She's back!

There aren't many things I am sure of, but I was sure of this one. And even though I knew I was missed, I didn't expect the welcome I got from them when they saw me. It was totally overwhelming and brought tears to my eyes as well as a big smile to my face. Funny how most people assumed I had left, but in conversations it became quite obvious how they had felt about the last year and how they were effected by all the changes. So they were absolutely delighted when they felt reassured that business will be once again as usual. It's saddens me that one person had such a negative affect on so  many people, when there was no need for it in the first place and the feeling of one person was  more important than those of all the people she had effected, not just this time around, but the grief she put user groups through even six years ago. It really really makes me wonder, what power she had and how she got it, that everybody just danced to her tune. She must have been really really good in whatever she called her "craft". Sad that she couldn't apply those skills to other areas of her work she could have been awesome. I wonder too what would have happened if I really would have said the things I thought to myself in conversations to her. I am sure I have learnt some new skills  over the last little while how to handle things better, and really it would have made all the difference if one would have known that somebody will have your back, like they did. But given the experience from years ago, there was no way of knowing that. Funny too in a conversation with a coworker yesterday, who had left because of her, and is hoping to come back again, it was decided that we should have said something much earlier, but given a statement made by the manager, I think the timing was just right and guaranteed the outcome, mainly because it was the manager who pushed for this this time around. Learnt an interesting yet sad statistic the other day in my training, that the average employee waits 22 months to say anything about being bullied or harassed at work... that's almost two years of suffering that can cause big time damage to the victim. I think we did pretty well with just eight months. :).
Besides still having some post side effects from the ordeal, I am slowly getting back to feeling like a person again and enjoying some of the things I do, which really is progress.