I Got Nothing

If anyone has been wondering why so little blog updates from me lately, it’s because I’ve got nothing. With no fun 5Ks on the horizon, and not much going on around here at the complex, this dry spell is looking to turn into a dirt road in the desert.

This month’s activity calendar does indicate a Valentine’s Potluck on the 11th (“12 noon – 2:00 p.m., sandwiches, chips, drinks provided: bring your favorite dish or dessert”).

Never having been lucky in love, Valentine’s Day is not a favorite of mine, and these potlucks the seniors are so fun of are not my thing but, with nothing else on the horizon, I’ll pop in after that days’ pain cave workout — putting me there around 12:20 to see what if anything is going on.

Other than that, my life has been the pain cave, grocery shopping, cooking, needlepoint and Court TV — watching the Harvey Weinstein trial — or at least as much of it as I can handle before the prosecution witness testimonies gets so disturbing that I have to switch the channel to something else.

What was allegedly done to some of these girls against their will, and what other girls allegedly allowed to be done in furtherance of their careers is beyond gross.

Takes me back to a time when my career was thus impacted, and I wasn’t an actress, just a secretary.

I was singled out for promotion from secretary to legal secretary, with a huge bump in salary, contingent upon my accepting a transfer to a newly formed legal department, working for an attorney and a deputy attorney, learning on the job while taking certain classes.

With two kids to raise, I saw it as a great opportunity — accepted the transfer, took the classes.

Everything worked out and when time came that my attorney submitted a change in my title and salary to the council, the Director of Personnel (DOP) — who’d always tried to date me and whom I’d refused because he was ugly and disgusting, approached me and indicated he now had leverage. If I didn’t give him what he wanted, he’d make sure I didn’t get the title or salary.

When I reported him, told my attorneys and a member of the council I was close to what DOP had said to me, my attorneys said DOP didn’t have that kind of power. The council member as much as called me a liar with “There’s no way a professional man like him would say something like that”.

While the approval process was going on, DOP would do things like stop in the door to my office, swivel his hips suggestively or roll his tongue around his lips at me. One time he didn’t realize the law clerk was standing on the other side of the file cabinet when he did something disgusting.

“Did you see that?”, I asked her after he’d walked away.

She had a stunned look on her face and replied, “Yes. But if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d have never believed it”.

Still nothing was done about him, as the request for change in title and salary wormed it’s way through the council. The end result being I was granted the title, but not the bump in salary because, as the council member who I looked upon as a friend told me, the decision was made because he, and others on the council, “owed DOP”. He’d done favors for them — hired family members and friends, and he'd asked my title and salary not go through in return. Because the council wanted to please both my boss, who’d submitted the request, and DOP, who'd asked it be denied, is why I was granted the title but not the salary.

I told my boss, who was apologetic because he didn’t believe DOP could or would do it for the reasons I’d stated, that I was disappointed in everyone and, though it might take me months, I’d be seeking employment elsewhere.

I submitted my resume elsewhere, and was hired as a Legal Secretary with a nice bump in salary, in less than two weeks.

Some of the Weinstein accusers walked away from Hollywood, but some allegedly swallowed what happened to them and soldiered on for sake of their careers, while still others allegedly allowed themselves to be humiliated on a continuing basis for jobs in the industry.

I have a hard time with those allegedly allowing and figure the jury will also.

Believe it or not, the end of DOP came about as a result of my leaving.

My attorney was so angry at losing me that he, in what can only be described as locking the barn door after the horse was stolen, hired a private detective to look into my allegations.

The detective tracked me down in at my new job, said it was uncovered that DOP had a pattern of giving jobs to and withholding jobs from other women, contingent upon giving into his demands, and requested a statement from me to bolster the case building against DOP. I’d moved on, was happy with my new job, had put the whole thing behind me, had no interest in what if anything happened to DOP, so politely replied, “They didn’t help me when I needed them, so I’m not helping them”.

I later heard DOP was fired.