Cohen Spoke

“Cheat, con man, racist”.

So, tell us something those of us who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid didn’t already know.

But the fact Cohen has admitted to having done this that the other, at the behest of you-know-who, has brought up unpleasant memories of when I myself was in the workforce and feared for loss of job if I didn’t do something not quite on the up and up at the behest of the boss.

I was lucky, in that something inside always stood up, said no, and though I knew not to openly refuse because, being Black, it might have given grounds for my dismissal as being insolent, uncooperative, not a team player, I always smiled, appeared to get the message, but then found a way around.

Outwit, outsmart, outplay.

Like the time my job was to review timesheets, correct errors and sign off on their authenticity.

A timesheet was walked over to me by an assistant to a boss. The assistant looked me in the eyes and pointedly said, “Joe said not to change anything on this”.

I looked at the timesheet and observed the sheet indicated this particular boss’s secretary (who I knew for a fact was sleeping with the boss) was shown as in the office working during the time period, when she was actually vacationing in Hawaii.

For some reason, she had vacation time, but didn’t want to use it.

It isn't easy to do the right thing, when your job is on the line but, had the fraud been discovered, it would have fallen back on no one but myself, because of having signed off on the sheet, so I had no choice but to protect myself by correcting in-office to vacation.

The expected backlash from the conspirators never happened. Neither she, nor her boss, nor the assistant ever said a word about my non-compliance and work life went on as usual.

Then there was the time an attorney told me to sign and submit his grossly inflated expense report.

After having seen a secretary get into a whole lot of legal trouble for signing a contract in her boss’s name, at her boss’s behest ─ a contract which was later disputed and the boss said she’d not signed it, never told her secretary to sign for her, I no longer signed anything on behalf of, signified by /s/. So, I took the inflated expense report to someone in authority to sign for the attorney.

That someone in authority looked at the amount and said, “I’M NOT GOING TO SIGN THIS!”, so I left it on the attorney’s desk, with a note saying so and so refused to sign for him.

What could he do to me for not following orders and signing for him when someone in authority also refused?

He was mad to find it still sitting on his desk, when he returned a few days later and, as far as I know, he had his buddy, the General Counsel lead attorney, sign and collude with him.

The attorney did ask for, and got himself transferred to another secretary, but fine by me.

The secretary he got himself transferred to was the secretary of the General Counsel lead attorney who'd colluded with him.

There are so many stories I can relate to Cohen's situation, when I had to duck, dodge, weave, outwit, outsmart, outplay but my favorite is when a Contract Manager was assigned a Vendor Fair Project, which was destined to fail, and tried to set me up to take the fall.

She gave me a list of things she wanted me to do to set the event up relative to time and location.

I did them.

Then she asked me to set up a mailing list, send out rsvp notices.

I did that and, as I expected, no replies.

So far, everything was me out front, my name, my doing; her involvement, other than it being her project, nowhere.

Then she asked me to set up an appointment for her with the Advertising Director.

I did that as well.

The morning of her appointment with Advertising Director, I woke up to spidey sense telling me she was going to tell me to take the appointment for her.

That would have been totally inappropriate for me as just the secretary. Not only would I have not known what to say, what to do, but the mere meeting with a big mucky muck would have made the project mine in everyone’s eyes and set me up as the responsible one, so I called in sick.

Next day, after recovering from my illness, I returned to the office to learn she’d called in sick that day as well. She’d phoned in and left a message for me to take the appointment for her.

Ha!

She was mad as a wet hen, slamming paperwork down, stormed around the office when she realized I’d outsmarted her and, there being no visible evidence of her having performed activities to make the event successful, it was she herself held solely responsible when the project failed.

Looking back on my working years, most of those years were nightmares I seriously doubt any of you can relate to. I had children to feed, clothe, house so I’ve had to find my way through working for crooks, racists, the functionally insane while scared, afraid, worried most of the time and yes, there have been tears, but always learning how to anticipate, read minds, stay ahead, survive and I’ve lived to come out integrity in tact, retire comfortably and blog about it.

Go figure.

Well, it looks like rain is about to start, following by another storm coming to this area, so I’d better get off this computer and run errands while I can.

The hillside is crumbling. We can only use one side of the road driving out of the area in that direction.

There are homes in them thar hills. I may have to invest in binoculars to keep an eye out on how it’s impacting them.