side, to “protect” me from Addict.

I looked at her, because I had completely lost the entire thread of the conversation that we were having.

Addict is my age, and he has said a few questionable things to me, like 100% of males everywhere. He has tried to discuss dating apps with me, he has talked about wanting to date since his wife recently escaped from him, but my grey rock response has always been some form of “that part of my life is way over, please pass me that knife”, or something very similar. And then I would move along.

I never mentioned that to anyone who i work with because why would i? I guage these things by how frightened he is making me, how aggressive he is being, and i was not scared of him, it didn’t even warrant a mention, because who would care?

The only person who i discussed anything about Addict with is my direct boss, and that was strictly about his being an Addict. It’s the only thing that either one of us ever mentioned about him, and the weird ass behavior that he displayed as a result.

My immediate reaction to be told that I didn’t have my job because I was a good, competent, (overly) qualified candidate, but because I needed to be “protected” made me laugh.

When I started laughing, the xy owner said that it was absolutely true, that my direct boss was concerned about my being stuck working in close proximity to addict because he had some kind of “feelings” for me.

I looked at my direct boss, and asked her if this was true. She said that she was concerned about my being uncomfortable with addict because addict had apparently said some things to her about me that made her uncomfortable or set alarm bells off or something.

I didn’t ask what was said or why she felt that way. I absolutely was not afraid of addict, and he wasn’t overtly creepy and he was never gropey or threatening, and let’s just face it, we all know that males are always looking for a hole.

I rock that fucking job. I actually really like it. I am really good at it, I am learning it quickly and I know that i am a fucking asset to that fucking office. My direct boss is great to be around and work for, i really like her.

So it stings me a little bit to know that I didn’t get it because I am qualified or an asset to the business, but because I was being “protected” from something that I was unaware that i needed protection from, and it was protection that i didn’t ask for, want, or need.

And to exacerbate the whole thing, I then had to go through at least 3 rounds of “jayne, you didn’t know that he is attracted to you? How could you not know that he is into you?”

Apparently, my direct boss had walked through the food side on the day of my interview, and had seen me sitting at a table with Addict, and eating some of the food that he offered me (it’s a specific type of food with a lot of varieties that i am unfamiliar with).

She said that she knew that he was attracted to me, then, and then she said “you really didn’t know?”.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I understand that males view women as fuck toilets, and i no longer think that males are “attracted” to me, I think that for males, any hole will fucking do. Whichever hole is most convenient, and proximity, especially forced proximity, is pretty fucking convenient.

And that males are looking for a domestic servant. And i am never doing that, again.

But. I couldn’t say that.

So i said some version of “that part of my life is over, i am no longer interested in dating.”

When I managed to bring the conversation back around to the “protection”, the consensus between my boss and the owner was that I am definitely an asset now.

But I am only there because I originally needed “protection”.

Why does everything have to be in relation to a fucking male?

I don’t even know why this is bothering me. I’m still recognized and appreciated for the work that i do in my position. And i can usually understand why I am irritated, but I can’t put my finger on it, this time. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Jayne