Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024 - 10:51 am.
Yesterday I met with a friend that I hadn't seen since late April. We met up for coffee after work in a beautiful café a couple blocks away from where I live.
I told her everything that had happened since the last time we'd seen each other. I told her the story of losing my son Sun and what happened to my cat Nico. She said I'd easily take the prize for worst year, and I was a bit surprised to hear that. I've heard stories of massive stress and loss from people in my social circle this year (I made a list a few entries ago. To it I will add that a student of mine's father died by suicide this week). I've thought that what I've gone through has been devastating, but it hasn't been so bad.
I came home and I felt comforted by her words and saying to myself: you know, actually, yes, it's been quite bad. And then I cried.
But my friend has also gone through her share of stress this year, and hers are the kind of stories that have me genuinely feeling that my life load isn't that bad. One of the main things (besides cancer in her family and nearly losing her 13-year-old dog) is that she's been on a leave of absence for a month due to depressive and anxiety symptoms, which in turn have been caused by harassment she's suffered at her workplace... that is, my workplace. She works in uni.
I know her boss. I had a high opinion of her and it's been coming crashing down over time. I actually have to go talk to her because her unit (one of the biggest in the institution) is responsible for giving me the wrong contract under a government grant that I won last year. The uni's end of the deal with this grant was to give me a tenure-track contract and they didn't.
On average, my uni is a very toxic, ungrateful place to work. I've been lucky to enter on my own terms and be in the Psych Department, not a conflict-free unit at all, but I'm still surrounded by people who are less unreasonable than those in other departments. Although I couldn't have entered uni without the support of B, my ex boss and colleague and mentor, no one can say I got in through any kinds of favors because I didn't. It's all grants I've won, and so I have an academic position with relative freedom to do my own thing. I work in the sexuality and gender field, and considering the increasingly loud and crass anti-gender sentiments in the institution (despite all the policies and discourses of which people are growing tired of anyway), I remain with room to manouver.
Anyway. I'm so sorry and angry on behalf of my friend. She has all the grounds to sue the university, but it's not a clean-cut process, it can be traumatic and it entail she leaves university for good. There are also internal mechanisms for her to try to get away from the situation and be placed in another unit. I will support her no matter what she decides to do, but for now she has to take care of herself and gather all the evidence (of which she has plenty) in case she takes the legal route.
This is my update for now. This week is Independence Day here and in my home country, and in many neighbor countries. But the real good news about this is that we got this week off work, because people here just go crazy celebrating. I still have to work *skull emoji* But at least I'll have some free time, and we'll meet with friends to eat and whatnot.
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