My last 2 weeks have been a bit rough:
first there was an insurance issue I am still dealing with because my employer failed to submit relevant information on time. Payment will be effective only after employer submits correct information.
Then my employer claimed that someone had seen me using my cell phone while at work (theoretically, that’s not allowed, but everyone checks the time now and then, and normally it doesn’t affect the quality of the work). They claimed this happened eight weeks ago. I simply replied that I couldn’t remember anything like that.
This week I received a ticket from the transportation authority, where they claim I boarded a ship without a valid ticket, something I am appealing. I’ve never done this before but my friends are helping me. It's not so much about the amount as it is about the feeling of being trampled on. I even showed the employee a copy of my ticket I had on my phone with my whole name, address and price I paid, but he ignored it. I already sent my side of the story to the authority and I’m waiting for an answer.
The thought of being forced to pay for a ticket I paid and showed as a copy of weighs heavily on me. I know I shouldn’t give it more importance that it deserves, but they way that employee treated me, the employee ignoring me, my explanations and the copy I had on my phone gives me an eerie feeling of injustice, that something is broken. I’ve been using that boat for 5 years and never had such an issue before.
If you are more resilient than me, how? I feel lost and as much as I’d like to forget about it I flash back to it, I cannot concentrate and I’m not sleeping very well.
I'd like to be stronger but I'm not.
I've found that "sticking up for myself" is a less motivating reasoning than, "Stick it to the assholes that probably do this shit to others too." I can be passionate about helping victims very easily and help myself at the same time. The anxiety is predominantly caused by feeling wronged and like you're not worth the solution. It's extremely similar to depression, just with less perceived control. Similarly your self esteem is lowered and it can feed into the circle and spiral downward. If you position the actions against it as someone else's benefit then there is no self esteem required and the circle is broken... at least for me, someone with chronic depression and anxiety later in life.
Ask them how they got it wrong. Request a policy change that would address it. If it's public, foia their process on your ticket and resolution.
To be clear, I don't mean be a Karen, but more just to insist that it's a problem worth solving and that the solution should be making it impossible in the future, as broadly as possible.
As an example my car came back from an alignment/inspection and they only finger tightened all 20 lugnuts when they returned it. I called and refused to identify the employee or car, but requested a policy change to make that absolutely impossible to happen again. The manager was distraught and very serious, so I didn't want to ruin someone's life on something they could definitely learn to do better on. At the same time, someone else's life could be ruined. For my own solution I'd just check it before driving every time work is done in the future but that doesn't really help anyone else.