You Said Gratitude, So Gratitude It Is!

YOU SAID GRATITUDE, SO GRATITUDE IT IS!

I looked across the desk at the woman perusing the file in front of her.  My file. She lightly tapped her pen on the desktop as she read, the occasional “hmmm” filling the quiet of the room. 

Finally, after about a year of sitting there waiting, she looked up at me.

“Well, Catherine, it seems that you have a bit of a problem with anger,” she said.

I remained silent.

She tilted her head ever-so slightly, looking at me over the top of her stupid half-glasses—the school-marm/librarian vibe almost wafting off her. That was one hundred percent Dr. Williams’s persona.

“Do you have any comment?”

I looked at her.  

Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

“You didn’t ask me a question. You used a declarative statement about me and my anger issues. How should I reply to that?”

She sighed the sigh of someone questioning her choice of careers.

“Why, Catherine, are you so contrary with everyone you come in contact with?” She paused, and looked pointedly at me. “That, just to clarify, is an actual question.”

Crossing my arms across my chest, I sat back in my chair. “Who knows?” I said. “Maybe stupid people make me angry.”

She lifted one delicate eyebrow. “Are you saying that I’m stupid?”

“No, not at all,” I said. “You were just imprecise in your phraseology.”

Okay, okay, okay, I’m a bitch, I get it. It’s what makes me successful. Take no prisoners, and all that. But I also knew I shouldn’t be taking out my frustration on Dr. Williams. She was, after all, trying to help me keep my job.

But did I want said job? That was the question. Did I want to continue working for and with people who obviously did not respect me, nor value my contribution to the firm.

“Tell me about what happened at work on Tuesday.”

I sighed. Ah, Tuesday, two days ago. A lifetime away.

“Fine,” I said, and sighed again. “I have been on the partner tract for two years, now. It was decided at a partners’ meeting in 2022. You know, just keep up the good work, Catherine, keep piling up those billable hours, Catherine, grow the client list, Catherine, win your cases Catherine, and I’d be a shoe-in. And I have been doing exactly that. My performance reviews have been stellar. One of the senior partners, Jack Rivers, even told me that it was a done deal, that the partnership was mine.”  

I looked up at the ceiling, then over to Dr. Williams. She was taking notes.

“Then on Tuesday, Rivers, came into my office and told me that unfortunately, I was not going to make partner this cycle, but that they would consider me again the next time they put forth names for partnership. I was devastated. I’d worked so hard! When I asked who got the partner position, I was shocked to find out it was Jack’s nephew, Brad, who is only a year out of law school, and has yet to land a single client. I went from devastated to furious. And I lost it. There was some name-calling, and yelling on my part. For his part, Jack gave me a lot of ‘this is not how we expect a professional to act’ bullshit. Before I could quit, he sent me home.  

Dr. Willams stopped and looked at me. “And?”she said.

“I may have inferred a legal recourse could be forthcoming.”

“You threatened your company with a lawsuit?” Dr. Williams asked, checking her notes.

“The possibility of a me winning a wrongful termination lawsuit against them is extremely high—it’s my area of expertise, and they know that I am a very competent employment lawyer. It's why they hired me in the first place. As well, I have some pretty big clients with pretty deep pockets who may chose to follow me if I leave the firm. Great for me, not so good for them.”

“So, you have them cornered, legally and financially speaking?”

Correct,” I said. “Rivers told me that it wasn’t personal, that it was just business.  I called bullshit on that, too. It was nepotism.””

“I see. What did—” she looked at her notes. “—Jack Rivers say when you shared your belief regarding the new partner, his nephew?”

“His solution for my displeasure is a week of paid leave, and a couple of visits here.”

“And what do you feel that will accomplish?”

“Nothing bad for them. A world of bad for me.” I looked out the window, then back at Dr. Williams. “They’ll start taking my accounts away from me, then my performance reviews will reflect the fact that my output has declined, and eventually—probably within six months—I’ll be terminated.”

“Hmmm,” she said, writing on her notepad.

Dr. Williams and I are old friends. Not really, but she’s the company therapist for our twice annually, mandatory mental health sessions. She has always been the therapist in the group sessions, so we are familiar with each other.

“Well, Catherine, how do you feel, right now, at this point in time?”

“Well,” I said. “As you can tell, I’m pissed.”

“Can you explain?”

“Certainly.” I lifted my hand, and started ticking points off on my fingers. “First, Brad, the new partner, is definitely a nepo baby hire—he wouldn’t be a partner if his uncle wasn’t already a senior partner. So the injustice of that pisses me off. Second, less than ten percent of partners are women. So, there’s the old boys’ network at work here. We’ve have six women leave the firm in the last three years because of its unwillingness to promote women, even when they do a stellar job that benefits the firm. That pisses me off. And, third, I was treated poorly, and deceptively. The inequity pisses me off.”

Dr. Williams “hmmm”ed and continued writing on her notepad.

We sat there in silence as she finished up with her notes. 

My cat takes notes faster than she does, I thought.

Finally, she set down her pen, folded her hands over the writing pad, and looked up at me.

“Well, Catherine, I can see how you could feel aggrieved. You feel that the firm has let you down, and betrayed your trust. You’re frustrated and angry.”

She looked at me.

I looked back at her.

We waited.

Finally, after a big sigh, she said, “Do you agree?”

Instead of the sarcastic retort brewing in my mind, I said, “More or less, yes.”

“You’re feeling undervalued and under appreciated.”

“Is that a question, or do you just need a confirmation?”

She just looked at me, shaking her head slightly.

“Fine,” I said. “You are correct.”

“Knowing that working under conditions where a person doesn’t feel valued can erode their self-worth, I am suggesting that you start writing a gratitude journal.” She stopped and looked at me. I looked back, my face a mask. “Do you know what a gratitude journal is, Catherine?”

No, I’m an idiot, I thought, but kept that comment to myself. But I was beginning to get angry at her. Why was this woman treating me like an imbecile?

I rolled my eyes. “Dr Williams, please—”

“I only ask so that there is no misunderstanding about what the task is going to be."

“Fine, explain,” I said, resigning myself to the fact she was going to “doctor-splain” it to me.

“Well,” she started, not seeing me roll my eyes again, “the purpose of a gratitude journal is to write down everything that makes you feel gratitude in your day. It could be as simple as nice weather, to more complicated such as overcoming an obstacle in your life. Like work in this case.”

I nodded, saying nothing, but hating every minute of this conversation. Feelings. Yuck. I hate talking about them. I’m sure I was going to hate writing about them even more.

She handed me a paper. “These are the five steps you should follow to ensure that you are successful in creating your gratitude journal. Also, just a reminder, you need to make daily entries.”

“Got it,” I said out loud but silently questioning why my therapist was making me journal. I’m a grown-ass woman who didn’t want to journal. I didn’t journal when I was a ‘tween—I was pretty sure I didn't want to start now.

“I’d like to see you in one week, with your journal. We can also discuss how your return to work went.

I walked out of the office, to my car and headed home. Once inside, I made myself a cup of tea—if it hadn’t been just after ten in the morning, I may have considered a stronger beverage, but day drinking is the worst.

I settled in, sitting at the breakfast bar, with my tea close at hand, and I opened the list Dr. Williams had given me.—Five Steps to Creating a Successful Gratitude Journal was written at the top I read the steps aloud to Henry, my cat.

“One, chose to make the journal your own.  Two, be consistent—write at the same time, at the same place every day.  Three, write at least three to five things daily that you are grateful for. Four, be as specific as you can. Five, turn negatives into positives.”

I put the paper down.  

God I hate homework.

I looked at the bottom of the page. Dr. Williams had written in her flowiing cursive script: Start today. The sooner you start, the better!

I understood that journaling my gratitude was supposed to change my mindset, but really? How does I saw a cute puppy today negate I was screwed over at my job?

Sighing, I opened my phone’s note-taking app. Electronic was the way to go for me. A little notebook and pen seemed so … so … either middle school or old lady. I wasn’t sure which, but it wasn’t me. And, I was supposed to make it my own, so make it my own, I would.

As it turned out, it wasn’t as hard or as intrusive a process as I thought it would be. In fact, on a number of days, I found that I experienced more than five things that I was grateful for. When I returned to Dr. Williams’s office, I was definitely feeling lighter, happier.

“Well,” she said, “You’re looking chipper! How did your return to work go?”

I smiled. “Better than expected.”

“Good. Good. And you’ve come to an agreement with your senior partners?”

“I have,” I said. “I quit. But, I have a new position at a competing firm. I start in a week.”

Dr. Williams blinked rapidly a couple of times. “Oh! That was unexpected,” she stammered.

I shrugged. “Was it, though? I told you that they would have fired me within six months, anyways. So why go through the stress and frustration? Instead, I was proactive. Being in charge of my own destiny, blah, blah blah. Plus, I didn’t want to give them the opportunity to ruin my reputation in the legal community.” I paused, and smiled at Dr. Williams. “I want to tell you, though, I really think that the gratitude journal was very helpful. It forced me to find the good things when everything was kinda bleak.”  

I smiled again.

“I’m so glad to hear you say that, Catherine,” she said returning my smile. “Speaking of your gratitude journal, why don’t we go over what you’ve written?”

“Sure,” I said, handing her a couple of sheets of paper stapled together in the upper left-hand corner. “I did it on my phone, and printed out a copy for you.”

I opened up my notes app, and waited while Dr. Williams read over the last seven days of of my journal.

Every couple of seconds, she’d look at me over the rim of her half glasses, saying nothing, her brow furrowing deeper with each pause. Finally, after five minutes of reading, she took off her glasses and looked at me. “Are you serious? Is this the truth?”

I smiled. “Yes.”

“But … this is not what I had in mind.”

“Really?” I said innocently. “Because I followed the rules, and this—” I pointed towards the papers she was holding, “is where I found gratitude.”

She blinked again. “But … but …” She looked down at the papers in front of her. “Catherine …”

“I know,” I said nodding my head. “But I feel so much lighter. I think this has been very good for me.” I cocked my head to the side. “Any questions?”

Dr. Williams looked at the papers then back at me.  

“Catherine,” she started. “A gratitude journal is not for vengeance.”

I smiled. “Why not?”

“Because—”

“Look, the list you gave me decreed that step five was turn negatives into positives. So I did. And I was grateful for the opportunity to do so.”

“But—”

“It’s not nice, I get it. And illegal, to boot. But if there was ever a reason to slash someone’s tires, it was because Brad got my job.” I held up my hand, to prevent her from interrupting. “I’m not jealous of Brad, not anymore. I did what I did because he didn’t make partner on merit. It wasn’t because of what he knew, but because of who he knew. And that is blatantly unfair to me and all the other associates who work hard. Besides, he can afford a new set, now that he’s making a partner’s salary.” My smile returned. “I’m grateful that I was able to use the letter opener from the engraved desk set the firm gave everyone last Christmas, to slash his tires. Who knew that sucker was so sharp?”

“But—”

“And, seriously, I know a flaming bag of poop is childish. But effective. I stood around and watched, you know, when Rivers answered the door? It was fantastic, the look on his face! I’m pretty sure it was the same look I had on my face when he told me I wouldn’t be getting the partnership. He was angry, then disgusted when he stomped out the flames and the poop exploded out of the bag. That night I was grateful for the opportunity to use the video function on the phone the company gifted me with so that they could be reach me at their whim, twenty-four/seven.”

Dr. Willams said nothing, just looked at me.

I smiled at her. “I also keyed his car, using the key to the executive washroom. I was grateful to be able to liberate from his keyring and use it in such a unique and unexpected way.”

She looked shocked, but tried to hide it. “And the files?” she squeaked. “What about the files?”

“Ah, the files.” I said. “I left all of my files at the office, on the server. But yes, I did encrypt them all. Separate encryption for each file. I’m grateful that the company sent me on a computer course which included an elective course on encryption.” I looked up at her, smiling. “It’s easier than you think. Do you want me to teach you?”

Dr. Williams shook her head no. Then looked from the gratitude journal back to me.

“Catherine, you’ve clearly misconstrued the intended point of writing a gratitude journal. It was meant to help you change your mindset—to help you regain your mental equilibrium after the setback you experienced at work.”

I nodded emphatically. “And it has! I feel so much better now, compared to a week ago. I feel liberated. Being petty is gratifying. It makes me feel lighter, happier, empowered.”

I sat smiling at Dr. Williams. The silence was slowly shattered by the keening of an approaching firetruck, getting louder and louder. It was joined by another and another. Dr. Williams looked towards the window, towards the din.

I stood, walked over to the window, and looked out. Dr. Williams joined me. We watched the firetrucks—three pumpers and two ladder trucks—speed past, lights flashing, sirens blaring, moving towards a plume of black smoke filling the sky.

I looked back at Dr. Williams.

“Did I tell you that at the last Christmas party, the firm had matchbooks on the table with the company name imprinted on them? At the time I wondered why—you know, there aren’t that many smokers any more, right? But I took a couple books home." I smiled. "You can never tell when you’re going to need to start a fire.”

I turned, grabbed my gratitude journal off of the desk, and left the office.