Thank You, Culiseta Longiareolata (or, Everything I Know About Adaptation I Learned From my Boss, The Bloodsucker)

janet.g - Dear Culiseta Longiareolata,

You were my first boss at my first “real” job after graduating from college, and I have to admit I didn’t recognize you right away. All I knew was that you had a need for an administrative assistant at the nonprofit organization you ran, and that you had been around for about 30 million years. So I thought I could learn a lot from you. Now that I think about it there probably was a bloodthirsty look about you, but I dismissed it for the sleepless nights you spent worrying about all the innocents you had to save.

Your multi-faceted eyes missed nothing and almost immediately, I didn’t measure up. When I answered the phones — “Hello, Ms. Longiareolata's office” — I wasn’t cheerful enough. When I organized your file folders, I accidentally used the blue labels you hated. One morning, after seeing that the reports I had printed out for you were in a font you didn’t like, you wondered aloud why you processed a paycheck for me at all. I didn’t have an answer, but the more closely you scrutinized me the more easily I messed up. I became so terrified of making mistakes that I started to produce them at an accelerated rate: faxes were faxed to the wrong numbers, my voice shook when I answered the phone and sometimes I would forget to check your outbox at the end of the day. My coworkers lived in fear of you too, but they had already learned there was nothing they could do to change you. Maybe they saw that my daily defeats gave you an outlet for your frustration, and slowly they began to discuss my mistakes amongst themselves. My inexperience, the awkward way I had greeted an unexpected appointment, my lack of enthusiasm and leadership in my role became topics of conversation in the bathroom, or behind cubicles. Sometimes conversations stopped if I walked past, but the worse I felt I was doing, the more eager I became to please.

My insecurities and your scrutiny followed me home. Eventually I began to loose sleep, hearing your complaints buzzing in my ears at night.

I used to watch nature documentary shows as a child, and the shows that focused on predators were always my favorite ones. It makes you think the worst predators are large, powerful and swift: lions in the savannah, jaguars in the jungle, Grizzlies in Alaska, crocodiles camouflaged along the banks of the Nile. You don’t ever imagine the deadliest predator you might encounter isn’t the biggest, the fastest or the most frightening: it’s the one that slowly sucks away your health and vitality with a thousand tiny bites. It infects you with fear, and uncertainty. What it lacks in size it can make up for in numbers: a thousand tiny criticisms that embed themselves under your skin.

I will admit that I am young and that I don’t have your years of experience. In the last 30 million years or so that you have been sucking the blood of other creatures, I am sure you have seen many species rise and go extinct. Maybe something happened during those years that made you dislike yourself so intensely, or made it impossible for you to find an encouraging word to say to someone else. But one night, after many nights of being unable to sleep, I finally came to the realization that I didn’t have the power to change you, and no matter how hard I tried I might not ever be good at working for you.

This is when I started to change myself. I spent my money differently and began to save it. I started to take lunch breaks and would use them to make phone calls to friends of my parents, friends of friends, alumni from college and recruiters I researched online. I had only a degree, some determination and the realization that the ability to anticipate the future and plan for it was one of the main differences separating my species from yours. Telling you I quit was one of the most satisfying things I have ever done.
It is generally only the females of your species that suck blood. I have sometimes asked myself if women fight each other in the work place because we feel threatened by each other. But I know now, a few years later, that many people do not like their unpleasant bosses and this has nothing to do with gender. Your criticism buzzed around in my thoughts long after I would leave the office, and I would dread coming into my cubicle in the morning. It is rare that we openly talk about how workplace behavior affects our lives after we leave the office.

So the reason I wanted to write you a thank you note is this: while you may not have changed much in the last 30 million years, you forced me to evolve. You helped me find my backbone. You forced me to take responsibility for my situation and change it. I may meet others like you in the future, and you may try to take a bite out of me, but next time I’ll be ready.

Bugs like you are easy to swat.

Regards,

Your Former Assistant