Your force of character and personality together with your knowledge and empathy had left me with my self-esteem rebuilt
Dear Sam,
as you may recall, I had only just began my ‘career counselling at Advantage Tech in the last weeks of 1998, when I was offered another position with TCPL, chose to take it, and thereby ended my attendance at your office.
In retrospect, let me offer a summary of events leading up to my attendance at Advantage Tech in November, 1998. I believe I have the right to say that for the time between June 1, 1998 when the person I was hired to work for departed TCPL, and November 15, 1998 which was the date I was placed in the company’s ET&C program [a 6-week transition eriod preceding a final layoff date] and arrived in your office, I had been subjected to a high degree of deliberate emotional stress [read ‘warfare’], which had left me with serious feelings of inadequacy, abandonment, victimization and neglect.
I can’t explain how, but, by the first part of December, 1998 your force of character and personality together with your knowledge and empathy had left me with my self-esteem rebuilt to the point where pride in my accomplishments, experience, age and capabilities was restored, and my ability to stand up for myself and believe I was worthy of my own care and effort was reconstructed better than it had been in ages! I still have in my possession examples of resumes, a glossary of words and my notes from my meetings with you, and looking over this documentation brings back the feeling of safety, which is how I felt after attending at your office.
To me, Safety is a term which means that I have a champion; that there is someone who will back me up when I attempt to take a risk, someone who will give me encouragement and optimism, someone who will listen to my interpretation of reality, and be pragmatic and speak clearly and succinctly of their own viewpoint without minimizing my own. For someone like myself, who doesn’t know how to play office political games and doesn’t even recognize when a game is in progress until catastrophe strikes, safety has a very special meaning as well as great value. You personally gave me an immense feeling of safety, which in turn gave me the courage to pick myself up, dust myself off and get back on the merry-go-round.
A little over a year has gone by since we last met, and I’ve been remiss in not writing to you sooner to express my gratitude for the great job you did for me. Thank you so very much, Sam.
Marnie Cleary