The silence of swallowed pride

Dear Delyara, I had to stand quietly tonight and take a dressing-down from an arrogant, high-end property representative who has never worked a hard day in his life. He spoke to me with a slow, patronizing tone, treating my years of frontline operational experience as if it were entirely irrelevant because my name wasn't on the corporate letterhead of the managing agency. I stood there with my chest tight, my blood boiling like liquid fire, forcing a neutral, polite expression onto my face while my fingernails dug into the palms of my hands. I am so incredibly sick of having to swallow my pride, to nod and apologize to mediocrity just to protect my standing and keep my projects moving forward. The poison of that unexpressed rage is sitting like a heavy, black stone in my throat, and I don't know how much longer I can keep it down.