10 231012 When Past Work Experiences Feel Unresolved

12:30AM Oct 25, 2023

Speakers:

Meredith Holley

Megan Goering Mellin

Keywords:

feel

experience

workplace

people

memo

resolution

happened

job

work

investigation

unresolved

injustice

hr

wrong

call

bodied

realize

report

give

talk

Today we'll be discussing when past work experiences feel unresolved. The power of closure and justice to help you move forward when something goes sideways at work. One of the things that I have enjoyed talking to you about the most Meredith over our friendship is this topic of closure and your resolution when it comes to a traumatizing or like an abuse oriented workplace experience. And one of the things that was new to me when I met you is that you are somebody who faced it, and then also made it all the way through at the same workplace to the other side. For me, when I kind of came up against workplace stuff, it was in my exit interview, right. So like, I didn't really realize it was happening until it was literally already over. So it was like the ultimate season of lost. I don't watch that kind of show. It's like too much suspense for me. But like, I just couldn't see it go anywhere. So today, we're going to talk about what the difference is for people that you've talked with, when they get that closure. And when they don't, what does that what does that bring up for you?

So I it's funny, as you were talking, I remember that last night, I had to go, I'm having sort of a family experience where I had to access the like family documents that I have in my burn proof bag. And so I was going to burn through a bag last night. And I gave her and I stand by this. But I came across this letter, or it was a memo from the workplace that I was in where I reported sexual harassment, maybe more than one time, and generally sexism. And they conducted an investigation and I came across the memo from it and just read it. And I was like, I don't I can't articulate to you why it's in my burn per bag. But I find it so funny, like the amount of times that they say, we didn't do anything, and we can't tell you what we did. But we welcome all future reports that you might want to give. And like I had specifically asked them not to do an investigation because it only seemed like it would harass other people. But they were like we talked to all these people. Like it just wasn't very typical memo. And it's very typical of what I see, when folks report to any kind of HR, any kind of organization that has a structure that it even deals with harassment, discrimination, they often go, you report in good faith, what you're seeing, the HR person says, I'm going to launch an investigation, and the person reporting sort of says, Oh, that's not okay, wait is who's going to be involved in that? Does that mean you're gonna go tell everybody that I'm having this problem that I'm embarrassed about? Like, what does it mean? And they, the HR person often says something like, Well, do you want us to just do nothing like we can't do anything unless we conduct an investigation, which is really not how we handle most other workplace problems. We don't investigate them. But because we have a culture of disbelieving people with any characteristic that's not dominant. So any women anyone who's not male, white, sis, straight, Christian bodied, able bodied, exactly. Anyone who doesn't have those dominant characteristics, we sort of start out not believing them. So we have to conduct an investigation and say, What did everybody else think about this, and then the investigation has some kind of result that usually is like, people had a lot of different experiences, everything was difficult to determine. And we couldn't say that any discrimination really happened or that anyone wanted to be discriminatory. You're welcome. And that feels like like the workplace doing something to the HR person, to the person complaining, and even to the person accused of something, it doesn't feel like resolution, it feels like a lot of added angst and bird anyway. So um, so just in reading that I that document was so much closer to me at that point, because to me, it was a statement of we're gonna continue to behave in the ways that we have behaved in the past. And it was an opportunity I given them to them to change and to me the memo was such a moment of word. We're gonna keep being who we are, and who you know, we've been the whole time. So I think Did you love that?

Or did you hate it like was that did that give you clarity and that felt like resolution because you just got confirmation like the cat is still a cat or like, were you infuriated because you didn't like how they had been being and then here they were saying that they were going to be that exact same way.

I think I was sad. On the one hand, the I was sad because I knew the investigation had involved them going to other people and having what I believe are unsafe conversations with other people who had similar experiences, which wasn't

your fault. But also, then you just didn't like that that had been an activity that occurred. i

It's disappointing to see people who you want to do better. Yeah, do something that feels unsafe still. And I think that that's fair. I mean, I think there's room for sadness, and grief, and all of this, I had already had a lot of grief about that workplace and a lot of processing. And so I did want to give another chance to really like, give for me to provide some structure of what I was asking for, and what my expectations were, and to allow them to make whatever decision they wanted to make. But for me, I mean, the memo was not what you would want. But it wasn't a surprise, and I think it did feel like okay, I've given these people chances. I feel like that's fair on my end. And ultimately, you have to, I think we've said this before, even on the podcast, like Dr. Angelou says, when people show you who they are, believe them, and I think that is wise advice. And people change, I think I believe that people can change. And I think it is a long, long process to change. And people

usually change when they're very committed to not changing. Like, I would like to be in dialogue with them about like, they're not going to accidentally slip in transform, and like up level, like four stages, however you want, especially when they've been kind of resisting that. Like, that's just not how that works.

I think sometimes, you know, they say sometimes when people get cancer diagnosis, they never smoke another cigarette, right? Like they have that motivation to make a complete change. I recently had a health issue, and I totally stopped drinking. And that feels fine to me. Like, that's a big change. But also it hasn't been a problem because I'm like, I don't want to feel terrible. And drinking is going to contribute to me if you're feeling terrible, and it's really cheap, tangible way. So I think that people can make emotional leaps like that when they want to. But I think that's the key. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So

let me just get let me just get this clear on the story. Because I feel like we're all right there with you in the fireproof safety box with the memo. And I didn't even know that we were going to be at this level. But that's good. We parachuted in. Did when that memo came is that did you then leave your job, or you stayed?

No, I had already I stayed. I think I was there for another like three months, like I put in my notice after another month after that. But I went through a full, like a full big conclusion of a actually a major harassment case that I was working on. And, you know, we just kind of did like a friendly exit with them. And I said, you know, my supervisor cried when I, who was the one that gave me the memo when I resigned and she said, I feel like we failed you and I was sort of like, Yeah, that's true. But I mean, also, that was the capacity that they had. To me. I didn't feel lack of closure about it. But here's what and so we were talking about. I mean, do you want to share like your thoughts about why you're thinking about this? Yeah.

Because like, I mean, even in this situation, like you're like, so there's this memo, and even today, like, it's 2023 right now, podcast listeners, I'm like, on the edge of my seat, and I'm like, Wait, so then what happens? Because for me and the ex interview, they were like, oh, no, surprising content. And I was surprised that they were surprised, right? We've talked about this before on this podcast. So they are like we do you do an investigation. I was like, I don't even know what that is. And then they were like, okay, by like sending your laptop and I was like, okay. See later on. Like I heard from colleagues that questions were asked, I'm not sure there was like any transparency about the process, nor do I have any even speculation about if that's normal. But one of the things I see hearing you talk this through, even as I'm taking various notes, zero, like Okay, so basically, first there's a report, then it goes to HR, then HR is like we're gonna do an investigation. And it's like, it's not that I'm jealous, although I'm not opposed to being jealous, but it's like, there is something that happened differently in our experiences, because you saw the process unfold. Right? So then you got the awareness of like, oh, there is a process here. It's kind of like how sometimes you have a friend or like, I think this is really common. So I'm a mom now, but I was I'm a I'm an older Mom, right? So there's a long time when I didn't have kids and I didn't really know anybody who I've had kids. And when someone in my life would have a kid, I was like, I don't even know what's going on with that, like, they just fall off the planet, they like don't want to call you at a normal time anymore. They only want to call you during errands for like, five minutes randomly. I'm like, Ill like I was very inflexible, because I'm like, what has happened to you like, this is not meeting my needs, right? But then now as a mom, I'm like, Oh, I get it. First, you have no sleep, then everything revolves around a child. It's like, you watch that process. And now when a friend of mine has a kid, I'm like, Oh, you're going through the process, you know, but like, you didn't know there was a process nor want to know you weren't going to research exactly how your life falls away when like, the child, you know, the the veil of innocence of childlessness is ripped away from you by your own, you know, reproductive choices. In my situation, which is very fortunate that I have reproductive choices. I guess what I'm saying is that, just without any judgment, kind of just contrasting what happens, it's not that anybody's luckier because like, none of this stuff is stuff we want to deal with. But, but I just know, a lot of people have been through kind of a traumatic work experience. Yeah, that either they didn't realize was traumatic until the very end, or they didn't even realize was traumatic until later, when someone goes, Wait, what, and then you start to think about it, and it starts, it starts to settle with you. Like that wasn't okay. But the, the more I have the, in the stages when I was really reflecting on that, just sitting with how not okay, it was, didn't actually give me any new information or insight or awareness on what I would do in the future. Right. So now what I see a lot in like I did my I did a master's at the business school at Stanford, which was like a cool experience. And now, you know, there's like career centers there that do classes for alumni. So you know, I love a good online classes. So I always go to these classes. And there really is a threat of people trying to figure out what to do with their careers. Some of the some of that is strengths based or you complete a chapter or you know, you want a new learning challenge, but some of it, and I'll put myself in this category, like, to some extent, some of us have shown up in those containers spooling on, how can I go back to work again? Or how can I face a future environment? Knowing that I can't handle what happened last time? Yeah. And so that's what I that's what I want to enlarge over to you because you don't live that way. Right? You don't know. I can't handle it, or you don't even live like I can't handle it. Like you're like No, no, there's tools. If there's totally a bridge. It's just if you don't realize there is one or you don't hear somebody talk about it, you're like, No, basically, here's what you do. And the worst. It's like, if there's a tornado, I grew up in Kansas, you hide under the desk, or you go to the bathroom, you go downstairs, there's a drill. So I guess that is what I would do. Yeah, his Meredith, for those of us who realized, in retrospect, or on the way out of the door, that something messed up happened. And so we're like, we can't go back in there. We can't go forward. Because what if it happened again? Right? I feel like you should just tell us look, bare minimum, if something happens again, here's one thing that people tend to do. It's not legal advice, obviously. But what do people

do? And also, I think, how do you now when you're away also experienced that feeling of resolution and justice? That feels sort of out of reach?

I think a lot of time because I could replay it. If I had an idea, a new idea, not just the idea, Oh, crap, that shouldn't have happened, right? That's a recurring idea. But if I knew something else, then I could go back and be like, well, if I had to face that situation, again, knowing what I know, now, I can just imagine, okay, what if I would have done this, but I don't have it, I don't really want to think about that much. So I don't want to put new ideas in there. So that would be a cool.

And I want to talk about one other scenario that I think is relevant, just super quick is that a lot of people come to me as a lawyer wanting to file a lawsuit because they think that down the road, if they have a jury trial, and the jury finds in their favor about the harassment or discrimination that they experienced, or they think about a judge or even an investigator finding in their favor, that they will feel a sense of justice then and feel a resolution then and so that creates also an intangible, distant sense of resolution and justice, where we're waiting for it until someone else who's outside of our control takes action. So each of those situation puts resolution and justice outside of your control and in someone else's hands and that feels really terrible. Like you're making a face like I'm making

a bad face. You can't see my face, but I'm like, No, we don't want that right. Because also, like look, no one actually wants to do a lawsuit. Right like No one's if you have a spouse, I have a spouse, no one's family wants to do it. I have, I've seen a couple people who are like, You should sue them. And I was like, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to get caught up in that you don't know what's gonna happen.

And even if you do sue them, you want your feeling of justice and you're feeling a resolution in your hands, not on pause until the legal system takes action. So here's what I would say. I think essentially, feelings of unrest of that situation was unresolved or that of ongoing injustice. I think initially, we have I think this is the process. Initially, we have that experience of this was wrong. And that's almost like a diagnosis that feels really healthy. It feels very, like, invigorating, almost you feel alive when you realize I'm not crazy, this was wrong. And that's just

anger in there. There's a boundary in there it feels, isn't it since I was an important step, right? Yes, to claim the power of the boundary and be like, No, actually, there's a bright line of what's not okay. But then

we get stuck in this binary thinking of either, that shouldn't have happened, and I need to feel terrible. So in the impact model, you say the incident is I had a job, that's the neutralized incident in the first line of the impact model. So the eyeline is I had a job, the M line is, that shouldn't have happened. That's the meaning, right? The meaning line, so the I, the incident is I had a job, and then our brains make meaning out of it, and the meaning ends up becoming that shouldn't have happened on some level, then that feels like the physiology line then is stressful, or anxious, or unresolved, right? Injustice, like there's something there, each of our bodies feels different, you can put that label on it. And then the action that we take is we try to seek resolution outside of ourselves. And we struggle with ourselves about whether or not we debate whether or not we did something wrong, right? We try to fix ourselves, which creates more of a sense of injustice, because we know we didn't create that environment. So this turns into a cycle of unrest, pollution and injustice, then we think that our only other option is, so the incident line stays the same, I had a job, we could choose the meaning line of that should have happened. Everything happens as it should, like we get a lot of positive mantras, and we want to jump to something super positive.

Like this is the other place we would go is to be like everything, habits, hobbies, and everything is perfect.

This is wonderful. And yeah, thank you. So if there's a bad and it feels like a lie in our bodies, and and unsafe. So we resist that and go back to it shouldn't have happened. And so because we're stuck in this binary pattern of either it should have happened or it shouldn't have happened. We have just this ongoing cycle of unrest, solution, injustice, to me, the shift that can happen there that's available is that did happen. And I can care for myself around this. That did happen. And I trust myself to care for myself in the future. That did happen. And I did the best I could with what I knew at the time. Right, and you offer kindness to your past self, who did the best that they could do, and know that you can move forward trusting yourself knowing that you've learned more, knowing that you will trust yourself ongoing in the future. Because when we're stuck in these situations where we're experiencing abuse, what we learn to do is doubt ourselves. That's what hegemony teaches us hegemony, the dominance of dominant culture says, dominant culture is right dominant culture is objective. Anything that diverges from that is like, quote, not normal or bad, right? So then those of us who have characteristics that are not dominant, start to doubt ourselves, we say my experience was wrong, my experience was bad. I must have done something to cause this and we fight with our past selves. If we can today say that did happen, that person's actions are outside of my control, and I can care for myself and I can commit to myself that I will care for myself going forward, we can start to develop that trust in ourselves again, and to me that creates justice and closure because when you are, like persecuting or prosecuting your past self for what they did wrong, you have an internal sense of injustice because it is unfair. Another person's actions are outside of your control. You did not cause that you didn't do anything wrong, and you can care for yourself going forward.

That is so powerful. Everyone in their cars right now is Just taking a breath with me around it, I will say that we're not going to go, we are probably going to do probably need to do more episodes on this topic. But one of the things that is present for me is that I was kind of thinking, you'd be like, Okay, first there's the report, then there's this, then there's that and you're like, Mina. Now we're gonna go to the inside, like, we're going to go to the experience layer. Because although the workplace is where it happened, like in the physical world, the experience layer is where the harm is still alive. Right? Like, I'm not in the old workplace anymore. But there are days when the experience than the when the experience is still alive in me. And so I think one of the top takeaways here, for those of us who have exited without a sense of resolution is that the place where it's still happening, we could choose to look at that as being an inside place metaphysical building. And all though sometimes it can feel like the experience is intrusive, right? You wish it weren't on the inside of you, the fact that it is on the inside of us means that there are floorplans, or maps, in this case, like the impact model models that we can use to reorganize that space, because it is still on our real estate for lack of a better term. And, yeah,

Can I say one thing about that as your and also, that's not to say like, a lot of people use that as a new reason to make themselves wrong. Like that's not,

which is not, that's not the intent here at all. Because it wasn't you it was never you, we never wanted to happen. And if it's in there, it's not because you did something wrong, or because you didn't know how to face it, it's just that we should bring care to it. And we can still do that. I just have

this image of like for you, you're in this workplace. You're this beautiful, wonderful, brilliant child who like gets this job, right. And this beautiful, wonderful child is like doing the best at her job rising to the top and then she's like, you know, I'm not gonna make it a lot further, I'm ready to leave. And on her way out gives this wonderful gift of truth to this organization. Like there's really nothing that you have to look back on for you and say, What should I have done differently? Should I have done something better? Like I think if you can offer yourself, I did everything. Right. And I offered this extra gift to the workplace of truth.

I mean, I think you're right, but I think what that pokes I wonder if it'll focus on other people. What it pokes is that what Jeff Pfeffer, who's like a really spicy researcher at the business school at Stanford has this term he uses called the just world hypothesis, where he's like, we want to believe that the core contract of the world is I don't do anything wrong. And then I don't have to suffer. Right? Like everyone

should do everything right. I'll get what I want. Yeah. And

so to some extent, when you say that I can both follow you there, right? From my wisdom self, and like my older self, and be like, Yeah, I should totally hold that for myself. But then when I do, the feelings come up, right? Because I'm like, well, then if I because in here's how it sounds, right. Here's the conversation, which is a super stressed conversation, right? Well, if I didn't do anything wrong, then why on earth did this happen to me? And that is actually the PTSD question, right? It's like, Why me? Why did this happen? Yeah. And I, you know, it's not ideally, but a gentle place that we can become aware of that I want us to be aware of, I'll say like, that is like Post Traumatic Growth piece is a little bit more leaning toward what now, which isn't that we should stuff that down. But that's what it pokes nerds, I just want to draw one more line here to say that I this topic came up for us this week, because I am back to work after a you know, a long period. And I was running my own business and stuff like that, too. But I really love being in organizations and I have not worked in organizations. And since 2014. And now it's basically been 10 years. And that's not really true, because I've done client work in organizations and stuff. But this is I would say that this is the first time I'm like back to work in like facing it. And I had a situation this week where something came up, and it felt the old way. And I was so scared. But I was able to realize like No, I'm just starting at this new thing. So like I am not going anywhere. Like I've got to find my way through this. And I found my way through and it's you know, it's taken six days you know, or something it wasn't really fun. But like I found my way through and I did I was able to do it with kind of I don't know if we would call them mantras but with the kind of lenses you were mentioning, like that did happen and I can care for myself. I can trust myself to care for myself in the future. And I guess what I would just I want to share my leaving no and I want to hear yours to my leaving no given where I sit right now is There were a lot of times I almost went back to, quote unquote, back right forward to different organizational settings that in some way, were reminding me of the fears that I had faced. One of them was there's this job that was really cool that we had a couple of family connections into. So it would have been possible to probably like, just get to know the people a little bit more, and then at least interview in a good way. But it turned out, we did a, I did a couple calls of like references of the people involved. And they were like, oh, no, don't get anywhere near this person they take everybody out in their group was terrible. And I had a therapist at the time, and I am so pro therapy, but my therapist would basically like, Don't worry, just go and do it, like, go for it, you'll figure it out. But like, I didn't have these skills, you know, I didn't have these skills, I didn't have these, these tools to manage the mind. And I have a strong mind, that will take over my emotions when I am poked. And so I guess my leaving note to people would be that if you have an unresolved situation, you don't have to, I guess I wish I would have just held my own hand and said, You don't have to force yourself back in to the deep end. To like as though you have no fear or as though nothing ever happened to you. And you can follow your genius, as you like to say, Meredith, like, follow your true nature, follow what really is calling you and then know that if something comes up in there, that isn't already a red flag on day one, that these tools exist and the support and the communities exist to, to tackle it, and that you can feel very differently.

Yeah, I think that that's so true. And I also think about the just world fallacy that you're talking about, I think, I think that we can get into these spaces, where we think that the world is supposed to be soft, and what I really believe it and that we've done something wrong if the world is sharp. And so I always make this analogy to like a zoo like we we, a lot of times go into the workplace, we think we've gotten a job petting kittens at the pet store. And then after a little bit, we realize that we've actually gotten a job in a Tiger Cage, cleaning the cage and getting mauled by tigers. And what we can do in that space is use these tools that really like protect us through developing really strong boundaries, having really clear dialogue with ourselves and really reprogramming any hegemony that we were, we were raised with anything that works against us. But that doesn't change that Tigers or Tigers like that doesn't change that the world is sharp. And we have to navigate also the external environment of what we tolerate and what we don't tolerate. So when we look back on our past experiences, and use that as a reason to argue with ourselves or criticize ourselves, I think that's the space where we can kind of bring it forward. And we can acknowledge that tigers are tigers abuse happens, humans are abusive, and that doesn't mean anything about us. If we run into a person who is abusive, that means that we're human, and like a lot of us can abuse and not realize that even if we've been told that our behavior is abusive, we've learned something, we can move forward with that knowledge and consider whether we want to change our behavior or not. So I think it can work on both sides. And I think when we look back and have a more kind, sort of resolving just experience of our memory and of ourselves, like redevelop our trust with ourselves. That doesn't mean that we say Oh, and that experience was soft and not sharp, the experience may still have been abusive, and not kind. And we have to sort of let go of that idea that if we are good, the world becomes soft because the world is still what the world is, I think so we just want to thank everybody for being in this episode. And if you have your own story that you want to share, as always, feel free to submit it to us at heiress resolution slash story that's er ay s resolution slash story.