You're so small

Letter to my manager

I've done a writing exercise earlier and I realized that your voice and the one of people like you must not also be my voice too and I've let it go.

You're so small.

You're a very insecure and scared little girl trapped in a grown woman's body pretending that she's big and mighty if you find it so easy to diminish a young woman who has and shows more confidence.

You're so small for taking it all personally, including a woman much younger than you saying that the course (you so proudly took) is too basic and she's studying for the next level up so you start attacking and frowning and getting heated up.

I stood there and watched the show.

You're so small.

It's a pity you can't see, won't see, didn't and won't work with yourself to heal all the trauma that makes you act this way.

You're so small for transforming a project meeting with our new Project Manager colleague in a wonderful display of pettiness. You wanted to show how experienced, intelligent, and in control you are, while you displayed the exact opposite. She saw that, she set a boundary and distanced herself from that as she wants to be able to do her job without your unhelpful, petty, and heated comments. We have meetings without you and we couldn't have a more productive conversation :)

By the way - I really want to say this: you're of similar ages and she's cool, well travelled, empowering, courageous :) something that you'll never be unless you work with yourself (it's never too late to start).

You're so small.

Too small to be a good manager. No employee should hear from their manager after a salary increase request "you know that salaries are the top costs for our business? We like to invest our profit into the business; we don't usually offer increases in salaries". Well: thanks for telling me that I don't actually count after spending 2 years telling me whenever you had the chance that I am so valuable and extraordinary and how you couldn't handle without me.

No employee should hear "I hope you see how valuable we think you are. You see don't you? Don't "thank yous" and praises matter? What has the salary got to do with this?".

You're so small.

Too small to be able to make it make sense. You tell me after I've brought up a salary increase that our fortnightly "1-2-1" needs to take place face to face because you don't like to have this meeting on Teams.

Aha: so 2 years you were ok with this being a Teams meeting but now all of a sudden we must speak face to face?

Aha: so if you're not able to have this meeting on Teams then why are you having other Teams meetings with other colleagues and not face to face?

Make it make sense... Ah, wait: you can't because you're so small.

You're so small you can't even read an email completely and actually sending a coherent reply to whatever it's being asked.

You're so small that you need to brag to everyone, including in front of colleagues who earn way less than you, that you've purchased X, Y, Z from Max Mara and you're travelling at business class between Edinburgh and London, and flaunt your Gucci and Louis Vuitton scarves coupled with your Louboutins.

You're so small that you need to be the center of attention and be part of everything that goes on so you jump in everyone's conversations.

You're so small you're interrupting everyone that speaks in meetings and show your frustration whenever someone finishes their sentences not letting you interrupt. You like to hear yourself and only yourself speak (and Oh My God how much you repeat your sentences) because it's the only way someone small like you can appear big.

Speaking of repeating sentences:

You're so small you can't remember - actually you don't care - conversations so you ask the same thing over and over, or make the same (basic) compliment on the same thing over and over.

You're so small that your kindness is actually people pleasing.

Took me a year and a half to figure this out. Some colleagues I am sure still didn't aaaand they like you. They must be as small as you or as traumatised as you, there's no other explanation.

I look at you with an odd mixture of feelings: compassion, pity, anger, frustration, immense disgust, indifference which I am only starting to build. (Weird how the first feeling I wrote is "compassion" as this is not the first one that awakens in me when I see or hear you, or when I see your name).

You're so small. I am thankful I am not like you. I am thankful so many others are not like you. I am thankful more and more of us are going to therapy and work with ourselves.

I'm looking forward to the glorious day in which I will finally quit - by the way: I've been applying to jobs, speaking with recruiters, and struggling like hell to free myself from the misery every day I spend in this job causes.