Today is a bad day.

I don’t know if I can fully write this down but I had been bullied by this company that is advising the company CEO/management that I interviewed. I don’t know if I can go into details but I feel like I was treated like dirt, like we are a PR firm that they can dictate so they can push their agenda. I asked the compliance team to help me deal with them because protocol says we journos (my role here in this particular case is a journo, not an editor) cannot engage in such situation and better leave that to the compliance editors. We cannot answer back or throw bombs to retaliate because they are our subscribers.

They kept me up until 5 this morning but the bullying on chat didn’t stop until 5 pm today.

I am so pissed and yet so defeated. I hate that they made me feel like I’m very stupid. The way one of their advisors speak to me on WhatsApp is way below the belt, like I am under his payroll. I showed the screencap to some of my colleagues and they said—wow! “They really treat you like shit, don’t they? The problem is we can’t answer back.”

It’s so different in newspapers. We can just say “fuck you!” and the story goes on print.

I am broken today.

What can I do? I would just have to bite a bark of a tree and scream then expect all my negative energy will be gone. But who am I kidding?

For somebody who’s outspoken in person and online, my self-control is tested to its limit to not to bite back. I keep on repeating to myself, “do not bite/fight back, do not bite/fight back, do not bite/fight back, do not bite/fight back…”

I am twisting in my seat now. I don’t know how long I can hold on.

---