OK, lets see, yesterday, ah yes..
I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep, so got in work an hour early as well. Not many in at that time - 6:30ish but the place soon filled up.
At 9am I went up to the board room to find the site managers there with HR, so in I go (Butterflies in my stomach were more like the size of pterodactyls...).
HR had already done the company bit to the managers, so it was timed perfectly. Everyone welcomed me by my name and properly gendered me all through the meeting. I read out the personal letter I had created for the site brief to them (I wanted this as the HR stuff was quite formal feeling and this is such a personal issue it needed something personal to show its true nature) and they started asking questions, interjected with comment about how they may not understand how I felt but also how the hell I had coped with this all these years. I explained the internalising I had done, my upbringing and that on a few occasions the whole thing had got unbearable, but without too much details. They were most respectful and genuinely concerned. There followed lots of other questions and comments from them, like how they had not seen anything, to which I responded that was not surprising as I avoided anything that may have outed me in the past, skirted or changed conversations and anyway I had been doing it for so very long I should be good at hiding by now.
Lots of polite questions around my progress, hopes for the future and these were all received well I think.
We discussed next steps for the Company and then I left. Simple as that, 30 mins tops. So I went and got my stuff and went home to work there until I next go in on the 18th.
After a few minutes it really sunk in and I started to smile, inside and out.
Well I had done it and a lifetime of waiting and fearing and such junk started to fall away. Brilliant.
Logging into the work IT systems from home, I already had a couple of emails offering support and help if I needed it, congratulations from HR and personal messages from many of the site managers.
The site managers in the meantime had had a meeting with their reports and had started to roll out the briefing about me, and it had been taken really well by everyone it seems, many linking it with bouts of depression and such like that I have had over the last few years. People had also declared that they would ensure that my starting at work would be fully supported and that they would ensure I was helped my until I got acclimatised into my role at work.
During the rest of the day I received several phone calls updating me on feedback around work, all positive, and loads of emails wishing me luck on my journey as the like.
It will take a couple of days to brief the whole site, sister sites in Sweden and Italy that I work a lot with and also 2 sites in India that do a lot of Engineering for me.
So its a bit of a semi-global coming out I think (not certain if the Canadian sites will get it, but the German and French ones will have it focussed on those with whom I work directly). It seems to be working well, and HR want to use the briefing and process as a standard for the future.
So, Im taken aback by the level of offered support and good wishes I have received, I know there will be dissenters and suchlike but who cares about them.
So that's me done now it seems.
This afternoon, Im of for ear piercing, laser and then maybe a meal out with a couple of girls, but last one is in doubt as I have developed a real bad cold over night. Its like the ones I get for a couple of days at the start of holidays. Maybe the loss of stress causes it.
As ever, Take care
Luv n Hugz
Katie
