Hello everyone,

I just wanted to post about a few things that have happened to me in the last week that have made me realize that my stubborn nature, type-a personality, etc. are interfering with my life. So I guess that you could say that this post is part-vent, part what-do-I-do-now

I am a 30 year old married woman, no kids. I work for a government agency, and at my workplace we work with a specific program. Now In this program, the head office will call us from time to time and ask us to do certain events, meetings, etc. They can and have been all across the board--nights, Saturdays, etc. As these are from the head office, we CANNOT turn the events down no matter what, or else risk losing our contract and putting us all out of a job. This past week has been an extremely busy week for these events, and I have had to work several nights and early mornings; I literally had an event every day last week outside of my normal work hours. This is in addition to other things I do as part of my expected job duties (paperwork, reports, etc.) My co-workers have also had events to do, not every night, but with some of them being outside our hours too, as well as their other duties.

However, the head office called earlier this week with a big event that took place this weekend--2 full days, Saturday and Sunday. So I took the order to my coworkers (the head office e-mails me the events they'd like us to do), and it pretty much hit the fan. See, one of my co-workers is getting married and is out of the office the rest of this week and part of next, so we're short one person during that time. When I mentioned the event, the other co-workers mentioned that they couldn't do any of the event anyway due to prior committments--one was going to attend the co-worker's wedding which would be 2 hours away, and then had to go to her child's game (the child is a cheerleader). The other co-worker had to attend her child's football game and then had committments at church on Sunday. Furthermore, they said that I shouldn't have to do the events either because it wasn't right for the head office to ask at short notice for ANYONE to do it--even after I said (again) that it didn't matter what they asked for, only that we had to do it. My job is VERY important to me, and I take it quite seriously, but at the same time, I do value my co-workers and didn't want anyone to feel that I was telling them what to do with their personal time. BUT--I also didn't want to feel like I was being pushed around, either.

One of the co-workers suggests that we call our supervisor (she's in another office) and do a confrence call, to convince her to let us off the hook on this event. We try to call her office and cell #'s, but can't reach her right away as she's meeting with someone. Meanwhile, the situation just keeps escalating, me saying that yes, the situation is not ideal but that we have to come up with something, and everyone else saying they can't do it. It's a standoff of sorts, since neither of us is budging.

Finally, all of us are to the point of anger and tears, and I can't take it anymore, plus everyone is so angry that we aren't getting around to call the supervisor back. I go back to my desk and decide to try to call her again, since I have felt that I have a good relationship with her and feel that if I tell her that we got this order and that we needed advice on what to do since we were stuck, that it would help. I do reach her this time, and explain what is going on, without telling her that we've got a very tense situation on our hands. She says that the events MUST be covered, and asks why the others can't work at the events. I explain the reasons why (ballgames, church, religious beliefs, etc.), and that we are just stuck about how to solve the situation. She says that in cases like this we should think about what our jobs require, and that I shouldn't have to do the whole weekend because I don't have children (I did not mention this fact to her explicitly, nor did my co-workers say this). She then asks her to e-mail her the event times, dates, etc. I got the impression that she was going to send an e-mail telling them that they would HAVE to help out.

One of the co-workers overhears me speaking on the phone and asks if that was the supervisor. I told her that it was, and that unfortunately, we would have to do the event somehow. The co-worker then becomes LIVID and starts berating me about how stupid I was to call her since we'd now have to do the event, insinuated that I'd stabbed them all in the back, and asked me why I did it. I told her the truth--that I was sick of the stalemate and needed an outside decision as what to do. She then says to the effect of "we were just trying to help you so you wouldn't have to do it either, but I guess you like people feeling sorry for you, etc.) . The others are upset too, and saying "I thought we agreeed to call her together, etc.", and I tell them to the fact that someone had to do something, and that I don't know why I called anyway since I knew what the answer was going to be.

It's very angry (and very loud) for a minute, and then one of my co-workers suggests that we try to confrence call the supervisor again. We reach her, and it's a standoff all over again--the supervisor very sternly said that we must do the events and needed to work out a plan amongst ourselves. The co-workers are standing firm that their weekends are completely full, and I even state during the call that I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do or cause trouble, I just want the issue resolved. Finally, we hang up and the supervisor sends an e-mail asking me to call her--she doesn't say why, though. I do call, and leave her a message on her work and cell numbers. She doesn't call back (which sometimes happens, as her job also requires her to be in and out of the office), so I leave a message with that office's receptionist after a couple of days. During all of this, I'm aware that my co-workers are still angry. And I still end up having to work both events since we were at the point where we had to give the head office an answer as to who would be doing them.

The supervisor then e-mails us stating that she would like to schedule a meeting with us ASAP. I respond to her e-mail and also ask if she still needs me to call her, or if this was regarding something to be discussed at the meeting. She responds to my e-mail and says that she was wondering why I didn't e-mail her with the schedules, because she was in fact going to send an e-mail to everyone asking them to help. She also said that she was just trying to help, but that since she'd been made aware that I was going to work both events that I didn't appear to need it. I replied back and told her that it had actually slipped my mind to send her the e-mail (which was true, but looking back I'm sort of glad I forgot--because IMHO, that would have put a huge target on my head and gave my co-workers more reason to think that I was betraying them).

Then over the weekend, while I was in the office alone to pick up supplies for the events, there was a suspicious vehicle driving around very slowly in our (otherwise completely empty) parking lot. They pull up directly to my car, then drive around in circles at 5 miles an hour, etc. I became genuinely frightened, and My gut instinct was to call the cops, so I did and reported the vehicle. They told me I did not have to stay at the office for them to arrive, so I got in the car and headed on to the event site. I also called my supervisor and one of my co-workers, as I wanted the incident reported with someone at each office just in case something happened. The supervisor told me that she was glad I called, and we left it at that; I left a voicemail for my co-worker but she didn't call me back yesterday or today (I'm off today--we can't get overtime so I have to "flex" my overtime off).Then it occurs to me thats she probably thought that I was A.) trying to get someone to tell me to not go to the event, or B. trying to make them feel guilty. Neither of these are true, and its hurtful for me to think that I'm making people believe that unintentionally.

All of this has made me take a look at what my personality is doing to me. I don't have any friends outside of my husband. In my closet, I have very little "non-work" clothing. Work is my life.

I want to restore the peace and break out of this. But how?

If you've made it this far, thanks for listening