Back in 2005 when I graduated college, packed up all my things and moved to the big city of Orlando, I was so excited and so happy to be a real out of school, on my own woman. But it was also terrifying as well. Now I had so many responsibilities on my shoulders that I never had before. Paying rent, paying bills, paying for my own food!!! I didn't know really what I was going to do.

I wasn't doing it all alone though. I decided to move in with my brother and my boyfriend at the time and the three of us were roommates. We had to go out and find jobs. Sadly, I wasn't lucky enough to get my dream job right out of college or anything in my field just yet. So I took my mom's advice and applied to work for a well known bank in Orlando.

I knew nothing about banking but everyone told me it couldn't be that hard. I knew it would pay the bills and I could continue to find my career during my duration there. In the summer of 2005, I landed the banking job and was happy that I wouldn't have to worry about money or making sure my half of the bills were paid.

My first month at the bank was stressful. I had high anxiety and I could see that the lady training me {who was much much older than I was} and thought I was a stupid kid. She seemed to want to see everyone around her fail and that brought great joy apparently from what I had been told by others who had worked with her. I was not comfortable talking with people just yet in such a fast paced environment and I was so scared of counting the money wrong or something coming up short. I made a few mistakes but learned how the banking system worked rather quickly just to get away from my trainer.

Once I was more comfortable and had the knowledge to finally work on my own, they sent me over to another bank where that would be my permanent position. I was only working part time but it was ok. I liked the flexible hours and short days. So it didn't bother me much. My boss at this bank was not all that friendly and again, I wasn't liked much by her. But my co-workers and supervisor were all very close to me so it made the working days fun and easy to take {for the most part}.

Around seven months later, at the beginning of 2006, I found out I was pregnant with my first child. I knew working part time was not going to cut being able to afford a child and a new place since I knew our lease was coming up to expire and my brother was moving in with another friend of his who needed a roommate. So I asked so many times about being able to get more hours or even possibly being able to become full time.

My boss would not accept any of my requests and it had me discouraged. I finally started to look into job openings within the bank but at different branches. I went behind my boss' back and applied for one in downtown Orlando. I was really excited to hear that after my interview and everything that I got the job. My boss was not happy since I never told her but she found out from my now "new" manager at the new branch.

But this manager seemed to be so much more nicer and easy to work with. I felt like this would be a better environment to work in. All my new co-workers were much older than I was. All at least my parents age or older except for one girl who was a few years older than me. I soon found out she did not like me at all and would not take any form of hiding it either. She was very mean and cruel. But she was my supervisor and I had no choice but to just try and smile around her.

As the months went on and my pregnancy got farther along, the mangers were all really great to help me out. But things quickly turned and I noticed they started to not act so nice. Only one out of all of them was still "on my side". I felt stressed out and put to work much more than I should have been. Lifting over 50 pounds when the doctor ordered me to stay off of my feet. Being thrown into rush hour after work on Friday check cashing all by myself while my supervisor went on three hour lunch breaks.

I was being yelled at by customers about their money while my boss was yelling at me why I wasn't moving fast enough and why I wasn't putting her calls through to meetings fast enough. I couldn't take it anymore. I was 30 weeks into my pregnancy and went to a routine doctor's appointment one Friday morning. My doctor noticed I showed severe signs of exhaustion, stress, pain, and all this was causing me to start early labor. So she told me to stop work immediately and she had me put on bedrest. Since I was supposed to go right into work after my appointment, I had to call my boss and got such a horrible response from her about how I'm fine and this is not an excuse to not come to work and I better be there.

I never showed up and all my paperwork went to HR for my maternity leave. HR was really nice since the girl was pregnant herself about to have a baby, she understood. But everyday I would get phone calls from my boss or other managers asking me to stop being so pitiful and come back and do my job.

I finally gave birth eight weeks later to a healthy baby girl. Bedrest sure helped relieve a lot of stress that was put on the baby and myself. But once my boss found out the baby had been born, the same day she told me to come back to work because now I'm fine and I no longer have an excuse to not be there anymore.

I only was given five weeks after I had the baby to return to work and so I did. I still needed the job but it was no longer the same job. The people were even more rude to me, more horrible and no one would help me learn the new system that the bank acquired while I was away. Customers who once were some of my favorites, now were bitter because I wasn't moving fast enough trying to get the new system down and deposit their money like I used to.

And then that is when it happened....my boss started calling me into her office several times a day to tell me about how horrible of an employee I was and how I wasn't doing my job right. I told her that the supervisor would not sit and show me. She just was making me do it all on my own with no help. When the supervisor came in, she began to speak, but not about my performance, she started going on and on about how pitiful I was how I annoyed her so much with different pregnancy scares I had while pregnant months back and how I would have to call my doctor with questions about bleeding and eating and pains. She went on and on and on like really saying the most harshest stuff right to my face.

I was thrown back with shock. I was sitting there wanting to cry and thinking to myself "what does this have to do with learning the new system at the bank and how I'm not getting it fast enough?"

Then my manager said something to me I will never ever in my life forget. She turned to me and said, "Well, I'm not trying to be mean but if you just would do something about your face, maybe life would be better for you." I sat and looked so confused and hurt at the same time. She went on to say, "I know it's hard but I will have to let you go if you do not go out and maybe get some surgery to help improve the problem. It's not pleasing to some of our customers. In fact, it's actually an insult to some of them having to look at you. Plus you would get so much more self esteem if you did something about the problem. And for all of us as well to look at you, it would be better to see improvement to your face."

That was it. She hit the biggest nerve you can hit on me. I knew exactly what she was talking about and it has been my biggest insecurity since I was in eighth grade. My face...I do not feel like a beauty queen. I am so self conscious because I have scarring on the side of my face and forehead. And for her to even bring up my banking performance and tell me I would lose my job because I should go have surgery to stop scaring customers away was so out of line... I mean beyond out of line. Since when does a flaw someone cannot help effect their job? I did so much for that bank. Because of me and getting in new customers and clients and sales, I got them their $15,000 bonus each quarter. I came up with all the party ideas and I was the designer for their signs.

So now she had completely threatened to fire me because of the fact she thought I was too ugly to work there.

And now all of a sudden after my baby is born, my face is not good enough to be shown in their facility anymore. I called my dad on my lunch break that very day and cried. He then called his lawyer who then called the bank. My boss was not happy at all by that. She then threw me in her office telling me how low below the belt I got by having my dad's lawyer call her and threatening her with a lawsuit for harassment when she was not the bad guy.. she told me my face was. My face was threatening her bank now and she was scared of losing customers because I have a few scars.

Needless to say, I finished that day up and was in a horrible mood. I went home and thought about the entire conversation all night. I didn't sleep. I told my {husband} that I was going to quit. There was not going to be anymore chances and I am the type of person that puts up with a lot of crap. I wasn't going to let them keep putting me down like that any longer. I knew it made them feel good about themselves. My supervisor always got a power trip every time she made me cry. It fed her evil soul. 

I had it all planned out but was scared to death as I never quit a job before. I knew no matter what, it wasn't going to go over well and I would be asked to stay. Not cause they wanted me there, but they needed me. No one was going to fill in for the long lunch breaks and no shows everyone did. I was the first to arrive. I calmy did everything I was supposed to do like any other morning. Got the night deposits, counted all the money, put out the new customer packets...I knew my boss came in at 9am and it was now 8am. I had one hour until she walked through that door.

I brought a few walmart bags from home and started to place all my personal belongings I kept at work. Pictures of my new baby, calendars, pens, and just all the other little random things I had at my desk. I greeted customers as usual giving no sign I was upset and went on like any other day. Nine o'clock rolled around and in walked my boss. I could feel my body shaking from being nervous. I didn't know if I was going to faint or throw up but I knew I wasn't going to let myself back down. She wanted to play tough, I had to play right back. I never did anything like this in my life and so it had me feeling all kinds of things.

I grabbed everything I had, all my bags, my purse and the bank keys. I held them tightly in my hand and walked right into her office. I threw the keys down on her desk and yelled out "I QUIT!" and then started to walk away toward the front door. She started yelling something at me which I don't remember but it was along the lines of what do I think I am doing type of thing. The only one lady that did like me ran out to the car and grabbed me. She told me that if I do this, they win. They treat everyone that has come into the position I took the exact same way and drove them all off. I told her it was not worth it anymore. I had been with the bank for a year and a half and my time was up.

I refused to work for anyone that would fire me because of things on my face I could not help nor control and then sit there and keep pushing me to the edge about it. To this day, I still sit here and think about that. It upsets me greatly even though it's been so many years. Things like this make me hate my face and hate that I cannot make it all magically disappear and feel pretty. I still cannot believe she would say such harsh words and put me down in front of others who were near her office. It was supposed to be about my work performance, not about my appearance.