Alone and Betrayed...

I feel so alone and betrayed by someone I thought was a friend. I'm an introvert, someone who doesn't seek approval and doesn't seek to be the center of attention. I got fired from my last job, a victim of the Me-Too movement where if a female coworker makes up even a story that no matter how long you've been there and never been in trouble you might as well pack your things. This was 2021. A few days later I got a new job which came with a promotion and a raise. Thought I lucked out. Even got to open where I would be working, a small hotel. But the opening was a mess, staff was short and a mess and part timers mostly who cares more about themselves. My boss the hotel GM sold me a bill of goods in the interview and then didn't show me **. He'd leave me overwhelmed and leave at 6 every night. The word abuse was being used by others in how hard and how many hours he was working me.

I made a strategic decision. My father who's getting up in years could no longer live on his own. The Alzheimer's was leading him to hoarde, live in his own filth, his food was rotting in his refrigerator and the roaches were moving in. Other residents were finding him lost and helping him back to his apartment. I one time found a jug of ** and ** in the bathtub, I think he's starting to forget how to go to the bathroom properly.

So this job I had, it's called the Front Office Manager or FOM. It floats in days and times - week days and weekends and all hours. Not good if you're having to start caring for someone. I had applied for state aid years ago and the state doesn't give a ** about you... This new job of Accounting comes with a set schedule, M-F basically 8-5. So I take it and prepare to move my father into my house which is saying something cause I don't like the man.

Then everything changed. What I had been told about the job didn't or hasn't happened. I'm 50 with thirty years of hospitality experience and a high school kid could do what I do. But for my father I put up with it I'd decided. Except no sooner do intake the position then maybe a month later the State calls and says his benefits number has come up and they'll offer him a fully paid bed at a living center. We also hired my replacement, a hospitality college educated young girl whom everyone loves.

I had a fight with one of my bosses. She asked me if I still wanted the new job I had taken. I wanted to scream "NO" so badly but with my replacement, Kennedy (a woman), already hired and filling my job they're certainly not going to fire her. I felt as if there'd be no place for me and I'd be the one out of a job. So I make the best of it and see it as an opportunity not get off the front desk after three decades at one hotel or another. To work with management and not be treated like ** by hotel guests. To see it as an opportunity to learn new skills. At the very least to not work with coworkers young enough to be my children.

Kennedy and I work surprisingly well together. She's married and a new mom but she's beautiful. When she smiles it makes my day. When she pays attention to me it makes my day. When she peaks over the cubicle to ask for a favor I can't say no. I know nothing will ever happen and that's fine but I'm in love with her and wish for her to be mine.

I only want what's best for her. I've been there for her and I had thought we had become close friends. I'm single and alone, dad got a bed in a senior center got kicked out and went to live with my brother in Colorado. Our original GM whom no one cared for quit. How much of a friendship I had with Kennedy, she would call and we'd talk. She'd text and we'd text. I was always there for her. I even began picking up extra shifts where we are short people so she could go home to her baby and husband, her husband whim had already become dissatisfied with her working for us because of the stress and time affecting her. But if I could give her a little downtime I would, I'm single so I don't care and I want to help her.

I told her to take the GM position which the management company offered her AT 29 OF AGE but she said no because of her family. I get it, it's a decision she made for the sake of her family. But they just don't offer an entire hotel to a 29 year old. I told her to take the position and I'd back her. I always had her back and she admitted she knew. I thought she had mine. I thought we were really good friends. I guess not.

The new GM came on board. I happen not know him. Great guy. Everyone loves him and a world of difference compared to the original GM. I learn some of us are moving offices and I go to my friend the GM, Chris, and make my case not to move. I love where I work and the people I work with and don't want to move to some dusty corner somewhere. I lay it all out, how much I've sacrificed for the hotel. I even beg. Our talk goes well and I'm hoping he'll help me. We talk about Kennedy and why I help her as much as I do.

Then things start to run afoul for me with Kennedy. She got pregnant and had a miscarriage. I thought she handled it badly. We had a fight when I thought she was mistreating me and said something I probably shouldn't have. I later try and talk to her about it, she says we're good. That it's the stress of how hard she's working and trying to improve things (I sucked at it when I had been in the same position). But since then she's become distanced to me. She's moved desks, doesn't talk to me near as much. She used to call me outside of work to talk about work and other things and now doesn't. She used to call me or at least text on Saturday night when I was working overnight for her so she could be home with baby and husband and slowly that's stopped.

I asked her about it all today. That I wanted to learn skills from her and apologize for things if I needed to. She responded that she's too busy to really show me anything and doesn't do even herself that she feels she should. She doesn't know what my job fully is and so thusly can't show me skills. She's also starting a new supervisor under her with the intention to offload things to to make her life less stressful and that's her main goal now. And to get a second overnight person so I don't have to work it anymore. She told me that if she had had to work the overnight position she'd have already quit. Nice way to say thanks I guess when I told her why I work it for her, didn't come out and tell me she appreciates that I do this.

So I love on to my second topic. She's become distant and I apologize. She says I haven't done anything and that she's purposely distancing herself from work for the sake of her family. Her husband wants her out of this job already. That's how many hours she's away. She brings work home she says. She's stressed that she says her husband has remarked about a change in her attitude.

But I thought we were friends. You respond when a friend calls or text. I mean she's married, I'm polite about it and I respect her time outside of work so I'm not going to just call or text her without cause. But I miss my friend. I opened myself to making what I thought was a great new friend and she's now distancing herself from me. I'm not expecting more than friendship, but I am expecting her to be my friend, to pick up when I call or text back when I text. Instead I feel as if she's slammed the gates closed and it tears me up inside. It angers me rhet after having her best interest, having her back, being there whenever she needed a favor or actual help she does this to me. I'm not alone, she has a boundary between her work life and her home life but I thought I had the friendship that would lead her to responding when I reached out. I guess not. I guess I was more friend to her then she was to me. I feel like a sucker for all the times I worked for her so I could give her time with her family. I feel as if I've gotten nothing. I feel betrayed. I feel as if she's just a regular work friend, someone you only think about M-F. I feel as if, despite what she says, that our friendship is at an end. I can only hope it isn't but I can't help but feel it is.

I'm an introvert. I'm tired of being alone. I do the same thing everyday, go to work and come home to an empty house. I've decided to try and myself out there more. To try and make a new friend and thought I had. I guess I should've known better.

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