Malaise for Days or another Chicago winter

Well, it finally happened. I was finally pushed out.

I took some time off to visit family and friends but I haven't been able to think about anything else since getting back after Christmas. I can't help but to think about how they timed it—how I was in a meeting with my colleagues one minute and then just minutes later, I'm no longer a colleague. And how they ambushed me in a video chat with a prepared statement and with someone from HR watching over it. And how they intentionally pushed me out before word of the union spread and before I had a chance to get involved with it. In the weeks prior, I had specifically reached out to two colleagues, pleading to them that we ban together and go to management with our shared grievances, but they were too afraid to make waves. But yet, just a few weeks later, many of them became major advocates and proponents of the union.

When I think about the experience I had with management, I can't help but to feel sick. It's disgusting how conniving and how manipulating and how calculating my manager was. I am deeply disappointed in myself for allowing myself to go through it for as long as I did.

I knew there was never going to be a going away party for me. I knew that I was never going to get a thank you from them in the end.

I didn't expect that they would be so malicious towards me in the way they did it. I hope you're happy.