Flashbacks

There were some interesting comments on facebook last night having to do with Piers Morgan walking off set because he was being called out over his unflattering comments, constant bashing of Megan Markle, and discrediting her account of suicidal thoughts and racism.

Mostly, the comments were how it would now be a Good Morning Britain with Piers off the show, and comments calling Piers a “snowflake” who could dish it out but not take it.

For me, one comment summed it up nicely.

I’ve got a lot of stuff buried in my memory vault, ugly incidents that I’ve written about in a BlackandBlue blog I used to maintain, but never talked it out. Thus, there’s so much stuff fermenting down in the vault only to come up when something, like that comment, brings it up.

I’ve spoken before about most of my working years being nightmares I seriously doubt any of you can relate to. That I had children to feed, clothe, house, so I’d had no choice but to swallow and not complain about all the racism, abuse of authority, etc.

That didn’t mean I didn’t find my own petty under the wire ways of striking back/protecting myself. One of which was, when I worked with the three witches at the law firm who’d put on a show during Secretary’s Week, by gifting me with flowers and taking me to lunch on Secretary’s Day, I’d deliberately leave the flowers on the counter behind me, sans water, so they’d die quickly.

As for those lunches ... treat me like crap all the other 51 weeks of the year, but give me flowers Secretary’s Week, and take me to lunch Secretary’s Day, so you can show off to the other attorneys how good you are to your slave.

This homey wasn’t having it. So, what I did was to begin scheduling my vacations to coincide with secretary’s week, leaving the witches nowhere to go, nothing to do with their so-called magnanimous selves.

After about the third year of my doing so, I think the witches finally caught on that I was purposely disrespecting them and struck back by taking the temp out and feting him just to show me a thing or two.

They didn’t ─ show me a thing or two. Instead, when the temp told me about how well and over the top they’d treated him that week, I filled him in on why I didn’t want to eat with them, and we had a good laugh at their expense and became steadfast friends ─ my friend Q that I’ve mentioned on the blog as being a friend now for over 20 years and the only friend whose events I travel to attend.

But that’s not the memory the comment about Piers brought up from the vault. It’s just an associated memory that tickled me.

So anyway, what came up was when I retired from the agency that had a heavy klan presence.

I survived everything the klan girls and guys threw at me ─ trying to run me out, because the head klansman (the CEO) wanted it so.

They couldn’t fire me or get anyone of the people they later hired with specific instructions to fire me do so, because I had a stellar background in the secretarial field and, try as they did to break me, cause me to react, I kept a smile on my face, behaved professionally, never gave them a reason. Which drove them crazy. LOL.

Very long story short, Karma got them in the end ─ the head klansman (CEO) retired just ahead of an indictment for misuse of government funds, the other klan guys began jumping ship to other jobs before they got caught and, with the head of the klan gone, his overseer and other klan guys gone, the klan girls retreating back to being on the down low and the weasly klansman also on the down low because he had not the skills to go elsewhere, the work environment became boring. So boring that I felt my work, spiritually speaking (that I was placed there because I was the one who could stand still and be the catalyst that ultimately busted that klan crap up) was done. When a package was being offered to anyone who wanted it, I turned in my retirement papers.

Once I submitted my paperwork, the weasly klansman had the nerves to say the department director (who was named Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde in the blog I kept at that time) wanted to host a retirement party for me.

I made it clear that I didn’t want a party, saying it would be disingenuous, and thought that was the end of that. That my going away would be a luncheon that had been arranged by friendly coworkers from my department and other departments.

That is, I thought so until I got a telephone call from someone in another department, aware of how I felt, asking if I was going to attend the Open House.

"What open house?" asked I.

"An email just went out that says we are all invited to an Open House to celebrate your retirement ... Thursday, August 26, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m.".

"I won't be there. I just can't do it" replied I.

As to why I couldn’t do it, I pulled up that old blog (no longer on line, but much of which has been saved to flash drive), and dug up a blurb.

"The last two weekends have been spoiled by images of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. I can't get him out of my head. I keep seeing his smug face and hearing his voice when he said and did hurtful things ... like when he gave credit for my accomplishments to other departments and when he left me out of training pertinent to my position and made me beg him ... and when he talked down to me as though I were an idiot when I asked a question ... and how he did not support me when I asked for his help in dealing with his buddies in IT when the website was down for four months ... and when I asked for his help with the obnoxious temp. He's totally just screwed up my work flow and the work flow of the department. I was there for him and he used me and hurt me and failed me and everyone else in every way possible, so I've reached the point where I am so disgusted by him and so disgusted with him that I want nothing more to do with him. I'm polite, as always. I do my job as always, but I am otherwise as cold and distant as cold and distant can be, and I'm really struggling to heal and get beyond how I feel about him. To go to this party would just damage me further, so I'm not going. I will be calling in with a migraine that day. If it embarrasses him and makes him look bad ... well then tough. He didn't care when he hurt me. Now it's me who doesn't care."

Just like with the witches, his only reason for the party was an opportunity to put on a performance, promote himself as such a great caring magnanimous leader. I wasn’t going to give him any more of me than he’d already taken by participating in his act of phony sincerity, so I actually did call in with a migraine that day.

It embarrassed and hurt him greatly and, I rubbed salt in his wound by recovering from the migraine and returning to the office the following day. Not to mention, he had to look at me, in the office until my official retirement date (the 31st). Plus, I had that luncheon with my company besties.

Theme of that luncheon was "These Boots Are Made for Walking".

Weasly klansman, after going along with all that racist crap for years and years, when head klansman was in power, had the nerves to take it upon himself to tell me “You shouldn’t have done that”, meaning I should not have absented myself from Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde's party, embarrassed him thusly.

Yeah, sure, some people just keep dishing it out, expecting others to keep quiet, take it, not find a way to get the hurt out.

I’ll admit my ways have been petty, underhanded, but removing myself ─ by feigning illness, from lunch with the witches, a party with Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde was what I could get away with, all I had to work with.