Or: I lost count of the days, so we’re on weeks now.

I don’t feel like I’m doing very well. I was miserable at work today; stressed, tense, wanting to be anywhere but work. I am stressed about this salary negotiation, which has gone very quiet. Usually my boss is quite efficient and prompt. Long periods of silence usually imply HR lady’s involvement, who is not efficient at all. What’s going on? I am worried they are going to be holistic and make the connection that it’s really about Becky and the fact she’s made the workplace quite unpleasant. There have been hushed voice meetings between the usual suspects. I don’t know what’s going on.

I’m trying to put myself in my boss’s shoes. Here is someone who’s obviously not been happy and who has had meetings with HR and burst into tears over nothing very much. This employee is not mentally well. They go on holiday for two weeks then out of nowhere they put out a very assertive ultimatum over salary. My boss isn’t stupid, HR lady isn’t stupid, they both know that Becky has pissed me off enough that I’m prepared to walk, but the sudden calm and self assured assertiveness is probably a mystery (thanks anti-depressants). So they think “how do we defuse this if salary isn’t really the issue here?”. It’s not an easy situation to navigate for them. And let’s be honest, they weren’t really up to the job of navigating it when it was much simpler. If they want to retain me they need to solve both issues at once, but they can’t, really, can they?

I feel anxiety at not having any real indication of how the company is playing this. I’ve partially revealed my hand, but they’re making me wait for theirs. But no, they can’t solve both issues at once, because I haven’t given them an opening. It’s all implied subtext which is purely their own interpretation. Which is good, because I expect better outcomes if I keep them separate.

I was upset by the email I drafted the other day. I was angry at the time and I went all-in. It ended up a long-ish document of all the things the company has done wrong in the past six months. All the times they’ve said they’d do something then done something else. All the times they’ve committed to doing something and then not bothered to do it and just waited for me to complain before giving me excuses; the total lack of professionalism and respect shown towards me. It reads like a constructive dismissal case. It upset me. I shouldn’t still be here. The company does not deserve me. It’s not really ‘the company’ though. My boss is mostly straightforward in his dealings with me. The problem is HR lady, who just seems completely inept on every level.

Supposedly HR lady is working on some kind of mental health/well-being initiative within the company. The snarky response to that announcement writes itself…

I came home today and I cried. It’s been a while since I cried. I am glad I have a GP appointment in a few days to discuss the antidepressants. I don’t feel I’m coping as well as I could be. But maybe that’s OK, because anti-depressants aren’t supposed to fix shitty employers. That’s more alcohol’s domain.

But I am coping well enough to keep pursuing other jobs. I’ve had a lot of contact with recruiters in the past few days. That’s a big thing for me. Social anxiety used to make me a bit avoidant. I’ve started replying to any recruitment email I get, even ones that aren’t relevant, and telling them exactly what I’m interested in. I’ve had a couple come back and say “Oh! Actually we have clients in your area”.

One told me that the way tech recruitment tends to work at my level is that a lot of employers are willing to interview candidates when they come onto the market rather than posting adverts and waiting for responses. So it’s worth spending time getting my CV and requirements in front of recruiters. Even if they are a bit spammy.

The events of this week have sunk in a bit more now and I feel OK about it all.

The salary/promotion thing is essentially me cashing in some political capital that I’ve been sitting on for a long time. At my last performance review, in March, I was told that the company isn’t doing well and that was used to justify reducing my pay rise this year. They repeated this to me again in August over a different matter involving a trivial amount of money, which they really made a mess of. I don’t like work politics, but I seem to have been forced into playing that game and I’m playing it better than my employer at the moment.

I don’t know whether this will actually result in anything tangible, but the fact they have decided to review things is an implicit admission that money isn’t quite as tight as they led me to believe.

But that in itself is kind of weird, because it means that the company just lied to my face twice, and they have only been spurred into doing the right thing by me laying down an ultimatum. Am I supposed to just forgive that? I have real trouble with dishonesty. It destroys trust and respect. I forgive very easily when people admit guilt and show an understanding of wrongdoing, but people often don’t, and that makes it hard for me to trust they won’t do it again.

I think a problem for me is that I’m usually quite agreeable and mild mannered, so if I find myself laying down an ultimatum, it’s probably because my trust in the other party has been seriously damaged, and it’s hard to recover from that.

So, as yet, nothing has changed and I have decided to restart my job-search next week. I have had 4 relevant leads from recruiters over the past couple of days so I’ll kick those off over the weekend. I hope I can keep my anxiety in check better than I could last time around. At the moment it seems very simple and unintimidating, but my self-awareness on anxiety triggers has not been very good lately. I’ll be honest though, I really think the citalopram will greatly improve my interview performance this time around. Anxiety or not, I am functioning a lot better socially.

SO! Salary email reaction: It didn’t go as planned, but my boss thinks I have a reasonable point and is going to implement some kind of pay grading system and a more formal review process. I don’t know what to expect from this yet, but it seems at the moment that I am being taken seriously.

For now I feel calm and happy. In fact, I feel confident and a little voice in my head is saying “hey, you’ve done well, but cast your net a bit wider and start job-seeking again”.

I don’t understand my moods. I am surprised just how bad my anxiety has been over this. I have booked an appointment with my GP to discuss as I don’t really know how the anti-depressants should be fitting in with this, but I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t take the edge off this at all given that they do seem to be effective in other ways.

For example, I found the discussion with my boss very easy. I felt stressed but I wasn’t distracted by the stress. I think I probably appeared more relaxed and comfortable than I do usually, even though it was a high stress situation.

Or: Apparently I can’t count. I realised something was amiss as I started on a Wednesday and today is Tuesday and 38 isn’t divisible by 7. Thanks, maths degree. It turns out it’s day 35.

So, I’ve had no response from my boss, but he was in the office today. He had a closed door meeting with Becky earlier which makes me a little suspicious. I wouldn’t be surprised if the delay here is because he forwarded my email to HR lady for her take on it, and she told him I was still upset about the Becky situation, and now he’s trying to get a feel for it via her. I didn’t refer to that situation at all in the email, I kept it strictly about salary and professional opportunities, so any such interpretation is purely his and I couldn’t possibly comment.

I could easily be wrong on that though. I usually am wrong about these things.

I have not found the stress any easier today. I barely slept again and my GI system is distressed (like the rest of me). I actually put on some weight when I was on holiday; I had my BMI up to 19.6, but now it’s back down to 19.2.

So I still feel my stress responses are out of alignment. Worst case scenario: my boss comes back and says “no”. Then I’m no worse off than I am now. Some anxiety is understandable, but I shouldn’t be losing sleep (and weight) over this.

I am confused because I’m not sure if the citalopram should be giving me better results than this. The GP told me that you often have to try a few antidepressants to find the right one. I think I should make an appointment to discuss this.

I have noticed something though: I find it a lot easier to just speak to people. There’s no feeling of awkwardness about it anymore. So… I am still experiencing a lot of stress but I seem to be functioning better socially at the same time?