I can tell what mood you’re going to be in depending on what clothes you wear. This morning, sitting at your desk in a pencil skirt and jacket, you look the part. I wish I could tell you that sometimes it is enough to just look the part. That it is enough for someone to just do the best work they can. That you shouldn’t expect so much of both of us, but that would fall on deaf ears.
You have unrealistic ideas about what is achievable, and yet you have no confidence in me. I am the one that you force into the limelight on a daily basis. As you say, I’m “the face” of the business, I talk the talk. I smile, and make presentations through my quickening heartbeat. And while you know how much this scares me, you still push me to do more.
I admire you. After all, you set up your business alone, following a bereavement and the birth of a new baby. You have so much on your plate. I applaud your dedication, but I also question your choices.
Your determination has led me down a stressful and lonely path. The hours are unsociable, the work is never-ending, and the stress is unmanageable. I wish you realised how much I have had to isolate myself from friends and family for this job.
Your self-inflicted workload grows daily, as does your inability to complete one task at a time. Picking up the pieces of the jobs you’ve bitten chunks from falls to me, and I often spend my days cobbling together the half-done admin tasks, stories and sketches you got distracted from. I try my best to support you and reassure you that you can do this, that I’ll help you, but it’s so hard to watch you crush yourself with self-doubt. This journey is so much harder than you first realised, but we need to stick together.
It frustrates me that you’re so hard on me, when you know that you could be doing more. I am talented and hardworking, yet you often talk to me as if I am an idiot. You must be kinder to me, or I will give up on you.
In any other workplace, I wouldn’t put up with you, but I do – because you and I are one of the same.
Becoming your own boss isn’t just a professional challenge, it’s a personal one. As I shuffle downstairs to make you your third cup of tea of the day, I stare at your tired face in the hallway mirror. A good boss listens to her staff. Sometimes, I wish you would listen to me too.
- Would you like to write an anonymous letter to your boss for this series? Get in touch by emailing careers.desk@theguardian.com
