To Make a Long Story Short (too late!)

It did not occur to me when I started this narrative that it would be this extensive. Maybe because I've never really put all this nonsense and frustration down in writing before and did not realize the scope of my situation. Or maybe it's because I'm just milking the drama. Whatever.

At this point I finally understood the dynamics of the Supervisor-hires-Best-Friend situation at my workplace. I had figured out that our supervisor was actually using the Best Friend as a surrogate to needle, pick, spy, agitate, and punish. And the Best Friend was really enjoying it.
But with me and the Best Friend, it was personal for her. I had been warned previously and rather foolishly brushed it off. After the incident that involved upper management, I was very highly aware of the danger.

I was lucky in one respect: others in my group had been company employees for quite a while. Retirement was close but they needed more time and thus had to hold their noses and try to hang on. However, I had been a stay-at-home mom until my children were in high school. I had only worked at this particular company for 10 years and I was free to leave any time I felt like it. So I sorted out options, examined my home situation, and with my wonderful and supportive husband began The Plan.

One: use my company benefits to the maximum during my final months.

Two: use my generous salary to make upgrades in our house

Three: To be very careful at work and make sure that, as much as possible, I documented every confrontation and event and word I exchanged with the Best Friend.

So first came any unfinished dental work, new contact lenses, a physical checkup, etc. Then we landscaped our back yard, expanded the patio with stamped concrete, installed granite countertops in the kitchen, and went on a fabulous cruise. The real strain was the tightrope act I had to perform at work.

Any conversation I had with the Best Friend was immortalized in emails by me. For example, if she confronted me and told me I had handled some particular item in a manner different than she wanted me to (did I mention she was a control freak?) I would simply send a response to her via email. In the email I detailed what I had done, the results, her criticism (usually silly nitpicking), my verbal response and any followup. I would end the email by saying "I'm afraid I missed your point and since my customer got exactly what they wanted I guess there is no need to pursue this matter" or "I followed the process set up by our supervisor - shall we meet with her so you can present your objections?" and so forth. There is an evil part of me that took great satisfaction in knowing that these emails bothered her. But primarily I considered them to be a necessary form of protection. Our supervisor and the Best Friend had already fired two employees and destroyed the careers of two others.

Being as dense as she was and with her blind animosity to me, she couldn't stop and I had plenty to work with. Time after time she tried to nail me, even publicly, and I won every bout. She just couldn't help herself. She lost all the battles because her depth of knowledge in our mission was so shallow and she always picked a losing cause. But every battle I won came at a price. The animosity level became almost unbearable, and she began coming into my office frequently every day to say "What are you doing now?" (like I needed a babysitter) and whenever I passed her doorway (couldn't avoid it!) she would bark my name and call me in for more useless pontificating.
So I embarked on the Final Stage of my escape.

Coming Out of the Dark

For a long time, almost two years, I was under a black cloud and in a black mood for quite a while, even as I was making the last couple of entries. I had a job that I really loved and excelled at. I had been recognized professionally at very high levels in the corporation where I worked. But no entity, corporate, academic, military, mom-and-pop, etc. is immune to a dishonest/sneaky middle manager.

Mine became a supervisor by professionally assassinating my previous supervisor. Once in power, this woman began fixing things that were never broken to begin with. I'm not talking about change - normal administrative adjustments etc. She began to target people and did so with the object of eliminating or castrating anyone and everyone who uttered one peep of criticism or disagreement. She made it subtly clear that it was her way or professional death. She targeted (successfully) two individuals for career destruction. Basically, it was more important to her to create a facade and sell it to upper management than to actually understand and enhance the daily function of the group she supervised.

Not content with this, she then hired an amazingly incompetent woman who had applied to this group twice and been rejected twice because her skills were not even up to minimal standards. It was not until the new-hire had been here for a while that it slipped out that our supervisor already knew her and considered her to be her very best friend in the whole world. Get the picture? It's what happens when a very insecure but very VERY ambitious person gains a little power. They surround themselves as much as possible with employees who will not challenge and will not compete with the supervisor. Then they hire sycophants (look it up) who serve as Mini-Me and are delighted to carry out this agenda. [see: "Negative Selection - politics" in Wikipedia]

My particular problems arose because of my status within the group. Without going into too many details, I was well-recognized within our international corporation for quality and for service. My job was to locate and obtain obscure and unobtainable items, and I did it very well. I loved it - maybe because I'm part Bulldog and part Sherlock Holmes. My professional status made me valuable to my supervisor and she allowed me to flourish. However, she did this by physically moving me away from the rest of the group on the premise that I needed a special location so that others would not bother me. Here's the catch. My new office was right next to the Best Friend.


TO BE CONTINUED