I'm so sorry this is happening! It's not fair to you at all. Have you had this boss for a while? Does she know you well? Is she the one who approved the trip? Is her attitude hostile? Did she give any explanation for changing her tune at the last moment, and any acknowledgment of how it's going to impact you?

I've had her for 3 years now, and while I like her and have shown her my support, she tends to put how she looks to her superiors before her support of us employees she supervises. She says her management style is to "facilitate" rather than to lead. We get facilitated getting thrown under the bus sometimes. It's happened before when students or their parents have a complaint about anything. She's speech professor who is really good at presentation winning lots of awards and ends up where she really likes style over substance.

She's the breadwinner in her family with 3 kids, so I try to understand that. But she ok'd this July 16 and now that it's getting real next week, she's rethinking how it will look to her boss, the VP.

Emphasis on how it looks, not what's really going on. Like an episode of the TV show "The Office," you know?

I'm not dumb. I'll cancel the whole trip if I have to in order to save my job. But eating the $1200 nonrefundable plane ticket will be hard, not to mention the letdown. On the other hand, it will make the beginning of school just like any other year--a lot easier.

I've told her all about how it impacts me. We'll see. Now I guess I'll retreat into my little world and try to think about something else I do have control over, like buying groceries for the week, while what I can't control plays out.

If worse comes to worse, you can change the ticket for another date that doesn't fall during school time. It will cost you a few hundred but that's better than losing all $1200.

It's happening a lot. My ain't has worked at her job for almost 10 years and they just backed out of a vacay she's had planned for 3 months.

Donna has a good point,. Besides if it is over fall break, you will have warm weather while we begin to get a little nippy.
I really hope this all works out for you. I had my own snafus for my trip. Thinking all the bases were covered, then all I would have to deal with is my own fears. The snafu's sent me reeling, thinking the cosmos were against me. Thankfully I had a lot of support. I left two hours later than planed, but it turned out well, since I had built in those 2 hours to allow a few meltdowns lol.
I made it there only slightly more frazzled for the tension. and about an hour later due to construction barrel-itis.
Good luck and may the complications work out.

Jewells
Ps. if you haven't already done it, email the copy of her approval and the non-refundable receipt for the ticket. With a note saying that you look forward to the receipt of the cost her snafu has cost you, so that you can take the trip at a more convenient time in the near future..

DS ate my comment, but it was to the effect that---- We're here, we're with you, and rooting for you and for the best possible outcome all around. Prayres an dhugs,
Leo

Since it's Sunday, not much more is happening about my boss's change of heart about my going on our trip. I just did receive one additional email from her on the subject, and she was more calm, but she still said she's arranged a meeting with the college VP about it tomorrow.

I was chipper and said thanks for the quick attention to it, and that I awaited her decision. Might as well be chipper since there's no further control I have concerning their meeting. Doing the Serenity Prayer now.

Sorry to hear how often this sort of thing has happened to others here! As always, though, your sharing your stories keeps me from feeling the way Jewells described, like the cosmos is against me. Because it's certainly not, I know. In fact, I'm starting to think Somebody up there likes me.... :-)

If my trip's canceled I know I cant let her rip here with a good rant, several argggggghhhhhhhh posts, and then find the silver lining and move on. One way or the other, this will work out, I know. I've been stressed, but less so than I would have before I met you all on DS PTSD, that's for sure. You're the best.

In the meantime, I'm listening a lot to Tom Petty's song "The Waiting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpG09PenZt8

It's like he says. The waiting is the hardest part. I'll keep you posted, amigos.

I meant I CAN let her rip with a rant here. Not cant. Typos. Geez.

Well, muji, if ya worked on Mars, that non-refundable ticket would have set you back ALLOT more than 1200 bucks...

I can definitely see where you would be stressed by this. Put a serious question mark on how important the job is. That is a TOUGH gear to shift!!

Gentle support and another song for the music therapy venue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3F4GmbHl5g

Love that Arfie!

Hey, arfie, thanks for the song. Yeah, get offa my cloud!

Thanks, too, for giving me permission to question this job of mine. Say more, if you feel like it. That's another way to look at this sort of thing.

Of course, I am Mr. Flight who changes jobs a lot, so bear that in mind. But I welcome your thoughts on the subject, truly.

I am not at all sure you want career advice from me, muji. My resume makes the most creative of religions look stable. I even have a few of those creative religions on my resume. I quote the Rolling Stones entirely too much with bossy people... Authority issues out the yin yang...

I am on the edge of my chair awaiting the next page of your current story.

When I wrote in an earlier post in this thread that my bosses were meeting today to reconsider their July 16 decision giving me permission for travel time off to go as school began, I wrote that when I found that out:

"I was chipper and said thanks for the quick attention to it, and that I awaited their decision. Might as well be chipper since there's no further control I have concerning their meeting."

I'm so proud of myself for taking that approach instead of feeling victimized or persecuted, because it paid off. We had our college faculty all day meeting from morning until just now, after our dinner banquet. My Chair and the VP met without me on the side, and they just told me their decision was YES, to go on the trip.

They did decide to pull the college's funding they had promised when my Chair agreed to the trip back on July 16. That means the trip's expense is all on me, but that's ok. I still don't know what the issue was that prompted reconsideration, but it left no ill will between us. In fact, I think as they saw me take a positive attitude whatever they decided, all three of us actually like each other better.

I passed some kind of administrative test they as leaders know a reason for that I don't. The test that I passed but that I do know about was the test of trusting them whatever the outcome. Then using the "fake it until you make it" idea to show it in how I behaved in response to their notice yesterday that there was a meeting being held today to reconsider. Of course, that's about trust in general for those of us with PTSD, really, as you well know.

Thanks for your support here, and for giving me the space here to deposit my fear and anxiety about it. It worked for me to voice the anxiety it triggered in me here at DS PTSD. That way I was able to be balanced offline face to face with my bosses. It meant I managed to push for and restating my case for my trip calmly with a good sales pitch on the one hand, speaking up for myself without escalating to accusing them of victimizing me.

That's big for me, because sometimes when I have to restate my case to bosses I do a good job. But then I get a head of steam going and go on to escalate until I become self-defeating. In other words, in restating my case to bosses sometimes I don't know how to quit while I'm ahead. I let my PTSD anxiety stuff go on until put words to thoughts best kept to myself in making my sales pitch.

So this time I was able to make my sales pitch all over again, the same pitch I'd made when they had said yes to my trip July 16th. Then I was able to be chipper about awaiting their verdict. AND SHUT UP. Big for me with bosses.

LOTS of Serenity Prayers were said all day as I took that approach, because my persecution complex from PTSD served me with several invitations to go down that other familiar road instead.

It worked out! In fact, I think as they saw me take a positive attitude toward whatever they decided, all three of us actually like each other better. I'm so grateful, not just for the outcome, but for how the process went down, with your support. DS PTSD really does give daily strength. Today it did. It's not that I didn't have anxiety, no kidding. But it didn't rule my decision process, you know?

I did go ahead and apply for a job elsewhere this morning, but not because I'd made a mess of this job. Rather, because it's a unique job involving PTSD work. It's a job at another college working on staff as the college's victims services coordinator on campus. If I got that job it would be because I've growing in my PTSD recovery, not because I was running from a mess I made of my existing job.
In the past, I would have resigned my job in angry protest by now, making a very unclear point to an unclear target at great personal sacrifice and unemployment. I'm entering my 4th year in this job, and that's big because since the year 2000I haven't had a job for more than 3 years. Hey, this old dog can learn new tricks after all. A new stability trick, no less. Who knew?

Thanks, everybody. I'll be posting on DS PTSD from Uruguay a week from today after all, and it will have come about without sewing any bad seeds in the process. WOW. I have to pinch myself to be sure it's really me this is happening to. It's great.

Muji

Let's hear it for progress!!! YAYAY MUJI!!!

FWIW: You don't have a persecution complex. We really are picking on you... It's the greatest fun most of us pathetic wretches have in our days!

I'm so glad things worked out as they did. I am in awe of your serenity. I actually can't understand how you didn't become enraged. Hope I can learn that trick one these days. Congratulations all the way around!