A Tale of Two Suckers

This bih.

The nerve.

The absolute audacity.

They tried it.

Or, more accurately, I tried it.

Let’s go back.

Once upon a time, many moons ago, I was a young girl in training to be Captain Save-A-Heaux. (Word to Slick Rick.)

Anyhoo, I had an employee that should’ve been fired on at least 3 separate occasions. Everyone told me that. My manager told me that. Other employees told me that. Even that person’s employees told me that. More importantly, I knew that.

I knew it with every fiber of my being, but, yet, I wouldn’t pull the trigger because I was afraid of the damage the bullet would cause. I was worried about their family, what it would do to their situation, how their rent would get paid. So, I tried to work with them. Over and over. Weekly meetings. Sending in help. Just really trying to coach the hell out of this situation. 

About a year into it, this particular employee tendered their resignation. What a relief. Not that I was trying to push them out the door, (because me, them, and God knows I tried to save them) but ya girl was tired. Tired of running interference. Tired of quarterbacking when I’m supposed to be coaching. Tired of giving CPR to a dead situation. A bih’s arms were burning.

So, I let them quit. And, do you know, not even 2 weeks after they’d worked their last shift, I got a call from my manager that they’d received a message from HR that this bih had wrote a letter? Like an Aaliyah 4-page letter and enclosed it with a hearty “F—k You” kiss to me?

This fool went on a full rant about how I was the worst manager they’d ever had, how they’d received no support, how I’d, basically, set them up to fail, and how—wait for it—I SHOULD BE FIRED.

Ooooohhh, you b*tch. 

You trifling, sorry, no-count, fried leather looking b*tch.

Ya girl was heated! I couldn’t believe it. After everything I’d done for them to try to bring them in out the rain, that heifer tried to put a tree through my roof.

My manager wasn’t worried though. He said he knew the contents of the letter weren’t worth the paper it was written on. But, the lesson the letter taught me was: I can’t be everything to everybody.

I can’t play every position on the field. The only position I can play is mine and, even if I do it well—sometimes, especially if I do it well—I may still end up the villain in someone else’s story. And I needed to be okay with that.

I was not okay. 

I was mad. 

Fuming. 

Like, I knew from past conversations that she shopped at the Publix by her house and I was going to make it my mission to go up and down those aisles every evening for 2 weeks straight in hopes I bent the corner with a cart and she’d be standing there.

I wanted her. 

Badly. 

I might’ve been able to control myself enough to not choke her out on the bread aisle, but I was on fire and she needed to smell my smoke. As my godmama would say, I was gonna read her from a**hole to appetite and I gave less than a damn about what came next.

It took me awhile to calm down. Like, really calm down. And what really threw the bucket of water on my head, was the realization that I was more mad at myself than I was at her.

Because I knew better.

I knew the ish wasn’t working. I knew it was beyond repair. I knew I couldn’t keep taking away from my time and resources and giving to her because she was depleting me and making me less effective in my position. Or, at least, in the position I was supposed to be playing while I busy playing hers.

As Snoop said, “She saw a sucker so she licked it.”

And, somehow, she managed to be both the beneficiary and victim (in her mind) of my suckership.

I did us both a disservice. 

I let myself down because I didn’t live up to my own standards of the type of leader I wanted to be, and I let her down because I didn’t push her to be who she needed to be...or where she needed to be. I let us both get caught up in a dysfunctional situation that wasn’t serving anyone’s greater purpose. 

And I never forgot that feeling. 

It showed up as betrayal, but really it was self-betrayal. I went against myself for someone who was looking after their own self-interests. And I got mad at them for doing them.

I’ve done it at work. I’ve done it in relationships. I’ve done it in friendships.

But I learned my lesson. 

I learned to play my position in all things. 

I learned to let people do what they need to do to be happy and, if it conflicts with what I need to do, someone and/or their agenda’s gotta go and it won’t be mine.  

And, most importantly, I learned to stay tf out them people store. They can’t buy what you’re not selling.