Confessions of a libra

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04.09.25

Writing is my liberation. I write to dream, to transmute and to be a record-keeper. The modern Priestess-Scribe if you will. I am at a threshold, as I am in my Saturn Return in Aries in the 6th house. Right now, my main focus is personal agency, and inspired action surrounding my daily routines. I am also dealing with health issues, as you are aware I had knee surgery in April this year, and I am still recovering and going to physio. I am however, now starting to have my body revolt.

My body recognises, when I have been worked to the bone with little reward. Little reward for my insights, my capabilities, my output and when sabotage has become commonplace. My body has been shutting down since last week. As my physio confirmed, I have quite a unique ability to be in communion with my body. I help health practitioners assist me, because I am fluent in my body. That’s something that I have had to be due to my depression, anxiety and the stress I have acquired working for other people.

As a life path 1, my goal in this life is to pave the way. To start my own thing, something unique and something that lets others know that they can do it too. I told you I recently got initiated at the end of last month. My life is ramping up. As such, let me go back in time, carrying on from the post Oracle In The System – let’s explore some more of my work history and professional observations. Post the postal service, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and in rapid succession moved through a few short assignments. With each new job, I changed strategies on what to prioritise. The first place I got accepted was a Construction company.

I was feeling nostalgic on working with tradies and being a Dispatcher. It didn’t work for me, I may have lasted 3 weeks. The lady who hired me was a person of colour, and though women were the minority in the company – it made me feel at ease. The things that facilitated my exit were, firstly the Director had a nude calendar in his office, which I found reprehensible. The Director as well had an odd conversation in the kitchen with me. He asked me where I was from I said Sunshine. He wanted to know where I was from ‘originally’, the typical prejudice preamble. I told him and he said something along the lines of, ‘My ancestors were Vikings. So we raped and pillaged all over the place’. I genuinely did not know what to say to that.

The woman I was taking over from was pregnant. She was nice enough to tell me some of the other things happening beneath the surface, and I wasn’t being paid what she was being paid. I decided to leave. I was working on being in my spiritual bag so mid-looking for a new job, I remember I saw something on Seek about working for the government as a part of one of the social services program. I won’t say which one, but I will describe what made me leave that role after 3 months. I saw the high pay, the role was through a Recruitment Agency and in the shower I asked my ancestors for that specific job. This was the job that taught me not only that magick is real, that my ancestors listen – but it taught me to be careful what you ask for.

The training was lovely and extensive, I felt really prepared to start the role. I felt like I was learning something and in the training itself, I learnt that I technically counted as being homeless. I had never thought about the definition, but I had several different addresses I had lived at, and the place I was living with my friend – I knew wasn’t mine to stay. I wasn’t talking to my mother so I was unwilling to go back. Once the work started, it was the postal service all over again. I thought I would handle it better being a couple of years older. People were calling and advising they had debt with the social service but may be unable to pay it for a multitude of reasons.

I had a lady cry because her daughter wanted to go to Formal (Our version of Prom), and she was worried she couldn’t facilitate that for her daughter. People were in dire straits. There were times I genuinely felt helpful, and others were I felt that I was pawning them off. The training was great, the systems were archaic. I wasn’t sure we were doing this in the most efficient way possible, which was a frustration for everyone on the phones. We worked 9 hour days, filled with disgruntled and overwhelmed general public.

I realised that while I was chasing money – reminding myself of where I started in corporate around 19 – my values extend far beyond that. I also didn’t like my ability to move from my present position, and move up within the company – so I left that job as well. I didn’t like the movement, but I respected that I was using incoming data and pivoting as necessary. One thing I wasn’t taking into account at that time, is the wage I was chasing, still wasn’t high enough for the emotional labour of a job like that. The economy wasn’t getting better, it was getting worse. Rents were rising but wages were stagnating. I wanted to watch my pay climb with age and career and I was unable to replicate that. After this last job I decided, all I wanted in a new job was peace and ease.

Next engagement was with an online blinds company. They genuinely paid way less than I was earning as a government contractor and Dispatcher. However, I couldn’t see how this job could be any worse. I aced the interview and was accepted the same day as the interview. This is a pretty normal experience for me. I loved learning something new and technical. As usual I made myself useful. Starting purely on the phone then slowly learning more and more about our products. I was moved into the Admin Team, firing off a pretty high output of emails – with excellent customer service. I loved it.

The Director of this company trained me on how to trim and do minor blind repairs. The actual workshop was in Vietnam, but it was unfeasible and not great business to have to wait so long for minor repairs. I liked this strategy and I took to it. Me and a Māori woman co-worker became the all-rounders. We primarily did admin, but could be utilised on the phones. We were the only ones who were trained on blind repairs. I felt useful. There was this one White co-worker, as they always is. She was a gothic Gemini girl – someone obsessed with finding worth in being skinny – and she didn’t like me.

She never liked me since I started. Well at some point, she leaves in a pretty dramatic way. A way I thought had burnt any bridges. She was never professional about her dislike of me. I felt that she was unable to regulate her own emotions and would get overwhelmed easily. Especially when she actually had to take responsibility over something. They treated her with kid gloves, I knew they would never treat me with. I did plenty of overtime, purely to be a helpful team-member. I was invested in the business because, while I wasn’t earning much – I had been forced to move back home (through a tarot reading from spirit) – this job was much, much better than the work stress of my last few assignments.

The gothic Gemini came back to work one day. I saw her go into some offices and leave. Well, wouldn’t you know it, I get pulled into a meeting. They said, the reason she had left is because she had cancer in her leg. She couldn’t handle the stress of such health news and that’s why she left under those circumstances. They then said she wants to come back, which they had approved – but she said she did not have the capacity to stay on the phones. So of course, they came to the Black woman, to ask her to give up her seat for the person who had essentially socially and emotionally iced her out.

Firstly, this cancer news didn’t acknowledge that she always had an attitude and selective good behaviour depending on who in the company she was speaking to. They specifically asked me and I immediately felt pressured. They told me about her health news not for my compassion, but for emotional manipulation. I did a cost-benefit analysis and realised that with her being the wounded White woman, if I said no to leaving the admin team to go back on phones – what would the rest of my days at this workplace look like? How would that be spun against me? That’s the joy of being Black in a world that feels like you’re the gum on the bottom of the shoe. Your inconvenience is expected.

So I agreed, then and there. It was very quick decision-making. I was back on the phones. I was taking a high volume of calls so I cooled it a little because they were not demanding the same output from everyone. One older lady was friends with the Director, and had her daughter employed a Pisces girl my age. Her intellect was no match for mine, nor were her leadership skills but she was fast-tracked into being a team leader. That older lady was allowed to get away with maybe half the calls I took, because she would speak to clients like friends. I could build rapport and be efficient – but that became expected instead of it raising the standard.

I’m not sure if employers don’t think we see these things. I’m not sure if White people are blind to their blatant prejudice that comes out in how they don’t hold the same standards across the board. As this place expanded, the office was not large enough. Eventually my desk was a few paces away from a toilet (it wasn’t just me), and there was a small kitchen right behind the toilet. The African in me was offended. On days and times people needed to understandably do a number 2, even if they sprayed the toilet, the amount of people in a day – it would affect my nose. I didn’t want to have to think about the toilet, all hours of my shift. That was the second offensive things.

The more we grew, the more the Director wanted to give me more responsibility because he knew I was competent. I started being vocal about my want to enter the leadership team. I was outdoing a lot of staff in many factors, it was odd I wasn’t being promoted. Though now that I’m nearly 29, it’s not odd at all in my experiences in this country. I could be a prodigy and I would never get the recognition I deserve, working for someone else. I finally got a timeframe. I was told I would be promoted around September. This was around COVID, and we had maintained great operations with all the restrictive lockdowns that Melbourne went through. September came and went. I waited and I watched. I refused to bring it up again, like I was begging. Like they forgot.

I stopped doing overtime. I stopped being overly chirpy. I started treating the job not like a reciprocal space, but like a joy-sucking job. The Director pulled me in, saying that he thought I was going to leave. He complained that staff like the goth girl, were mentioning me walk in without smiling. Or not going out of my way to say hi to people first. I didn’t see how that had anything to do with my work. I was producing his KPI’s. Yet what he didn’t know and will never believe is, I was sitting on the fence. I hadn’t decided to leave yet. But after that conversation where he said he just FELT like I was going to leave (mind you he was a Gemini too, you know I ask everyone) – I suddenly thought, why haven’t I left? What was I waiting for? I have him extra months.

I started looking and within a couple of weeks handed in my resignation. I’ve never seen a man turn so red. He was annoyed, embarrassed and in my mind – realising he was going to lose his best worker. He said, you told me you weren’t going to leave a couple of weeks ago. I honestly replied that I wasn’t going to. That conversation was what led to the decision. He couldn’t bare it. He told me he will pay out my notice if I pack up my things immediately and leave. I assume it was his inability to regulate his emotions or intended as a humiliation ritual. I didn’t care. Someone in dispatch gave me a box, I packed up my things and left through the Showroom where my other colleagues were. I said I resigned and was asked to leave so I’m going. Everyone looks shocked and worried. We said our goodbyes and that was the last time we ever saw each other again.

I moved from this job to work for an NDIS supported Disability Support company. This was another short adventure, where one of my exes’ closest friends was unknowingly awaiting me. This I will tell you about another time. When I left that blinds company, I remember the uber drive home like it was yesterday. I was looking out the window cinematically, and a wide Cheshire cat-smile spread over my face. I cackled. It was over. What that man thought, I assume is that I would beg for the job. That I would feel bad. That I would go out there into the world, try something else and come back with my tail between my legs. Instead he freed me of slavery.

I was working for peanuts. Putting my best foot forward. Making him money. There were clients who refused to deal with anyone else. I was excellent at my job and I knew that. I wanted him to keep the goth girl he chose over me. I would have wished her well, if she’d never approached me as an enemy. I’m not sure if this is a Western concept but illness – whether terminal or chronic – is not an excuse to mistreat people. It is a decision. Choosing to always see the best out of White women is a privilege for them, but it is hell for the rest of us who never get that level of consideration. If me and a White woman both were crying, people would take her side over mine. That’s the world we live in. So, meritocracy? Non-existent.

The Australian work-culture is full of nepotism, favouritism and contradictory behaviour. Managers make self-serving decisions, that don’t actually align with the goals of the company. They say they want high output, but it depends who from. Who they feel is deserving to have good, chill work days and who deserves to work themselves to the bone. While it’s all well and good that slavery is no longer legal, the Australian corporate environment carries very heavy colonial behaviour. This is why I have always been honest that my end-goal is to be my own boss. Create my own work environment that bypasses all of this veiled racism, in favour of actually caring about the work at hand.

Every business has benefitted not just from my capability but my high-capacity and pattern recognition. But I’ve outgrown the need for a pat on the back. I hope other people of colour, whether in Australia or other Western countries – know that they are not alone in their experiences. There are more of us out there, seeing things exactly as they are. We were made to call out the rot, and we do so proudly. May your career be blessed, may your skills be recognised and may we raise the standards for the collective. Asé.