aaaaaand...we're clear! (sort of)

It's Thursday, last day of the work week for standard Israeli wage slaves. I thought it would never end.

I didn't post yesterday because my last post made my mother cry, and I started to worry. No, really, the reason I didn't post yesterday is BECAUSE I WAS EXHAUSTED!!!!

I can't bear to recap it all again but suffice it to say that this very privacy-loving, quiet-time loving, telephone-hating introvert searched desperately through her cell phone contact list for someone to ventilate to yesterday, and thank god I found someone -- a new friend who's a psychologist, to boot! She listened very very well, and I found it interesting that she had already picked up on the fact that a close-quarters kind of job (like this one) would be totally inappropriate for me. "You need to get lost in the crowd, be over in the background." How true. Never again will I accept a job, no matter how desperate I am (yeah, sure), where I have to spend the entire day looking across the desk at my boss. THAT'S SUCH A SICK SITUATION!!! When are you supposed to check your email and catch up on the news, for godsake?

Anyway, for your reading pleasure, a few tidbits from these past two days:

a. being told that I never listen by someone who has never let me finish a sentence; being told that I don't absorb information, when she never lets me work, but keeps talking and talking and talking, every item being the highest priority, and "are you listening to me?" (while I'm still trying to keep the information of the previous instruction in my head), "then let me see your eyes so I know you're listening." I hear the voice of myself talking to my attention-challenged daughter. It's scary.

b. being corrected for writing "the details of the transaction are as follows" because, she insisted, is must follow the singular noun transaction. When I responded, honestly, that it didn't sound right to me, I was told in no uncertain terms that it is a fact, and not a matter of opinion. When I attempted to NOT respond to this, she demanded a response. I said, "I've never seen it that way, but if that's the way you want it, no problem." This, too, was met with derision. "It's NOT because I want it, but because it's RIGHT!"

c. at the post office, being surprised by her demand that I list the names of people we had just sent packages to on an itemized receipt, and having her fly into a tantrum when I didn't know the name on the small envelope we'd just sent out -- an envelope she'd brought along which had nothing to do with me. She then made the postal employee fish into the sack to try to find HER letter, since we must have that name. Later she told me it was a check to someone -- how did she not know who she'd just written a check to? And how was I supposed to know if she didn't? She stood there in the post office berating me. "What do you think I brought you here for? You just don't listen!"

d. trying to get a package ready for FedEx pickup (you never know when they'll arrive, but you shouldn't call before the package is ready because the delivery guys get paid by the number of pickups and deliveries they do, not by the hour): she'd insisted I call them when we weren't ready, then kept making and taking phone calls, refusing to give the package the attention I was requesting in order to be able to seal it. FedEx guy arrived, got annoyed but appeared to take pity on me and didn't leave, while she took her sweet time checking it out carefully on his dime. He was impatient enough to throw the stub we needed (for tracking) carelessly on the floor, half-hidden by a bag, and we couldn't find it right away, so she sent me chasing after him, blaming me for my incompetence in not ensuring we had it. I chased him, I caught him, he said, "Don't worry; it's there," and I believed him and went back and started searching, while she shouted at me that I needed to stop "making it so difficult again" and call FedEx to alert them that we didn't have, so I got on the phone, sure that we did have it, and then she found it. But that didn't stop her from telling me that I do everything except the thing she needs me to do.

e. repeatedly hearing her telling the person she was "laughing" with on the phone, "I desperately need an English assistant, not just English-speaking, but English, with the English mentality." I even heard her suggest she needed someone humble. Clearly the person on the other end inevitably responded that her many requirements ("light, bright, and agile"; "extremely computer literate"; "knowledgable in desktop publishing"; and what she didn't say: highly intelligent but willing to take no initiative) made for a tall order, and she would just as inevitably reply, "I know, but I've had it, you see, and I must find it again."

Yes, she had it alright, and that person has put as much distance between them as possible, having extricated herself with the story that she "needed to get away for some R&R after an acrimonious divorce" ... because getting out when your self-esteem has been that battered is not as simple as it looks on the outside. It's the new thing I see this week. I literally feel I know a new experience: what it must be like to be a battered wife, a feeling of competely eroded self-esteem (which was never this obvious) -- a gut-grabbing feeling of being defective. It will take me a while to recover.

Have I mentioned that her older daughter has disowned her? How tragically easy that is to understand.

Really, I could go on and on, but I'm feeling better already, having bitched it all out here. Thank you for listening.

So about halfway thru the day she asked me if I was coming back next week, and truly this is the last thing I want to do, but marriage is a "funny" thing, and sometimes you are compelled to do things someone else's way, which sucks, but it's good for a kid to have two parents. I made about 2,000 shekels for this week's work (well, actually I took half of it out in product before I even started), cash in hand with no paperwork, and that makes mr. S kind of drool. He loves that his wife has taken the car test payment or some other big bill off his back for change. I understand that. But I'm already not going on Sunday morning because of my 2nd interview at the great company. And Monday's my birthday, which I don't really celebrate, but I don't really see torture and humiliation as a good alternative either. Wednesday morning is another interview. And I bet I could set up a couple more this week if I really tried. It's about time I got ready to return to teaching English if something more serious doesn't come through, and the private English schools are looking. I've let her believe I'm coming on Sunday, because I didn't want to make a final decision, and I've managed to avoid discussing it with mr. S. She seems to think I'm slightly better than having nobody to help her, but won't express appreciation for anything I've done, or the fact that I've basically learned the workings of her business in 5 days. She's too overwhelmed with her own resentment at needing people (who are mostly so incompetent), I think. I do need an exit strategy, but I don't see how I can do this again. Today HAS to have been the last day, even if cutting out doesn't look very honorable and it means I have to put up with several day's of sullenness on the homefront. I think it's the right thing to do.