Bluefox, sometimes I tell stories about myself to give people a way to back out. (Sometimes I tell them just because I think I'm so much more interesting than anyone else.
) I'll give you a story about me and let you or anyone else dissect it so that you can stop talking about you:
Earlier today I saw a friend of mine, who told me that his daughter (let's call her Anne) was working at a new job. This was interesting to me because she was recently working for a company that employed me at the end of last year (we'll call it Acme Anvil Maintenance, just for funn.)
I said, "Oh, so she's not working at Acme now?"
He paused and said, "No...she's not." I smiled and waited. He smiled and said, "It didn't work out with Mr. Acme, but I guess you knew it probably wouldn't."
I still smiled and said, "I tell people I couldn't work out the scheduling with Mr. Acme."
He just smiled back and said, "That's probably the best way to handle it." We changed the subject.
As I drove home, I felt bad that I didn't warn Anne about what had happened with me at Acme. From what her father DIDN'T say to me, I wondered if by telling her I could have saved her 7 months of frustration. I could have raised a stink and scared her off.
For that matter, I could have raised a stink because my brief employment there caused
me some serious monetary damages. I put my own company out of business and sold my truck to work for that guy. I even sold off my clients to him. They came back to me in the end, but I never told them anything more than "I couldn't work out the scheduling with Acme." The ones who had dealt with him would smile and nod like Anne's father--they knew that there was more to the story, but that there was no need to discuss it.
To this day, only a few people outside the situation know any of the gory details. (My family and two BFFs.) A couple of others have asked me what really happened, and I tell them, "The
official story is I couldn't work out the scheduling with Acme." They persist and I say, "You don't really need to hear it from me, do you?" Usually they're just wanting me to gossip about him because they don't like him. They don't need me for that.
The real beauty in that approach is that if Mr. Acme has anything to say about me, even if it's just his
opinion of me and my methods, he comes off looking like an SOB for not keeping his trap shut.
But the bottom line is that regardless of my issues with Mr. Acme, this is free enterprise. Employees at will. Choices and consequences. It was my choice to throw my lot in with him when I did, and it didn't work out.
I could fuss and fume, or I could shut my mouth and put on my big girl panties and deal with it.
Time to do the latter.
I already quoted Churchill, but I'll do it again:
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."--Sir Winston Churchill
SoWallers: Get her off this subject. Talk about your own stories. (Or about not talking about your own stories.
) This needs to be disarmed, pronto!
- only to talk to your new company for over 1 1/2hrs going over your employment handbook/filling out w2's, to then proceed to hunt for homes like a madwoman, to then have the bosses hubby call you to tell you they've resigned their offer knowing full-and-well everything you've done to make yourself available to them. 
