What I've learned looking back

I wasn't wrong, and I didn't imagine a thing.

I have filed a grievance for wrongful termination to my former employer, the University of Saskatchewan. Given my long history of exemplary service along with extensive union activity with the University of Saskatchewan Faculty Association, I assert that the decision to end my appointment was not based on operational need as claimed. Instead, I allege that the decision was motivated by a range of improper goals and motives which include but are not necessarily limited to discrimination on the basis of disability, marital status, and sexual orientation; retaliation for union work and for being vocal about workplace issues; and suppression of and interference with union activity.

I have stayed silent for quite some time, mostly out of self-preservation and the need to grieve in private, and the rest out of hope for a settlement. We had a shared interest. I was patient and familiar with the timeline for proceedings. I told them what I expected, and they returned with an offer 1/8 of the original, which is very disrespectful negotiating. I immediately filed for arbitration. We no longer have a shared interest.

I have begun preparations, with lots of time for me to be thorough as the proceedings are still probably more than a year away. I have also filed a human rights complaint in the province of Saskatchewan, interestingly not the first one for these specific individuals. That investigation will pick up once the union grievances have concluded. I have many years to go.

I avoided digging into my emails and documents as long as possible for the same reasons we all procrastinate; I’m avoiding the feeling associated with the task, the task itself being nothing out of the ordinary at all. Organizing shit is really up my alley until it comes to looking at the past. I have a tendency to close a book and never open it again. I don’t have a problem walking away from things and never looking back. Exhibit A is my father: as much as I loved him, I hadn’t spoken to him for years before giving him permission to leave this earth. I’ve become skilled at processing the old stuff when it’s worth my time to do so, and I was convinced that this was one to walk away from. Consider this whole goddam thing a gift from the universe. I’m out, I’m gone, I’m good now. I loved it but I also kinda hated it.

My fear was that I would find holes in my own story. That they had deleted my trails of emails and documents despite our legal claims not to, that I wouldn’t be able to find anything despite swearing it was there, repeatedly telling myself I didn’t make it up. That despite me always knowing the rules better than anyone else, they changed them and now I had nothing. Regular nightmare stuff.

My suspicions were correct, and the task indeed took me back to what it felt like working there. But even I was shaken at what was so obvious in front of me; a paranoid girl’s wet dream. I wept in front of my laptop once again, for what feels like the millionth time.

I see nothing but a trail of a woman in chronic distress, in suspended disbelief, a hell of its own in hindsight. Trails of someone doing her best to remain professional despite being workplace mobbed relentlessly. An individual with chronic pain and fatigue and a boss that made her job much harder to do at every opportunity rather than easier. I continued on with my head held high, proud of what I’d accomplished despite it all. I didn’t miss a single goddam thing.

I should have looked sooner. I have nothing to fear. I had been avoiding it all because I didn’t want to see something I hadn’t done, something I’d missed, where I might lose. I was so worried I’d find this hole where suddenly I’d deserved it all.

It is not the first time I have found myself settling in to an environment that is not hospitable to me. The gaslighting starts to come from within even when you know better.

I asked my therapist this week if it was obvious to her how much my job was affecting other aspects of my life at the time. We came to the conclusion that, in hindsight, I had settled into survival once again. It was a good paying job, and my financial freedom and ability to care for myself and my kids was waning. I needed to hang on as long as possible and to do that, I could not admit even to myself how much the constant harassment and exclusion affected me.

It affected my relationship with my kids, my romantic relationships, and most importantly the one with myself. Work was a place of refuge during my divorce until it wasn’t. Then I became something different, a spectacle, and in order to learn more we will have to ask my former employer and colleagues. Even though it will take years, I will be making them answer that question among many more. I wouldn’t dream of making assumptions.

At the time, I was disgusted with myself for being emotional and crying, asking for help with securing employment. Not anymore. Nothing I ever asked for - mentorship, security, understanding for chronic pain and illness, privacy about my sexual orientation - should ever have put me in danger of losing my job. Shame on them for further allowing a tenured professor to keep on telling faggot jokes at my expense. They will answer for that too.

Know that is the profession of pharmacy. The strong, silent type.

I’m proud of my degree but not my profession. They have done nothing but disappoint me.

I don’t want to be associated with a group that collectively stays silent about corrupt hiring and labour practices and an entire corporatization of its field of practice. I’m embarrassed by a profession that allows the editor of its academic journal to be its most published author. I’m disgusted by a profession that claims a majority of women for decades but can’t define feminism properly, protecting only those who need no protection. I’m embarrassed to be associated with those that turn the other way and avoid accountability.

I was called the wrong name at meetings, my motions mysteriously missing from minutes. My ideas were stolen and my work plagiarized. My passions were devalued and accomplishments mocked instead of celebrated. It was implied that I begged students to nominate me for awards and evaluations when I was just really good at my job. I was tokenized after being publicly outed, and then projects taken away from me that I had established with heart and innovation. My appointment was threatened during good-faith bargaining despite having two notetakers and more than 10 witnesses in the room. They didn’t even fire me correctly. Both Jane and Scott stuttered nervously reading through their paragraphs before I informed them they had incorrectly calculated my severance and that I had already cleaned out my office. Their entire defence so far is that they could have done it right if they wanted to. Didn’t though.

I hope I was wise enough to have gathered enough skills before I was shown the door. I’m honestly not that worried. I think my reputation will be just fine. If I could accomplish all of what I already have in spite of them, imagine what I can do in their absence. They’ve given me a lot of material to write about and a lot of gaps to fill.

I used to walk on that beautiful campus feeling lucky to work there, and I’m proud of myself for being grateful for what I had at the time. But they were the lucky ones.

XOXO,

Courtney