When I started this blog my intention was to basically "document" my experiences transitioning, both for myself to look back upon, and hopefully for others who might find something useful from my thoughts and experiences. Whether or not the latter has been a success, I do believe the former has been and continues to do so. I would strongly recommend that anyone who chooses to transition keeps some sort of blog, journal, diary, or something - be it public like this or private. The same goes with copious amounts of pictures of yourself during your transition.
That being said, I initially had no intention of writing this weekend beyond my "hot chocolate fiasco" that I posted on Friday. However, I've gotten the lawn mowed and trimmed, the grocery shopping done, the laundry is in the washer/dryer, and I've got my 60+ miles walking in for the week; so I thought I'd write something. I was struggling for a topic that I could get into, so I went to browse the various Transgender subreddits over at reddit.com and one jumped out at me. I won't get into the specific post that stood out, but rather my thoughts on that issue.
I'm a firm believe that in life you simply cannot win every battle - maybe disagreement is a better term in this day and age, but as I'm sure anyone who reads these entries knows by now I'm not exactly "politically correct" all that often, so we'll stick with "battles". This can relate to relationships with your SO, family, friends, or even strangers; work; and anything else, but I'm going to focus on the first two entries there as for me at least those are the two most common.
So lets start with work. For those of us who have to work (and can work), unless we own our own business (which I do not) you will work for someone. I've worked for companies (very) large and (very) small - although nothing really "in the middle". By very large, I mean companies that are world-wide, and by very small I mean a handful of employees. Regardless of the size, there are a few constants and among those are that you are simply not always going to get your way. Perhaps that's not the best way to put it, but reality is that there are simply times when somebody makes a decision/policy that you simply believe is wrong or inappropriate for whatever reason. When that happens you have to make a choice to either go along with the decision/policy or to take a stand and potentially accept the consequences that might well come from that stand.
I recall a time when I was working as a store manager for a very large pizza chain - one might even call it a "Hut". My area manager at the time - who I really liked and is arguably the second best "boss" I've ever had - asked me to take a transfer from another store. She told me he was having issues with that store manager and was trying to find him another store. He was certified as a shift manager, but preferred to deliver pizzas, and had semi-limited availability. I really didn't need someone at the time, and definitely not someone who I got the impression would be a "headache", but I agreed to the transfer as I knew she wouldn't ask if she didn't really need me to do it. Well as it turned out most of my staff knew the young man and I was quickly informed that his "issues" with the other store manager revolved around his sexuality. Now this was about 20 years ago or so, but even then I could care less about his sexuality - all I cared about was if he could do a good job or not and he really did do a great job for me. I took an immediately liking to him and really didn't understand how he could have issues with anyone unless they flat out had a problem with an "out of the closet homosexual man" which he was.
All was going fine for several months until my area manager got promoted - she was a "trainee" and had been handling a "mini-area" of a handful of stores and now she was getting a full area and our store was going back to our original grouping, but with a new area manager. This area manager (and our new market manager) were coming from a different market that had been sold off to a franchisee and we knew very little about him. Now this guy came in and immediately rubbed me the wrong way. I had an older store and truthfully my people were not as "clean cut" as I would have liked, but they worked hard and I appreciated and respected that. We ran great numbers across the board and I'll admit I pushed a few things such as I paid any of my shift managers their "manager rate" even if they delivered for example as I felt they deserved that even though it wasn't technically company policy. I figured it was good for morale and as long as I was making my labor cost why should it matter. I knew this area manager was going to be a handful when he came in one Friday just as dinner rush was starting and the only thing he could find "wrong" with the store was that my manager corkboard was "messy". Now it was out of customer view and while to someone who gave it a cursory glance it probably did look cluttered, but everything that was on it was relevant. I was amazed that he had nothing better to do but nitpick that, but I dutifully took 5 minutes to "clean it up" for him. That battle wasn't worth fighting, I just wanted him out of there so we could have a good night.
Soon after though a battle did come up that I felt was worth fighting and I did fight it. Now it ended up leading to me leaving the company sooner than I would have liked - although I really didn't mind as I was in the process of getting my Microsoft MCSE and was already looking for a new job anyway. This same area manager came in one Saturday afternoon - I normally had myself there, a "cook", and two drivers at that time of day and one of the drivers was the transfer I mentioned above. Once my closing shift manager came in, the area manager wanted me to go outside and have a chat since the office in the store was not private - so he walked me up the strip mall and had us sit down on a couch outside a Rent-A-Center. He flat out told me to fire the young man. I sat there for a few seconds trying to think as to what he had done and I couldn't imagine what that could be so I asked - I'll never forget the response. "He's gay".... To this day I don't think I've ever been that angry over a work issue - not even over my own issues with my current company and me transitioning. I calmly got up, told him I had no intention of firing the young man and that unless he had something else I needed to get back to work as we were getting busy.
There was no "direct" fallout from that, but the area manager made it his mission to make me miserable and I finally couldn't take it any longer so I left - it's been the only job I've ever quit without giving notice and to this day I think it was the right thing to do - both taking the stand for my shift manager and leaving with no notice. Unfortunately once I left they did end up running the poor young man out anyway, but I felt I had done what I could. Perhaps I could have or should have made more of an issue about it, but the area manager had been very careful to have this discussion "one on one" and out of earshot of anyone else so it would have been my word against his and there was no way I would have won that.
Boy I can't believe I just spent 4-5 paragraphs on that, this is getting far longer than I intended, so lets move on to personal life as that was really the crux of what I wanted to talk about. I'm going to focus on relationships with a SO - in my case, my lovely wife J. I'm sure there are people out there who can say they've never had a disagreement/argument with their SO, M's grandparents used to say that - but truthfully I simply do not believe that. It's human nature to disagree at least sometimes and unfortunately sometimes those thing do end up in an argument or the like. When it comes to J - there are plenty of things she does that get on my nerves. As an example she tends to leave water all over her side of the bathroom vanity and on the floor when she showers/gets ready to go somewhere. I've mentioned it a couple of times and she's gotten better for a day or two, but then it starts up again. The old me would have turned it into a fight multiple times by now, but these days - well it's just not a battle I need to win, much less have. So if I see water on the sink or floor, I simply take a few seconds and wipe it up. There are other battles that I do feel I need to win - an example would be her sleeping. All too often she wants to spend too much time with me on a work night. I don't tend to sleep as much as she does in general and my commute is from the bed to my desk - her's is easily 30-45 minutes each way so even if we work the same days her days are longer (plus her shifts are longer) so simply put there are times she should be in bed and doesn't go because she's trying to spend time with me. This carries over to her days off sometimes as she's so tired from not resting during her work days that she ends up needing to sleep away chunks of her days off. To me she's cutting off her nose to spite her face with regards to that, and frankly she shouldn't be driving at all, much less some of the back roads she uses - when she's not rested. She's too important to me to lose her to a foolish accident because she's not as mentally sharp as she should be due to lack of sleep. So those battles, I do fight, and I do fight to win. I'd rather have an argument over that than to let her risk her well being just so we can "get along" at the time.
That's really the bottom line here, there are some battles that are worth fighting, there are some that - well they just aren't worth it. To me the key to a relationship - be it personally or professionally - is to know which battles are which and act accordingly. Unfortunately it's a skill that I often find lacking in people, especially younger people - perhaps it's lack of experience on their part, perhaps it's just that times are different, I don't know.
Well I've rambled on far longer than I intended to, and really I'm not sure that this post was what I envisioned - but it'll have to do as I need to flip the laundry around and get a quick pre-dinner walk in, so as always thanks for reading.
- M
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