Once again I drew the Knight of Wands. At first I wasn’t sure why but in retrospect some things have become clearer.

Today started out well enough. Hubby and I had breakfast together; I went to work and got a few things done. It was hot and sticky here in NYC but my office has AC so it was tolerable. I met Linda for lunch (which was totally unplanned and in retrospect, might not have been the best idea). We did have a nice lunch but at the afterwards she stopped into the office and say hello to folks. In the course of her wanderings she chatted with the accountant who used to oversee the food program when I managed it. This woman (who is leaving the agency next week) told Linda that my former supervisor (Linda’s successor) and our comptroller (who is now the unit head overseeing the Child Care & Nutrition Department) wanted the accountant to put in writing that I had screwed up the budget. The accountant refused because she said she would not lie. Apparently my new supervisor was working on my performance evaluation and wanted to document that I had screwed up the budget. This is pretty interesting because in the entire time I oversaw that program, I was never over budget. However that doesn’t mean that our comptroller or my supervisor hadn’t done some things with the budget (thing I didn’t know) and needed to cover their behinds. Or maybe they just wanted to discredit me. I really don’t know nor do I care.

On the plus side, no such charge has ever appeared in any evaluation I’ve seen. On the negative side, that doesn’t mean they haven’t made this charge verbally or made similar claims. And there isn’t a whole lot I can do about it. The accountant that told Linda is leaving the agency and her supervisor and my new supervisor have no great opinion of her. So they would try to blow it off as sour grapes.

What upsets me so much is that no one else sees this side of these people. The director of child care (my former supervisor) is a charming, friendly woman and most people think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Even if I tried to bring this up, most people would disbelieve it or thing I’m just trying to bad mouth her. She and the comptroller are viewed as moral, ethical, upright people. I seem to be the only one who sees this stuff. It’s ironic that this woman’s son works in the agency’s accounting department (she has denied this but I’ve gotten this information from very, very reliable sources) reporting to the comptroller. Now this might not be against agency policy, but it seems very shady to me that she regularly denies any relationship to this young man and that he reports to her supervisor. What’s the big deal if there is nothing wrong with it?

Then again, I have no evidence that they actually did anything and I have no reason to believe it has actually impacted me in any way. But it has so shaken my trust that it’s unnerving. I feel as though I can’t trust anyone here anymore. That makes me question why I’d want to stay here. There is such an unhealthy atmosphere that maybe I’m crazy for fighting so hard to stay.

And I think the Knight of Wands is telling me that I need to do something. But I think I need to plan carefully. Just like the girl on the Vanessa card who stands there with her parachute, I need a safety net of some type. So maybe now is the time to look for another job. But I don’t need to rush and I don’t need leave without having something else lined up. Just thinking about it makes me sad but I have to something. An agency that creates and allows this type of behavior (and believe me this is just the tip of the iceberg) is probably not one in which I need to invest my energy.