Big Day

I’ve not really had anything much to write about lately, because not much has happened lately. But something big happened today. It was a very big day.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that a couple of years ago, I changed jobs, leaving the place that I had worked for around six years. It was a small business when I started there, and I was a loyal employee in a family-like business. But things became more about the money than the work for the Directors of the company, and after a while I decided I needed to get out of there.
After handing in my resignation, my boss treated me like dirt. She was rude, bitchy and outright mean in a very personal kind of way. And after working my guts out for them for 6 years, I was booted out with nothing but a legal letter about confidentiality to show for it. Not even so much as a goodbye.

At the time, I was devastated. I have a highly over-developed conscience, and that results in me feeling guilty for anything and everything that happens in my life, whether it’s my fault or not. So as you can imagine, being treated like that wasn’t something that I handled very well. I’m ok if someone hates me for a good reason, and I know what it is, but to be suddenly treated so horribly for no other reason than moving on to another job – it was beyond my comprehension. To this very day I still get upset when I think about the way I was treated when I left.

When something like that happens, a million people tell you that Karma will come around to get the bastards who did this horrible thing to you. But to be honest, in this case I felt as though their selfish, cash-hungry mentality would go forever unpunished. I was convinced that Karma had overlooked them, and they would go on with their lives forever buying themselves expensive cars and houses while paying their employees minimum wage.

Then today, completely out of the blue, the company went into voluntary administration. They spent so much cash with so little regard for the results that it put them out of business. This is huge news for me. HUGE! For the last two and a half years, I’ve wished constantly for them to go out of business, for them to finally get what’s coming to them after the horrible way they’ve treated not just me – but dozens of employees like me. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, it happens. Like clicking your fingers – one minute they’re the greedy capitalists who made your life miserable, and the next they’re broke.

So I feel…..I don’t know. I thought I would be completely joyous and filled with this amazing feeling of contentment that they finally got what they deserved. But I feel – well, I feel strange. Sad, almost. Maybe it’s because I know that with their own greed and stupidity, they’ve taken down another 20 or so employees like me. And that’s nothing to celebrate. Maybe it’s because it’s such a quiet end to what was such a big moment in my life.
I don’t really know why I feel this way. It’s kind of like a sad, wistful sort of relief. Relief that something that has been beyond my comprehension for so long has finally resolved itself into something I can understand. Relief that all those days of thinking ‘it’s not fair’ are over and that right vs wrong has re-balanced itself.

Maybe what it comes down to, now that I think about it, is that I’m not like them. With my over-developed conscience and my guilt complexes, I just can’t revel in someone else’s downfall. I just don’t have it in me. And while I get that that makes me a better person, it doesn’t help me feel any better about the whole situation. Maybe I'll never feel better about it all.