Storm Clouds Begin to Gather

To continue my previous post, I was not particularly concerned about my new location nor my new neighbor. I should have been. The Best Friend had been rapidly elevated to second-in-command ahead of people much more senior and much more productive. And she liked this status.

Some of my co-workers approached me and warned me that the Best Friend did not like me because she was jealous of both my professional success and the relatively amicable relationship I maintained with our supervisor. Honestly, for the first year of the New Regime, I was personally and professionally treated very well while others went through Hell. This changed when my office location changed.

And this is where it got confusing to me. In retrospect. I see now that, despite her outward confidence and decisiveness and friendliness, my supervisor was quite a master of double-talk and deceit. Actually, in personal dealings, I now think she was passive-agressive to a very high degree. No, I do not have a degree in Psychology. Trust me, she was quite a piece of work and a mass of insecurities. That's what I did not understand - how very deep the insecurity and how very sneaky the dishonesty. I still believed that my status carried some protection. Not true. The value I brought to her group through my professional reputation and success turned out to be the very thing both she and the Best Friend considered to be a serious threat. Their campaign began.

This period of my last employment I like to characterize as being like working in the palace of the Borgias. There was a strong underlying feeling of paranoia and not just on my part. It's actually kind of interesting how easy it is to keep a group of well-educated and previously well-adjusted business professionals so distracted and worried. We were never sure if something we did would catch the eye of the Best Friend, who was constantly scouting for anything and everything that she could critique ad nauseum (usually with little or no expertise on the subject) or steal if she saw the possibility of kudos or status for herself.

In my function as finder-of-obscurities, I usually dealt directly with researchers who were high rollers in our industry. They simply called me or emailed me directly to place their requests. The level of trust I had earned in many levels of this corporation was exceptionally high and any outcome, successful or not, was accepted without any question. If I said it was unavailable, that was conclusive.

One such requester was quite highly respected in his field, not just in our company but internationally. He was a well-known, prolific author of books and journal articles and a frequent speaker in many venues. Furthermore, he was a luminary among upper management and quite an interesting guy.
I had created a simple Access database of items that were requested from me. I had three corporate credit cards to purchase these items and by golly I intended to keep immaculate records because money changed hands. The Best Friend found my database one day (it was no secret - it was on our group's network drive, but no one else but me used it). She discovered the name of the high-roller and flipped out. Unbeknownst to me, the Best Friend, who was catastrophically clumsy when dealing with everyone, decided to call this gentleman directly and inform him that he was not allowed to contact me at all and that she would be handling all his requests now. The first I knew of this was when suddenly, one day, one of our Vice-Presidents leaned into my office and told me to come into our supervisor's office. I was a bit apprehensive; completely in the dark. I needn't have been. I received an apology for something I did not know had even happened.

It turns out that the gentleman/high-roller had taken great umbrage at the uppity Best Friend and her tone of voice, and had complained directly to the president of our company. The word came down that the Best Friend was never to contact this gentleman ever again. I know now that that was the day that the Best Friend painted a bull's-eye right between my shoulder blades. But now I was aware that I was a target and I began to contemplate options and strategies.