I am not an object for my boss to stretch and mold. She has been trying to do this since she first realized that I am my own person.
Indeed, I am my own person. But she refuses to acknowledge and respect that.
For each instance of engagement that involves her trying to control and change me, there is a strike against my being. I feel less safe around her, and she loses buckets of my trust. She needs to understand why I take measures to regain my safety. This is still a job, and I still have and want to do my best work. But that can’t happen if I don’t feel safe.
I understand she may treat other team members this same way, and they may not appear to be affected the way I am affected. Or respond the way I respond. But that doesn’t matter. Again, I am my own person. We are all our own individual persons. Can she respect that?
I choose to bring my WHOLE SELF to work. At this current point in humanity’s evolution, doing what I do is not popular. Because it is not safe. It takes strength to have this level of vulnerability at work, but someone’s gotta lead the way.
A group of people who work together cannot be a team, unless each individual can be their own person, contributing their own gifts to the overall team goal. A group of slaves and non-persons cannot be a team. That’s just slavery. And slavery is wrong.
