What to you do if your nemesis dies? Besides feel the appropriate grief and conflict?
I worked for D. for 5 years. For 5 years she was my supervisor. At the risk of sounding cranky and bitter, she came in with no qualifications, because it's a who-you-know Corporation. Perhaps they all are. Knowing she was unqualified, she brought in two horrible Yes-Women to help her run the show, effectively creating a glass ceiling for those of us who started the Dept. I tried to like her. I really, really did. She was a tiny whirl of energy. Perfectly groomed, her hair was perfect, her makeup was perfect, her wardrobe was outstanding, her tiny body was a bit upsetting but maybe that's just me. She was happily married her to her highschool sweetheart, the fireman. 34 years at this writing. She had two grown kids, a son happily married with 2 kids of his own, a daughter with 4 children. Each had spent some time in the lower level of her gorgeous large home she and her husband had built near the ocean. D. had 9 brothers and sisters scattered across the U.S., her mother still lived nearbye. She never tired of talking about her family and herself and her Yes-Women, especially during my performance evaluations or when we took the time to socialize during a work day. Inappropriate? Yes. I was like the young boy who pointed out the Emperor has no clothes !! It was exhausting.
I have flashes of moments with her. At a department Christmas party, I am leaving and she says, "come, give me a hug. Merry Christmas," while I hug, puzzled at this unexpected intimacy. She came by my home to drop something off and met my dog: "My, she's chunky isn't she?" and simply could not comprehend I lived there with my boyfriend and wasn't renting it alone. She describes attending a concert with her husband and cousin and tells us, "I got drunk, they had to each hold onto me to walk me to the car." Her grand family Thanksgivings held at her house, where, she tells me, everyone has too much to drink, and she laughs like a child. She still enjoyed smoking cigarettes and after a business trip to California, exclaimed wide-eyed: "There's nowhere to smoke! I spent most of the trip outside of buildings smoking." And telling me how she loved her grandson, who went to school with my son, and how she tells him, "If Papa and I move away to retire, you'll have to come with us." and how he rolls his eyes at her. She introduced us to her husband last year; I can barely remember what he looks like.
She had no friends. She marveled at a group of women she once had wine with and how they were all either divorced or getting divorced and how she couldn't relate. I raised my eyebrow. Must be nice.
So last December, after my 5 years of being delegated to a sherpa role as she gave her friends promotions and raises and social prestige & I spent my time trudging up the mountain, showing them how to climb, I gave my 2 weeks notice. I called her to tell her. She answered with a quick, "I don't have time to talk! Just email me." So I emailed her: I am giving 2 weeks notice. And how quickly my phone rang back. Really? she asked. Was I sure? We'd have to meet for an exit interview. Of course. Of course.
On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving of 2008 she sent out an email to her staff, telling them how much she appreciated them and to enjoy their Thanksgiving and the day after to shop till they dropped. Ha ha. And she went home and what happened next, only her family knows for sure. There are rumors. She hung herself over the banister so that her husband would find her when he returned early Thanksgiving morning from the firehouse. She showed him.
And I think back on a year ago, during our exit interview, where she talked about herself and her family and her job. When did suicide become an option? But after much contemplation, I've come to realize it's always been an option. Virginia Woolfe was not an exception, she was a trend. And now that my eyes have been opened, I see it everywhere. In the choices of humans, and we have so few, suicide is right up there with changing jobs, move to another state, kill yourself, stop talking to your parent. Exit, stage left is just another possibility, just another menu option.
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Nikki Stern
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Comments
Alas, I know all too well--as do many of us, I'm sure--what it's like to work w/such a woman. Why do women do this to each other?
The reason why I hate the movie "Working Girl" is the message it sends: a woman getting ahead by doing in another woman, her boss, w/the help of a man more powerful than both. This supvr was really out of line and went beyond TMI. Still, it's cold comfort to realize that perhaps Boss-Lady yapped so much about her so-called Wonderful Life as if to convince herself that it was so. That she did so at home so DH could find her, said it all. I've read that suicides will do so before the person(s) who drove them to it.
Perhaps women who read this--those hyper-achieving, aggravating women who think they've Got It All and surround themselves w/their little Yes-Girls to prove they're right--will recognize themselves and back-pedal it. We've come a long way, but we've still got a long way to go yet--or worse, we'll go backwards and then we're ALL screwed.
Good writing, BTW--hope to read more.
Rated.
Powerful stuff.
But also why we must struggle against the darkness, live to fight another day, why happiness is the right choice, even if it means tomorrow we get to climb up that same mountain all over again.
Imagine how sad her family was.
No matter what suicide makes victims the living as well.
I worked for a man once who was a pig. He sexually harassed all of his female employees, including me. He played favorites. He was an all around ass. Finally I left that company and went to work for another... only to find, a year later, that my new company bought my old, and my old coworkers were merging with us in my new office... including my old boss.
To make things even worse, he was supposed to have a desk behind mine. Make no mistake, I hated this guy and wanted him to die.... which made me feel horrible when I found that he had esophageal cancer.
He died before he ever took possession of the desk.
My boss gave us all the day off to go to his funeral. I didn't go. To this day I don't feel bad about it, but very rarely have ever talked about it.
How do you feel when someone you don't really like dies?
Obviously it adds a much different dimension when someone dies by their own hand. But still, in your post I see the ambivalence I felt myself, that day, when I was supposed to go to a funeral but went for a run instead.
Thanks. Rated.
her poor husband, tho, imagine what he must have lived with all those years.
and it's okay to not feel sorry.
So sad.
This was very well written and thank you for posting it. Very compelling.
Had he commit suicide however, my reaction to his death would have been much different, much more conflicted and much more compassionate than it was (is).
Fortunately you weren't involved on a personal level, so you aren't dealing with feeling responsible or guilty.
I agree with this.
I don't think what you wrote was particularly judgmental. You merely described the self-absorbed and brittle way she behaved and the misery she inflicted on others. I think that kind of behavior usually comes from an unhappy person. Unfortunately, she didn't just check out, she left a torment for her family.
In point of fact, however,Virginia Woolf was an exception. She had severe bi-polar disorder, which made her subject to psychotic breaks. And she could feel her attacks coming on in advance. Her suicide in 1941 came in anticipation of her upcoming bi-polar episode, which she just couldn't endure. There are many, many reasons for ending it all, but Woolf's was especially distinctive.