Ask Dr. Ding

Dear Dr. Ding:

I hope to Goddess you can help me.

I practice Wicca and have done so since my early teens…I work as a receptionist/transcriptionist in an office where we’re supposed to be in the business of helping people with drug and alcohol problems. (I have noticed that some of your other “Dingers” whove wrote in work for these kinds of agencies, so maybe they could comment too for added input - I would totally welcome it!!) I am 28 years old, have a college degree in theater, and as I mentioned I am a practicing pagan, and not just on weekends! I am not what you would call a fluffy bunny pagan. I don’t advertise my faith, but also I don’t keep it a secret. There are a couple of inconspicuous altar items on my desk, and sometimes I wear faerie earrings, but other that those things, you’d really have to look hard. I take Goddess-worship seriously, I don’t do it for fashion reasons or to show off my feminist cred.

My problem is that my boss — a recovering alcoholic with like 30 years of sobriety she credits to working “the spiritual program of AA” — has made some comments about Wiccans/pagans that puts us in line with demons, Satan, mind control, you name it. I take minutes at our weekly all-staff meeting, and last week she just bashed on the spirituality of one of our board members who has recently “come out” as pagan, made some very nasty cracks about him being a devil-worshipper, roasting babies, really super tacky of her. She gave me this weird little smile as she did it too. I’m not sure if she knows I’m Wiccan but something’s up with her and me and it’s not nice.

I feel uncomfortable and I’m starting to feel targeted. I like everyone else in this agency, they’ve been respectful of me and don’t make fun of my beliefs, and one of the part-time counselors has shared with me that she does energy healing, and I think it’s cool but she’s afraid to let anyone else know there because she doesn’t want Boss Lady to know and take shots at her too.

I didn’t even mention Boss Lady’s assistant, who is the assistant program director, who pretty much goes along with whatever Boss Lady says, and who has made her share of narrow-minded comments against pagans, Jewish people, Muslims, you name it. I should also say that Boss Lady is a fundy Christian who no longer goes to church but seems to think she’s got all the answers when it comes to spiritual issues. I don’t know what to do about the icky feelings I get when I’m around her (or Hench Lady), and the bottom line is: I’m afraid she’s going to try to embarrass or humiliate me out of a job or that I’m going to just go wiggins and quit. Irrational? I can’t see this clearly enough to decide.

You’re probably going to say that with my theater background and all that I’m being “dramatic”…I probably am Dr. Ding. I am trying to go with my feelings here…my feelings are telling me that this is a bad situation and that I need advice, so this is where you come in. Now, I know you’re going to ask me what my options are that I have considered here, so I will list them (I’m a GOOD witch!).

1. Put a binding spell on Boss Lady/Hench Lady and work a protection spell for me, so she can’t do any more harm.

2. Quit my job.

3. Talk to Boss Lady about my concerns.

4. Talk to Boss Lady’s boss about my concerns.

5. Talk to some of my circle friends who have been more “out” than me and ask their advice.

So that’s all I’ve got so far on this. Any input you or your readers have is great and I thank you all.

Blessed Be,

What Rhymes With Witch

Dear What Rhymes:

Dr. Ding is going to give you the credit you’re due; I am most gratified by your use of the term “wiggins” which puts me in mind of a young Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Such snappy dialogue, such panache, such mad ninja skillz.

Back to you: you’re paying close attention to your feelings, you’re picking right up on that icky feeling of being predated upon, and you’ve got several good ideas regarding what to do about this immediate and highly annoying situation. Furthermore, you certainly have a very well-developed sense of what you need to do in order to follow-through with your plans. So hop to it.

What interests me even more than validating your current schemes, however, is the matter of why someone as interesting and probably quite talented as you is working as an underappreciated phone jockey for a bunch of crass, rigid (and in Boss Lady’s case probably slightly brain-damaged or early-stage dementia-suffering; Hench Lady strikes me as echolalic and possibly coprophagic), sanctimonious drunks.

Seriously. You’re a person of well-considered and genuine faith, thoughtful and insightful, someone whose creative impulses and energies are likely anathema to the kind of “Praise Jesus and Pass the Ammunition”-y, faux-Christian dungeon in which you toil. What makes you think you shouldn’t just up and quit, or, at a minimum, start looking for a better-fitting job?

You can certainly try sitting down with the Ladies Boss and Hench. But you know as well as I do that you’re not going to be heard. Or understood. Or taken seriously. That much is patently clear. If you’re the litigious type, you’ve probably got a decent case for religious discrimination or harrassment.

My keen Dingish senses tell me, however, that this current crisis might be a stall. A hedge. A way of fending off that nagging feeling that you’re not living up to your potential, What Rhymes . It’s far more exciting and fun right now to worry about whether or not Boss Lady is gunning for your tree-loving ass (she is), or whether your work environment could be construed as “hostile” (it could be) than to take a cold hard look at your life.

Let’s take a lil tangent shall we? Dr. Ding went to college with a bunch of do-gooding, I’m gonna save the world once I unleash the awesome power of my dreadlocks and back piece, non leg-shaving, bolshie intellectuals who after graduation swarmed groovy urban areas where approximately 75% of the population under age 35 works in either a sex-positive dildo boutique or a B.O.-smelling record store, e.g. Portland, Seattle, the Twin Cities, San Fran, blah blah I forget the rest, I was too busy trying to learn how to properly distinguish a true sociopath from a mere antisocial and interpret inkblots.

Dr. Ding had no time for dildoes.

Anyway. My uptight and way-more-artsily-dressed-than-me friends ended up staging their stickin-it-to-The Man-styled revolutions by working as…you guessed it…poorly-paid receptionists, mistreated gophers, unpaid interns, overexploited assistants et cetera. Admittedly, they looked fabulous doing it, all angsty and iconoclastic and shit what with their nose piercings and radical Baja ponchos. But eventually they realized that if you really want to fulfill your obligation to what all those years of education have given you, you haul your tie-dyed booty off the organic-hemp sofa and move into a career track where you can Like Make Some Shit Happen, Man.

End tangent. The point? You’re closing out a developmental phase of your life but have yet to fully begin the next one. Adolescence now begins somewhere around 10-11 and ends around 22 or even 23; it’s a protracted, financially-dependent time when a person isn’t really too sure of themselves, isn’t yet fully established in an identity or career or set of workable values. You’ve made it through that stuff, but you haven’t yet figured what comes next. And that’s all okay. I shit you not. Totally statistically normal.

Dr. Ding really likes idea #5 about talking to some older, more experienced friends/elders in your community. Consider picking some folks that lead the kind of lives you admire. (If coven sister Silverleaf Ravenbuttons is still sleeping on an old bongwater-stained futon in her ex-boyfriend’s basement and “doing magicks” for a living, maybe don’t look to her for the really tough questions. She may do one heck of a tarot throw, but leave the role-modeling at that.)

Do you ever consider getting into theater on a paid basis? Is that your passion, or is something else? What life experiences excite you, make your heart go pitty-pat, or get you flusterpated when you think about them? What moves you to tears? How do you want to be remembered? Where do you want to be in a year? Three years, five years? What are your beliefs about wielding true personal power in your own life, about deciding what’s ok and what’s not and living accordingly, in the workplace, in friendships, in romantic relationships, in general? Don’t back away; your current discomfort is a loudly-trumpeting messenger to which you must pay heed or risk getting stuck in Crazy Fundy Boss Lady Work Hell. Pay attention. Ask yourself: what would I rather be doing with my life?

Start sitting with these kinds of questions. Your spirituality can be integrated here — invoke your wisest, most powerful, most superheroic goddesses to assist you in the getting of wisdom. I’ll bet a bacon sandwich that they don’t steer you towards what you’re doing now or some 2.0 version thereof, either. So, What Rhymes, draw down the moon, perform a sacred ritual, go on a vision quest or retreat….whatever it takes in order to get yourself into a more fully empowered, eagle-viewed state of consciousness by shifting your perceptions of your current reality.

Your fear isn’t that you will be disempowered by Crazy Fundy Boss Lady.

Your fear is that you are far more powerful than you know.

Now git.

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