It’s said that anniversary dates generally are problems with PTSD, well this is an anniversary date. Not a bad one by any means, but an anniversary date all the same. On this day 29 years ago I was arriving at Parris Island for Boot Camp. At that time in Woman Marine history, the arrival was not very traumatic. Sure when the men got dropped off the DI yelling was very unnerving, but the rest of the event was just confusion from being tired. Stand here wait till the other platoon fills out paperwork. Pee in a cup take out any bad stuff from their civilian gear. Go to the squad bay. Maybe get some sleep (which we didn’t). Go take a shower, eat some cereal, and start your first day at Parris Island. Then the traumatic stuff started. (guess I never did get the military bearing part or I would have kept my mouth shut this past year) But that’s not why I am writing this. I am writing this morning to process what has been happening in my life the last year. In May 2008 I sent an email message to a co-worker to please start answering the phone. The caller waiting period had climbed several times that day and she had failed to get on the phone. My message to her said “Please get on the phone the queue had been high several times that day.” She and another co-worker went to our manager and complained about my attitude. Somehow they thought I was angry with them. It was considered more acceptable if I just stood up and said in loud voice get on the phone. The next email I sent was to an Auditor for giving me some outrageous errors. Our customer orders were audited each week, and for a period in time I was getting some really strange errors. The orders would not get off my desk till I fixed the problem and nobody else was going to have to correct the error so I didn’t feel it should be held against me. Well, the Auditor didn’t think I should have said anything and she went to her manager which was my manager’s manager and I got in trouble for this. At the time I had a manager that was not very experienced in managing and being timely was not her highest quality. When she finally called me into a meeting about the events more than a month had gone by. Nothing was mentioned about my first email about the phone, but many things did get mentioned: inappropriate emails, me cussing on the phone (which I was not the one doing this) and in general not getting along with my team mates in the work place. This somewhat got straightened out, at least until August when my mid-year review was delivered. Notice August mid-years are in July and this is merely a timing issue. Around this same time our little department gets two new people to train and a new schedule is put out for the training time. In this new schedule I get the big shaft, instead of getting the luxury of time off the phone to train, I am the only one left completely on the phone. When you are training someone to answer phones you might answer 10 calls all day, but when you are on the phone by yourself you will answer as many as 50-60 calls, so being off the phone was a special event. (The two new people preferred my teaching style to the others but the manager didn't find this out for a couple weeks, once she found this piece of information the schedule was changed a bit for me have some of the training time). For the couple months of training I was getting the shaft, while my co-workers were getting the couch. I was called into a meeting with my manager. She asked why I was taking everything out on my co-workers. I wasn’t taking anything out on my co-workers I was just answering calls -- that’s all I had time to do, I did not have time to talk to everyone, the calls needed to be answered. I also asked during this time why was the schedule not broken up evenly between the three people training. I was told that my accuracy and production were not up to standards and she made the decision to make the schedule which didn't fit because one of the others didn't have good production either the manager had let that piece of information out to me that there was someone else that had production problems but they were allowed to train. I was also put on a nice production notice that each week I would be told of my production and how it missed the mark. This was June and by July we had figured out why my production was not up to standards, I answered the same amount of calls as my co-workers I just did not use a function on the phone that made production look better, once I started using this function my production shot up above normal but since it was not mentioned to me for several months that my production was failing, it took several months for it to get balanced out. There was also a question of my accuracy since I had made several errors, several of which I fought because of the stupidity of the error. I went from May 08 to May 09 - an entire year - without making any errors. When I got fired in July of 09 I had only made one auditing error in that time. In August when I finally got my mid year review I was told about the email to the co-worker about the phone and since so much time had passed I did not recall what email so I asked for a copy of the email. When I received the copy of the email I was told to work it out with the co-worker. I was upset to say the least that such a big thing was being made over being asked to get on the phone. It was standard procedure that if the phone was backed up to say something to the others to get them on the phone during the time they where assigned off the phone. Here is the only thing that I did rather wrong I used email as a way to communicate, I put the copies of the emails on the girl’s desk and said this is what you are upset about because I told you to get on the phone, it’s said I can’t get along with you guys. Guess what? I guess I can’t. So be it. I can’t get along with my co workers. This was said loud enough to where someone on the phone supposedly heard. This is the problem with phone work and cubicles and coworkers who fear you because you are different. I went on working. Took a few more calls till the end of the day. At the end of the day the girl that had the problem with the email comes over to me, invades my space by touching me and then proceeds to cuss at me saying what a bitch I was being. By the way, it is this company’s policy to fire anyone that cusses at work. Nothing was ever said to this person about cussing at me or getting in my space. I had to ask two other times to make sure she knew not to get my attention by touching me. I had a horrible startle response. I will turn around and come near to hitting people. My coworkers knew this - it’s what makes me different. It’s why they feared me. This is what happens when you have PTSD and try to do the right thing by informing your coworkers so everyone can get along. They don’t get along. They fear you. They fear your PTSD. Things go somewhat quietly for a few months, the tension is still there but the new people there figure out I am not the problem. It’s the other two. We have a management change. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I had worked for this manager before with no real problems. We had a meeting with the entire new group and we were asked to tell something about ourselves that others might not know. Me being me I noticed the atmosphere of the group and realize nobody was going to speak up first, so I decided to speak first, my mistake. My comment to the group that no one might not know about me was I don’t like my job, and would change in a heartbeat. That comment was the death of me. This manager was better on timing and a few days later I was called into a meeting and put on a Performance Improvement Plan that would last 90 days. Through a few events I got the PIP stopped, but it only took about 3 weeks before I did something stupid again and got it started back up. The next big infraction was not realizing who an order writer on an order was. Somewhere along the lines a manager’s name was being put on some orders as the order writer and we were to go through other steps to find out who the correct order writer was. I did not know this, so when someone called about an order I said I couldn’t change the order because it had this persons name on it and they would have to change the order. Push comes to shove and a bunch of people got involved with this order and I end up getting in trouble because it wasn’t this right thing to do. My next infraction happened about a month later, this has to be one of my favorite infractions of the rules. Not sure whose rule but it happened and I promise I am not making this up. I got called into a meeting, because I didn’t make eye contact with my manager in a meeting. My next infraction happened when a lady retired. Now remember, we answered phone calls for our job so being quiet is needed so we can hear calls. The girl retiring didn’t want the customary party/celebration so people came by her office/cube to tell her congratulations. There were three instances where it had to be said, “Be quiet.” The one I got in trouble for was saying the following when the manager was standing outside her cube and talking about all the flowers she had received. I said, and I quote, “I know this is a joyous occasion but I can’t hear my call” According to my manager, I should have said, and I quote, “Be quiet I can’t hear my call.” (Me saying anything was going to be wrong to this manager) I promise I didn’t make this stuff up. And when I was given the “coaching session” as to what I should have said by the manager, the manager could not even quote correctly what I actually had said. This is what happens when you tell coworkers and managers that you have PTSD and they begin to fear you because of stereotypes of going postal and stuff like that. Not everyone with PTSD goes postal, but some do, and not everyone who goes postal has PTSD. This is just an American misunderstanding. Typical. Insane. Inexplicable. All you can do is tell what happened and hope somebody out there realizes that people with PTSD and other disabilities are just like everyone else. We have feelings, too. Just because we have lost use of something doesn’t mean we don’t know when we’re getting shafted. But it does seem to mean we can be shafted and manager’s can get away with it as long as they have made up stuff like lack of eye contact to use against us. Going to take a step backwards here. Gotta go back sometimes before you go forward. When the Performance Improvement Plan started it was based on my Manager’s “like and dislike” of what I said and did. Entirely subjective. I said this was a no-win situation and due to what I had learned in the past of “likes and dislikes” management style, I would have to just be quiet as to not disturb the dislikes of the manager. This was not liked, so in a meeting when I didn’t say anything mainly because it was a quick stand up meeting and there was nothing to comment on, I got in trouble for not making eye contact and participating in the meeting. At this point I should say that my manager had a special way of twisting the truth. She had just enough information in the statements to be the truth, but just enough that it wasn’t the truth. When she reported the PIP meeting she combined two meetings into one report. I proved that during one meeting, I did in fact make eye contact and ask a question. I told her the question. The manager’s response was, “Well if you did I missed it.” That statement stayed in my record as “not participating in meeting” and “not making eye contact.” At the end of the 90 day period I was told I had made no improvement and failed the PIP. So me being me I asked what day they would fire me. I wanted to make sure things where taken care of at my desk and would pack my stuff and leave. Just tell me my last day. It was decided then by management and HR that I could not be fired for the offenses levied against me by my manager. This was the end of June. I got fired the end of July. My last and final offense came in the way of sending an email to my manager asking for a lunch rotation. She didn’t like the information I put in the email about why I wanted a rotation considered, and thought it incorrect that I sent the email to the other two team members of my request to talk about this in our next meeting a couple days from then. I should also put in here that during many of our “coaching” meetings many things were said between my manager and myself that were completely denied during a human resources meeting. During this time I was told to take Etiquette Courses in which there were six on line with the company. I took these courses on my own time, wrote the required synopsis and presented it to the manager. Did it up really nice. When the manager gave it back to me, all she said was, and I quote, “Here is your folder back. I thought you might want to use it again.” Nothing said about a good or bad presentation, nothing. In fact, only when cornered during a meeting with HR would the manager even say anything good about my work. One thing that worked really well with me and the military was that there was a straight set of rules to follow. But in the world I had been working in for the last year there was no straight set of rules. My surviving in the work place was up to someone’s likes and dislikes. Actually, this was my 13th year working in the same company and my second year of working the telephone system. I learned early in life you can’t live by someone else’s likes and dislikes. It changes at a seconds notice. That person has a bad day and the dislikes are high. They have a good day and the dislikes are more tolerating. I have a horrible startle response. I have come close to hitting many a person just by them walking up behind me and saying something. My mind can’t grasp unfair rules, why one person gets treated this way and you get treated that way. Every time in the last year when I had made a complaint about coworkers not pulling their weight, I was told to mind my own business. But the funny thing is, when the coworkers had problems with me everything was documented and I was called in to sign paperwork and told I would be terminated. And just for information sake, this company goes by Woodstone leadership principles: employees are a Terrorist, Benign Saboteur or a Loyalist. To state specifically what Woodstone is you would have to see the presentation to fully understand, a Terrorist is out to hurt the team could be by spreading rumors just really bad with team work. Benign Sabateur was a little bit bad and a little bit good, then the Loyalist which does everything correct for the team effort. I was called a Terrorist in one of the meetings with my manager. Even though I know where the word comes from, calling a Marine a terrorist only puts one on fighting ground. And with the PTSD in play, I already felt like I must fight. I was a Terrorist because I could not get along with my coworkers but not saying anything about them getting along with me, not saying anything about the fact I spent 8 years in the Marine Corps and might know just a little bit about teamwork. And that was the expected end result of Woodstone training: teamwork. Never did figure out what they wanted because it sure wasn’t any kind of teamwork I had ever before experienced. PSTD you can deal well with it, but things must stay maintainable, a certain set of rules followed, and it can be managed. Stress makes it worse, but still manageable. People playing unreasonable games of “likes and dislikes” and the person with PTSD will lose every time. I can't say I reacted correctly during this time, I reacted with emotion there layes the danger. You forget basics of how people will react to you and you basically don't care, you must defend yourself. My coworkers were scared of me for whatever reason maybe they wanted me fired they didn't like the fact I wanted the work done to a standard and they couldn't meet my standard I didn't play their game of them being superior over me. This company preached diversity when it came to race relations, but where is the diversity when it comes to PTSD? Being accepting of differences, but not when difference refers to degrees of mental health. Just get you out. Call it a budget cut. You’re out. And here is the emotion hooked to all of this, I am angry cause I really did nothing wrong, but I am the blame for it all, and am suffering with losing my job, just because my manager disliked me for not fitting in, not because of my work. I always thought that you lose a job because of your work. If you dislike someone doesn’t that fall under diversity? Now maybe I can go to sleep again. It’s 0330. Yvette Clifford served honorably from 1980 - 1988 in the United States Marine Corps, achieving the rank of Sergeant. She was a supply clerk and MIMMS NCO who was trained by MGySgt F.P. Siedentopf. She traveled from the midwest to attend his memorial service in Beaufort, SC. Pirate and Yvette didn’t meet at the Master Gunz’s going away. Yvette contacted Pirate via email to share her memories of a fine Marine they both loved, admired and learned from. Once a Marine; Always a Marine!http://www.woodstoneconsulting.com/%20http://milspeak.orgshapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1

U.S. Marine Corps troops in High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV) of Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, conduct a mounted patrol in the cold and snowy weather of the Khowst-Gardez Pass, Afghanistan, in order to disrupt any enemy activity on Dec. 30, 2004. The Marines are stuck in heavy snow and had to move on foot. These Marines are conducting security and stabilization operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. (U.S. Marine Corps Photo by Cpl James L. Yarboro) (Released) Date posted: unknown (Courtesy Cryptome)