obeisance
obeisance
a movement of the body expressing deep respect or deferential courtesy, as before a superior; a bow, curtsy, or other similar gesture
My bosses always liked that I didn’t complain. They would say I was reliable, thorough, dependable, but none of those things mattered most. What they really liked was my acquiescence. The second I lost that, the rest was irrelevant.
It’s easy to convince yourself that you only need to grin and bear it for a little while longer. Clear one more hurdle and the pressure will release. I truly believed that I just needed one break, then it would all be downhill from there.
I got lucky though and caught a few breaks. Got to the top of the hill and on the other side I saw the truth. There was no downward slope, just an unending sea of hurdles. I kept jumping because I didn’t know how to do anything else. Kept jumping no matter how much it burned. Kept jumping until I finally crashed.
Most of my peers figured the pandemic was my breaking point, and in some ways it was, but I had been crumbling for months before that. I developed a series of nervous twitches, began to compulsively pluck out my hair, and started having panic attacks in the bathroom. Anyone paying any attention could tell I was disintegrating.
I no longer work there. They forced me out after I asked for some accommodations. When I looked into legal options, thinking “they can’t do that”, I was told I needed to suffer more before anyone could help. That’s how most of these things seem to work.
These days a lot of people tell you to stop complaining. We’re supposed to go with the vibes, even when it feels wrong. Served false dichotomies and told it’s juvenile to ask for anything else. Eat up the slop, there’s too much at stake to demand better.
It's not ideal, the way unquestioning compliance is upheld like a virtue that will cleanse us of sin. We need to stop insisting on these hierarchies and forge more equitable paths ourselves.
One leader will not save us, but billions might.
ContextFall