I did not have command support.
Instead, when the 10 percent complained that I was mean or that I rolled my eyes, my boss decided to fire me.
At no point did he offer any mentoring, counseling, or even spoken delivery of what he expected or of what I had done wrong. How on Earth could rolling my eyes be more egregious than the recruit abuse that had gone unchecked prior to my tenure? How could it be more egregious for me to lay out a commander for not training her Marines than for me to enable drill instructors who couldn't perform their jobs? Under my leadership, morale was up, disciplinary issues were down, and recruits were treated better. But my boss told me that I was too aggressive, that I was too blunt, that I didn't listen, that I went over his head, and that I disobeyed his orders.
I didn't understand. He had never talked to me about any of those issues. I had gotten his permission to carry out the very orders he said I didn't follow. It made no sense. Being a commanding officer and not knowing where you stand with your boss is the worst possible place to be, because you never know what his expectations are.
I had thought, going in, “I'm going to be happy all of the time. I'm going to smile all of the time. I'm never going to call people in and yell at them. I'm never going to use foul language”—which, by the way, isn't the easiest thing for a Marine to do. But, I figured, “You know what? If the drill instructors aren't allowed to use foul language with the recruits, then I'm not going to use foul language with the drill instructors or my company staff. I don't want them to think it's okay for me to do it but not for them to do it.”
So, even though I had never thought of myself as abrasive, I was still working to change other people's perceptions of me for the better. I feel like I was successful; but I hated it! I didn't feel like I was mean to begin with. I didn't feel like I should smile unless I was happy. I mean, I'm fine with toning down my language and not yelling, but even that wasn't enough. I had to contort my countenance to combat “resting bitch face.” I feel like I'm a pretty happy person. I love to joke. I love to have a good time. But I had people—men—at Parris Island tell me, “You should smile more. You should be nicer.” (You have probably experienced this, too, if you're a woman.) I was like, “Are you effin’ kidding me? I'm here doing my job. We're seeing results, but you're telling me I need to be nicer?”
When was the last time you heard someone tell a male Marine he needed to smile more? Or a man, period?
As things got worse after several months at Fourth Battalion, I sent an email to the sergeant major of the depot—a woman. I said, “Hey, look. I need your help. I need to know what you see. Am I doing something wrong?” And she wrote back: “Don't worry. We see it, too.” This is what I had heard from the commanding general, too: “We know what's happening. Keep doing what you're doing.” I started thinking, “I just need to get through this.”
Those days—those months and months of days—were like a bad dream. I'd wake up in the morning and think, “Wait. The system's going to work.”
Instead, it got so bad that I asked that a mediator be present every time I had to work with my boss. But nothing happened. Instead of looking into my concerns, my senior leadership appointed an investigating officer to look into me as a leader.
After I had asked that a mediator be present, my boss gave me my annual job review. In the Marine Corps, we call that a “fitness report.”
My boss began my fitness-report counseling with: “I've been giving you enough rope to hang yourself.”
While I had been working to mentor my Marines and improve my recruits, my boss had been giving me enough rope to hang myself.
Isn't that uplifting?
He had never talked to me about how to improve or what I had done wrong. He didn't offer suggestions. He didn't once come to visit my battalion and sit in on a training session. Instead, when he realized I wasn't going to hang myself with his rope, he pulled out the chair from beneath my feet.
In this meeting, he told me he had ranked me last, not only of all the battalion commanders at the recruit depot, but of all lieutenant colonels with whom he had ever worked.
Ranked me last.
None of our achievements mattered, even though they were historic for the Marine Corps.
Nothing mattered.
After that meeting, everything felt gray. I drove home from Parris Island to my bottom-floor apartment in a crazy, pink historic home. After all of our hard work and success—which was achieved despite resistance, criticism, and undermining—I was hit with the worst possible ranking.
I just wanted to be done.
I was thinking really dark thoughts.
I could end it.
Here's the thing: I'm a Marine, through and through. That's my identity. I'm so proud of the people with whom I work. My pals are Marines. There's some bad-assery that comes with being a Marine, especially with being a female Marine, and I had enjoyed that cachet for almost twenty years. I loved my Corps.
Ranked me last.
My career was in a shambles.
That meant my self—my core identity—had been decimated.
But as I pulled into my driveway, Mr. Fitzwizzle popped up and leaned on the windowsill. He looked at me, and he meowed.
“Oooh,” I thought. “Someone has to feed the cat.”
He's a great cat.
Not to put him second,
