I'm struggling and I don't have anyone else to share this with except you
by owlcompliance | 2026-03-11 20:49:26+00:00
I'm hurting in ways that I haven't in a long time. I work corporate, I'm in my 30s, support my wife and kids. I come to work every day and work hard, but more than that, I'm some who gets along with absolutely everyone. I listen to people. I elevate them. I validate them. That is just my personality type.

But I keep finding out that people go out of their way to say something negative about me. The way I find out is through my boss. My boss then addresses it with me.

Today I found out a former manager who worked here for only two months on our team told my boss that I was on my phone all day and taking call after call. I know what day this was because she even mentioned the topic I was talking about (i.e., I was getting a lumber quote for a personal project; call lasted maybe two minutes). That was the ONLY call I took that day, and I hate being on my phone during. So that was not true either.

Another person "told" on me, saying that I'm in the bathroom too much and that I they saw me on FaceTime. I have only taken one impromptu FaceTime call in 3+ years working here. I guess that's all it took.

Another Director gave me a slide deck to make into a training course. I am not going to give myself the discretion to change their content since they are the subject matter experts. So I make the training, and this director goes to talk to my boss about me, literally yelling, "Why would he turn in something with so many duplicitous sections." I was only basing the content off of what the Director gave me and was happy to change it at their request during the feedback phase. No, instead, I was immediately portrayed in a negative light.

What's crazy is that all the people that have gone out of their way to talk bad about me, are people that I have been relatively close to at work. When I had my second born, one of them referred to herself as the "corporate grandma" to my newborn. The other one gives me hugs when she hasn't seen my in a while. Another person that talked bad about me was my childhood friend.

They have talked bad about other colleagues in front of me and this made me learn a valuable lesson: those who talk bad about others to you, will talk bad about you to others.

I walked out of my one-on-one today with a heavy heart wondering how people could be this way. I'm trying to think of what I did to these people and I can objectively say that I have gone out of my way to be a team player, considerate, kind, and always positive.

I know I shouldn't care what people think or say, but even I don't understand why this has affected me so much. I won't lose any sleep over it, but I did have to hold the tears back.

Literally, nobody is my friend here. It's crazy how disloyal everyone is. There's no humanity. There's very few real relationships where there is a true care for one another.

I don't know man, I think I'm done with corporate. I love my job, my field, the work I do. But I've gone through this one too many times for me to believe that eventually I will walk into an organization where everyone is rooting for each other. I get it that this is life; the real world. But I'm not okay with it. It feels degrading.

I feel so alone at work. I feel like my job is in jeopardy now because all these people are in our Chief's ears, and it makes me think about my wife and kids and it breaks me to think that my ability to provide for them can disappear from one day to the next.

I think I'm done man. I love construction. I think I may just get started on building that up.