I really wanted my next blog to be about my travels, but when your emotions take over sometimes you just need to get how your feeling out in order to move on. Some backstory before the waves of emotion take over however:

I am a member of the IT Engagement team at my day job. I was tasked with decorating two bulletin boards which I paid out of pocket to do. I was not reimbursed. I spent 2.5 hours decorating two large boards- time I cannot get back. Both in Chalkboard pattern and cohesive. I was VERY proud of these boards. I’m not overly creative and this was an achievement for me.

I came back from vacation yesterday and one of the boards is the same and one is different. I have no idea where my decorations that I paid for went. I was not sent any sort of notification that my hard work was being torn down- less than 2 weeks after going up.

I don’t want to be upset at work. I know this is a total 1st world problem. My heart hurts though. It feels like no one cared about the time, the effort, or the cost associated. The board- is identical in style to my set up – with different letters and borders. It’s not like my “idea” isn’t represented. The sheer fact is someone had a different taste and changed something- without group approval. The Engagement team seems a little dictatorish anyways here factually.

There is a psychological backlash when someone feels like they weren’t good enough or something they did wasn’t good enough. They do not want to participate anymore. The hurt starts as anger. “I want what I paid for back”- in my case. Reality sets in- I’m working on every single thing we’re doing in September. Once anger subsided- stop involvement thoughts took over. “Who can I give this task to now, since they obviously do not want me involved- I’m not good enough”. Looking for validation that you are good enough begins. This is when I found out no one else noticed the change in the board- because no one uses the board. When no validation is found, what happens? For me- it was the brink of tears. You see it’s been a LONG time since I’ve felt this way.

I’ve been lucky in my time at this job. I’ve not had many fails with Scentsy that have made me personally feel like this. I’m being reminded of what some people go through daily. I honestly cannot imagine how they handle this much hurt in that capacity. In my case- I do not even know who caused the hurt. Many others have to see their source of pain in every day life.

In the grand scheme of things this is a MICROSCOPIC issue for me. In 5 minutes I will go into a meeting and receive praise on something I did for a project and this will melt into the backdrop of my workweek. It doesn’t make it less valid. This is a lesson learned. Today I didn’t cry. Today I decided that I was good enough at something else to let this incident go.