I have been working on being a duck at work. I have resolved to give my boss the benefit of the doubt. I have decided to take a longer view, assessing after 3 months, not day-by-day or week-by-week.

However, being a duck, it turns out, actually means becoming a doormat.

Where is that line between being gracious and ignoring disrespecting behavior and presenting yourself as the best place to wipe muck from your shoes?

I didn't see it. I was working so darned hard to be accommodating, to be helpful, to let her harsh words roll off my back. I juggled my objectives with her deliverables. I focused on her talents and kindnesses and ignored the distrust and belittling. I set my eyes on the future and hoped for change through perseverance and patience.

And yet...

Yet I am now wondering if that future has already been lost.

I know that so much of my words here of late have been of my struggles and my illnesses and my discouragement. I know that it sounds as if I could never be happy anywhere doing anything. I know that.

Yet I also know, from the feedback that I have recieved, that I am a creative, talented, multi-skilled, value-added employee. I know that I work hard and I work smart. I am crazy organized and incredibly efficient. I know that I can see the forest and the trees. I am as deft at strategic planning and development as I am at executing action plans or merely documenting, formatting, analyzing, recording. This is who I am and what I have to offer.

I put this out there quite bluntly. I shared my work. I asked my references to answer any and all questions as honestly as they could. I stated my goals and dreams and desires. I asked my own questions, carefully reviewed the job description, and checked out the organization. I believed to be where I should be.

While the latter is God's purview and one I trust even if I do not understand, I am teetering on a dangerous precipice because once more I find myself in an unhealthy situation with questionable practices around me. Not the organization. Not the staff as a whole. What the organization has done, what the founder accomplished is almost unbelieveable given that it is small and quiet in its work.

My boss eshews any attempts at strategic planning on my part. She calls my work, communications, bells and whistles, not anything that would contribute to the bottom line, nor bring revenue in the door. I know that is not true.

I know it.

Knowing, however, does not make enduring it much easier. By all rights I should go. However, financially I cannot. Professionally t'would be most difficult to explain such a short stay on a job even if I could find another one in such perilous economic times. And then there is THE question.

Would fleeing make me miss some lesson that God would have me to learn in this place He set in my path?

Someone accused me recently of never being happy, that it would not matter where I was, I would not be happy. The accusation still feels like a raw wound months later. Yet, as much as it may sound like denial, I reject that observation.

I don't believe that I need constant praise and adjulation--except for when I present an awfully perfectly wonderful gift that I just KNOW you will love--or copious amounts of recognition. I do know that it is my heart's desire to simply be allowed to use my skills to the best of my ability at a place where they might make a difference in this world. I know that I have stumbled from one negative situation to another, with a few moments along the way where I could work.

I have had wiser heads than mine bluntly state that I am intimidating and therein lies the crux of my inability to succeed. However, I also know in my heart of hearts that I have NEVER set out to be intimidating and would be rather hard pressed to apply that to myself. I frankly do not believe it. How could I?

If I were talented enough or skilled enough to be intimidating, would I not have bumbled and fumbled and stumbled through the past four years in particular?

I would like a thank you. I would like a job well done. I would like to be trusted. I would like to be free to actually work. I would like the freedom to speak. I would like to work on a team. I would like to serve. I would like to share. I would like to mentor. I would like to produce. I would like to earn my way. I would like to be me.

I am afraid, however, that it me that is not so welcome or wonderful or wanted.

Is all I am good for a doormat?