Sometimes you’ve just got to be a rock.

by Gyran Gymble

(New Zealand)

A bamboo grove: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fleur-design/

I’m a security guard and work 12 hour shifts. My major cause of stress is the senior officer on my site.

No matter what I do I can’t win with this guy, he’ll say “do it this way” and then when we do it that way he flips out and says “Do it that way! Why are you doing it this way?”

He is also very rude both to the other guards and people around the site who have all been writing it off as his sense of humour but I know that it isn’t going to last.

I’ve put up with this guy for a while now and like the title says, sometimes you’ve just got to be a rock and let it all slide off.

Beyond what I have to I don’t have anything to do with him but he’s actively reaching out to make my life difficult.
The first thing he did was swap all the shifts around so that I’m now on day shift for the first time in years – He let us all know that this was so we could learn the duties required for our opposite shifts but took the opportunity to laugh at me for being in “a dreamland” during the shift that he trained me (and did it wrong on purpose)

Sorry I’m straying from the point here. The point is that this guy is pulling this stuff all the time. Just little pinpricks of things that mount up quickly until it overwhelms you.
When I was on nights and taking over from his day shifts I’d arrive at work and take three deep breaths while doing the “happy face happy face happy face” mantra before I could even get out of my car.

This is the position I’m in now. He’s obviously been talking to the big boss because I’ve just received an email with a “Please Explain” attached. It’s just alot more stress that I’m working hard to let slide off.

The problem with being a rock is that it’s habit forming and once you start building your defenses it becomes harder and harder to feel anything at all. Eventually you realise that instead of a rock you’ve become a mountain yet you just shrug your shoulders and go about your business because its easier to be a mountain all the time than mountain at work and happy fields everywhere else – sorry, this just makes me sound like I’m stoned.

What’s the point of all this?
I don’t know and I don’t trust anyone who says that they do. It’s just that sometimes life throws crap like this at you. Relationships don’t work out like the movies would have you believe they do, flocks of bills arrive just as you’ve gotten yourself out of the red, everyone around you is a toxic moron and there seems to be no escape.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff” as the Buddha says “but remember that it’s all small stuff” (I know he didn’t actually say this but I still think he’d like it)

Sorry this is less a story of depression and more of me jumping up and down about this guy.

Note from Hugo:

Gyran, I did not delete this because I think it is interesting and might not be about depression (yet)but might lead to it. You should note, however than in my perception, being a rock doesn’t mean being insensitive and hard to reach emotionally. I think it means to be resilient, not to be easily affected by the surrounding events.

Nowadays, though, will all the studies made about rocks, erosion and the invention of powerful explosives, I think that the rock analogy is not effective anymore.

The proper image should be a bamboo. Bend when under stress but always come back in your original form when it’s over. Be strong because you have deep roots.

What is important is to know your own value, have enough confidence in yourself to know when the problem is not you and enough humility to know when you are wrong.

There will always be “control freaks” out there and there is not much you can do about it, except not let it affect you.

Worst case, look for another job.

I hope you will always be resilient, like the bamboo.