I.AM.FRUSTRATED

 (Heads up, I did not reread or edit this before posting it because it was just an emotional "get it out" type of writing. I wasn't going to post it at all.  Normally I just hold onto these things for a day until they don't matter anymore and I've let go of the emotions the fueled them then delete them. However, today I'm thinking that maybe others have felt this way and can offer some advice?) 

You guys.

Jesus needs to take the fucking wheel today!

I don’t even believe in Jesus which should tell you how much I need someone to hold me the hell back.

I have a contract with a law firm. It’s a great contract and they pay me for a lot of work. It’s my main source of income as a consultant which is great! However, the owner and managing partner tests me something FIERCE! 

We used to work closer together. When I started I came in the with the fire, literally. I fired his whole team and hired a new one. I changed things from top to bottom because what he had going on just wasn’t working. I implemented new procedures and systems and now things very much work more smoothly. 

With as much freedom as he did give me and as much as he did listen to me it was a FIGHT to get us to where we are now. Change is hard, I understand and I have very much tried to take everything in turn. I also think it happened at a time that he wasn’t as strong and confident as normal which I should have been more understanding of. 

HOWEVER.

There have been COUNTLESS things that I have pitched, that I’ve started and he told me to abandon that he didn’t feel were worthwhile, not to mention the things that are implemented but that he fails to use that he hears about from someone else and acts as if he’s not only never heard about the idea before but fawns over it as if it’s a stroke of genius. 

And I’m standing beside him calming the fires inside me trying to hold my tongue and my internal rage. 

Like??? 

Are you just not listening? Am I not explaining it in a way that allows you to see the value? Are you just not ready for the ideas? Or do you just feel better hearing it from someone who’s charging you literally thousands of dollars for the idea? 

Today, we heard a presentation from a Marketing Firm. I LOVED the owner and presenter, if I had a business and needed help with this I would hire her in a second. She presented well, she made amazing points based on a ton of research she did about our firm specifically and paired with other stuff she had learned from working with other law firms in the past. PERFECT! 

In the end she pitched 5 different projects - 3 out of 5 I have worked on in the past and abandoned or pitched and was told no. Most of the things she hit on within her presentation that fell under the “could be strong” category I’ve brought up with a plan and they’ve been brushed to the side. 

This doesn’t at all mean I don’t see value within her services and wouldn’t like her help. I proposal was to give her my past work and have her tweak it or come back with an assessment on what her agency could do to make it better at a reduced price since the work has already been started. Which I think is fair.

However, the owner of the firm acted as if….I hadn’t done anything for the past year. And said multiple things during the presentation that rubbed me the wrong way. She did an overview of our social media and when she got to Twitter, we have no followers, no retweets - it’s basically a dead zone. And he was SO SHOCKED ABOUT THIS and made a comment as if I hadn’t been doing my job. To which the presenter jumped in and said that it wasn’t that there wasn’t content there, but nothing seemed that original but that the voice on that platform should be HIS not mine. And also added that Twitter in general just doesn’t work for law firms and further suggested that we just dump the profile all together. 

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve brought this up, suggested that, and provided information about “law” on Twitter. 

One of her projects was to create a timeline of when a prospective client received certain communications. PERFECT! This is what one of the systems that I put in helps with. In the past I worked out an entire timeline for this, I started making resources - I love this idea but….I was told it was a waste of time and to stop working on it. But again, she pitches it and he EATS.IT.UP. 

I was just like??? You wanna pay $5000 for them to come up with this but NOT make the content that we are actually sending out. IT’S DONE. I have already DONE THIS. Why don’t you pay me an extra $5000 for the plan that I’ve already completed and started working on. I’ll finish the content for an additional $5000. Deal? 

Like…..what the honest fuck?

I’m taking lunch right now and I’m going to calm down. Right now I don’t feel heard. I feel like all of my ideas are swept under the rug until someone that he feels is “valuable” regurgitates them. I feel as though he doesn’t value me in the way that he should and that I’m passed over. 

I’m trying very hard not to feel this way. I’m trying very hard to change the narrative in my head and come up with excuses that will allow me to let it go. He wasn’t ready then, I’m too ahead of him in thought processes etc. 

I’m trying to detach my personal worth from the situation. 

These things are sometimes harder than they seem.