Saying Goodbye

I would really like to support this campaign, but I'm not sure I'm up to it.
http://www.sayinggoodbye.org/

Every time they tweet (@SayingGoodbyeUK) asking for retweets and support I feel a pang of guilt and scroll on. I have retweeted them once, but my twitter account is associated (indirectly) with my real me and my work officially still don't (and mustn't) know about my pregnancies and I'm not sure which friends know either.

I'm still worried about losing my job. Recently a colleague was promoted over me. He fucked it up and quit before he could be fired, and now I am left with cleaning up the mess. I'm pushing hard to be given the promotion, but they are coming up with every flimsy excuse they can and I don't want to give them a millimetre. It's worse because this is the second time this has happened in two years, but last time I was too broken from the first miscarriage to fight. If I give up now I can kiss my career goodbye.

I'm also struggling with a lot of people asking me if I have kids. I must finally be looking at that age. I don't want to have to answer questions sometimes, particularly not from acquaintances or strangers.

So I'm holding back from supporting this campaign. I want to help, but I don't think I'm up to doing anything in my own name. I wish I could think of something I could do anonymously.

Fed up

Ok, I'm drunk. I'm drunk because I have been "schmoozing" all night on behalf of a sexist company that treats me like shit. If I was prepared to drunk dial my boss I would say:
"either you value me much as [colleague who was just fired and who I vastly out perform] or you don't. If you do, pay me his salary and give me his promotion. If not, well, what the fuck am I doing." Me and my stupid standards and ethics. This is not a meritocracy, this is a sexist shithole.

Street Harassment

Ok, this isn't really related to the main themes of this blog, but I don't want to post under my real name as I don't want loved ones to worry unnecessarily.

Last night, while I was out jogging a car pulled over in front of me.  A man hopped out and asked me for directions.  While I was pulling up a map on my phone (he wasn't far from his destination, but it was a little hard to explain), he said:

Are you sure you need to lose weight?

I replied that I jog mostly for fun.  He went on:

Because you have a great arse.  Can I touch it?

Which he proceeded to  do, without waiting for a reply and forcing me to step away.  I tried to draw attention to the map and he pointed out that he had a huge erection. 

I said I had to get going because I had a long way left to jog, and took off, despite his protests that I stay.  He had clearly not paid any attention to the directions, because he caught up with me again a few blocks later (I'm trying not to think about what took him so long) and I pointed him down the street he needed without stopping.  He had already gotten out of his car again.

He turned down the right street this time and I changed my route a little so that I would be nowhere near his intended destination.  I haven't felt this disempowered for a long time (since the security guard for my office building was harassing me). I hate feeling this way, and part of me regrets not being more confrontational, but I genuinely feared for how he would react to that.  I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.  At least the adrenaline meant I managed a fairly fast pace.