Tammi's World

Maybe a bit of insight is in order....

If you read my post from Sunday about feeling so betrayed about Tropicana you are probably thinking to youself one of two things.

1) What a flippin' drama queen. Get over yourself!

or

2) So....that effects you how?!?!?!

Let me offer a bit of an explaination - for no other reason than hopefully you won't think I've completely lost my mind.

When I worked at Tropicana - it consumed my life. Totally. Oh, it was something I allowed to happen - actually it was my M.O. I was a complete workaholic. I always had been. But with this job it was different. It was the first job I had where if I screwed up - people noticed.

I traveled ALOT. I worked weekends, I brought work home with me. Every friend I had was a teammate at Tropicana.

One day my boss called me in and told me I HAD to take vacation. I had to take time off. No Choice. I had just pulled an all nighter in the office and he was PISSED. So I did. I took a week off. I have never been so bored in all my life. Holy Cow. No one to talk to (they had all been told NOT to talk to me about work if I called - hell, what else do you talk about?!?!) No where to go, except the beach. And I woke up in the middle of the week and realized I was lonely as hell.

So.......I backed off a bit. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Then - glory glory I met a man. He was a wonderful man. He made me laugh. He enjoyed talking with me. AND he didn't drink juice! WooHoo! We dated, fell in love and decided that maybe marriage would be a good thing. It was a very nice time.

Now - me being me - I still worked a lot. By most peoples standards. Most every night I had some report to run or some fire to put out. I made time for him - but that was just it. Everything had to fit around my work schedule. I still traveled. ALOT. I did cut back from what I was doing.....but still....

Then one day it was over. (much more dramatic than that - but it's a story for another day.) Later, after the tears were dry and the pain had lessoned - and our friendship was still standing, we actually talked about the "why we didn't work". (call me glutton for punishment!) You know the main reason for our break-up?! You guessed it. My work. My inability to step back - to step away.

But I truly believed that what I was doing mattered. I had the opportunity to do some small, little thing that would help people. I made my job more important than him. I made it more important than life, happiness.

Now, the reasonable side of me says - come on Tammi! Those were all choices and decisions you made of your own free will. But look deeper. I did this because I believed in what I was doing. I believed that it mattered - even just a bit.

So, when I read that article on Sunday all I could think of was all that I missed. The time with friends and loved ones. The hours on a boat - lost. The sunsets missed. Because I believed a lie.

But I did learn a lesson. Again. There is no loyalty in business. No matter what anyone tells you. YOU have to watchout and take care of YOU. Choose your priorities. But choose wisely. There is no going back. What is lost is just that. Lost.

So you see - it's just me feeling a bit pissy. I'm over it now. But man oh man oh man.....I was ticked off on Sunday - let me tell you!!!

Posted by Tammi at June 6, 2005 08:38 PM