.... © Jeffrey Dane 2001

The man with the cushy job who refused to believe I've ever been paid for my published articles. - The resentful office manager with a whim of iron, no authority but lots of influence, whose corporate command-and-control-freak behavior spoke for itself. - The hard-of-reading executive with costly original artwork adorning his office walls who felt my four weeks' accrued vacation time was "excessive." - The crafty witch and makework warlock computer mayvins who spent more time fussing than working. - The unofficial company spy disguised as a mother-hen secretary who felt she ruled the roost. - The comptroller so thrifty (i.e., cheap) he could chew the mint mark off a coin. - The tattle-tale prima donna executive secretary who effectively defined her character with the revealing remark, "I don't get headaches, I give them" - - and who was actually surprised when she was fired. - The Harvard lawyer who timed his departure to reach his Park Avenue apartment early enough "to see the girls on Baywatch." I, too, went to Harvard: I spent a weekend attending the International Beethoven Conference. "Veritas" is Harvard's motto, the first thing I learned there. It seemed the first thing the lawyer forgot.

For years these were some of my co-workers. Was I crazy or were they being absurd? I concluded I'm not crazy.

By its nature, what's most obvious often doesn't occur to us. Usually encouraged by those with whom they're friendliest, people will think whatever they want to, regardless of what you say or do. That's why trying to refute by example can be a losing battle, particularly in the workplace - and only the ill-advised knowingly fight what's clearly a losing battle. We're responsible for our own actions. We're not responsible for the comments others make, the gossip they monger or the lies - ranging from unsupportable accusations of writing personal letters at the office to ludicrous sotto voce insinuations of sexual harassment - which some people thrive on telling. The power, authority and even influence of others has a bearing on what happens to us. Some believe we're masters of our own fate. It may be so - but personal responsibility notwithstanding, the control we have over our own immediate, practical circumstances is limited, and my case was emblematic of this.

* * * * * * * * *

My mission in private life, unrelated to my employment, was and still is as an independent historian, researcher, essayist and author. For more than two decades I earned my livelihood as the working supervisor in the communications center at the firm that employed me during that time. An unsolicited but substantial personal kindness toward me from the CEO created a tacit but unmistakable seething resentment and envy from some employees, particularly the personnel manager. My office had a door while hers didn't; that this was one of her pet peeves reflects her sense of priority. More about her, presently.

Management soon revealed the corporate mind-set when they decided I should have what they called "a real job," as though what I had been doing skillfully and successfully for twenty years was suddenly invalid and beneath one's dignity. The earnest janitor who knows and cares about what he's doing does more of a real job than the crooked judge. I was soon re-assigned to another department, and was "promoted." - That promotion was from being the Coordinator of the Communications Center, with my own office and a co-worker, to the position of administrative assistant at a modular work-station. The masks of Pathos and Comedy were worn simultaneously by the personnel/office manager with her Cheshire-cat grin on that day. Among my myriad new responsibilities (which came with no new privileges or salary increase) was to prepare my new supervisor's tea each morning, and to water his plants. This, evidently, was the "real" job they had had in mind when they "promoted" me; it's laughable and it exemplifies the corporate mentality with which most of us are familiar in concept and practice.

Eventually, I was put on probation - this, after nearly a quarter of a century of active, continuous, and dedicated service to the firm - and was told procedures must go "by the book." Modifications to the firm's policy manual were customized to reflect what best suited them. Contrived self-serving "principles" and elaborately rationalized justifications masqueraded as logical thought and action to the point where reason became nonsense. What they wanted was clear to everyone and was acknowledged by no-one, giving the circumstances all the hallmarks and characteristic motivation of the quintessential kangaroo court.

The change in this corporate climate was rather sudden. What prompted this animosity from them in the first place? - All the trouble began when the CEO had extended that particular kindness to me. I had casually mentioned to him my intention of visiting our Tampa office while in Florida (whence I was going on my vacation to see friends). He was then kind enough to tell me that the firm would therefore pay my Tampa hotel costs - ". . . plus, as a kind of bonus for you and a tangible appreciation of your contributions to the firm, we'll also pay for your round-trip airfare to and from Florida."

The day the personnel manager got wind of this, one could practically see steam coming out of her ears when she approached me to ask me about "this situation." The tell-all was her comment, "How'd you swing that?!" - replete with the furrowed-eyebrows, scowl, and the clearly implicit fury characteristic of those who resent the good fortune of others. It was so visible in her expression, and so audible in her tone, that Helen Keller could have seen and heard it. She later suggested that I should personally "shop around" for the best airfare. She wasn't pleased by my decision that since it wasn't necessary for other employees to do that when traveling at company expense, it wasn't necessary for me to do it, either, and I merely advised the firm's travel agent to secure economical airfares for me.

I guess I had a lot of nerve accepting the CEO's kindness. He had offered me a benefit which might have been virtually unprecedented in the firm's existence - and he had offered it to me, and not to her. She certainly couldn't take out her frustrations and resentment about this on him. She began, instead, trying to take them out on me, and thus marked the beginning of the end - the more so, as the CEO actually favored me again with yet another such generosity on a subsequent occasion, when I visited our Paris office on a vacation and personal research journey. This so irked the office manager that she was nearly suicidal. You can usually see, simply by their demeanor, when people are terribly annoyed about something.

It was also standard procedure for the the travel agent to secure business-class tickets for employees flying at company expense - but that this was done was, in my case alone, a source of considerable annoyance to the office manager. It may have been she who, while I was away, induced the comptroller to tell the CEO - in writing - that the firm could have saved several hundred dollars ". . .if Mr. Dane hadn't asked for a business-class ticket." Evidently it had never occurred to the comptroller that I would be at least sensible enough to make and keep a photocopy of my request to the travel agent, in which I had asked him - in writing - specifically for economical airfares, and to let him, as a professional, make whatever decision was customary in cases like this. That photocopy is what fully vindicated me - and made the comptroller look like a fool - when the CEO questioned me on it. I couldn't believe my ears when the comptroller actually asked me, "What prompted you to keep a copy of that note to the travel agent?" It's a good thing I did - because, knowing the office manager and other trouble-makers as I did, I had actually anticipated the possibility of what could happen. And I was right.

"Those who enjoy their own emotionally bad health and who habitually fill their own minds with the rank poisons of suspicion, jealousy and hatred, as a rule take umbrage at those who refuse to do likewise, and they find a perverted relief in trying to denigrate them. A pity. In so doing, such unfortunates are deceiving no self-thinking person, for they reveal much about themselves and little about their targets" - attributed to Johannes Brahms.

* * * * * * * * *

We tend to respond in kind to the treatment we receive. Formerly, I was a member of the firm's family: arriving early, often working through lunch, and leaving late (without overtime compensation). Now, I went "by the book" and strictly observed company protocol. I became An Employee: arriving at nine, taking a full lunch hour, leaving at five. The personnel manager, pettiness personified, watched me with an extraordinary focus on a daily basis (and had others do likewise), seeking and finding fault as though it were gold. On one occasion soon after my transfer to the new department I left for the day earlier than usual - something the office manager made certain to mention to my new supervisor. What she did not tell him, though, was that my early departure that day was by exactly five minutes. (What does that tell us?). By her actions, she wound up robbing the company of whatever good could have come of my services and contributions to it.

Though I was no longer under her corporate jurisdiction - which she found extremely irritating - her influence with those in my new department was telling. Her fixations extended even to how I wore my necktie - and to her attempts, which proved futile, to have me saddled with innumerable other responsibilities (like filing duties) that had no bearing on the work I was doing. Errata were viewed as if they totally invalidated all my contributions, service and loyalty to the firm. Her conduct, like others', proved she had an axe to grind, for whatever underlying reasons (all of which, though obvious, somehow escaped management's recognition - or their acknowledgement altogether). My reward for following instructions, the standard dictates of convergent business procedure, and parallel corporate employee behavior was to be put on probation - again.

No professional boxer worth the name would hit a man when he's down. That all of this transpired when I was most vulnerable - my wife was recovering from a very recent severe heart attack - may be more than coincidental.

Promoting someone to his or her level of incompetence is known as The Peter Principle. I had been placed in the MIS department. Though I'm far from incompetent I acknowledge now as I did then that I'm not "the world's foremost authority" (who is?) on computers. Neither were most employees, whose function, like mine, was to use computers to perform tasks. They had a finite number of set, well-defined duties, usually nursing them along to fill out their day. In my case alone it wasn't enough. It's been said that more than 90 percent of most programs is incomprehensible to most users. Though there's no shame in not succeeding, a formula was concocted, perhaps even by design, that operatively guaranteed failure: I was assigned tasks patently too advanced, even after some training - and perhaps most importantly, they were in far greater number than most others could handle. Anyone who's ever been "dumped on" will know exactly what this means. I became the funnel through which many of the corporate trivialities were now directed.

I was told that the results of my next task would determine whether or not the firm would retain me. The project assigned to me was to configure the software and parameters in the company's new computer system.

Placed in the ensemble was the orchestra librarian, who after attending some concerts was then expected to play an instrument with a skilled musician's background, training and facility. In keeping with the contradictory concept called corporate wisdom, my plate was designed to overflow, and overflow it did. What's surprising is that the mess it created came as a surprise to them.

+++++++++++++++

I saw the computers as tools with which to work, and to experiment when I could make the time. In those days I had no computer at home, which made the situation equivalent to that of the music student with no instrument of his own and who can practice only when he's at school. There's no need to outline the disadvantages of such circumstances. The computer experts, geniuses at making simple things complicated, saw their paraphernalia on the other hand as "new toys" to "play" with. "If it ain't broke, fix it" was the implicit guideline. As often as not, systems and programs were upgraded or changed altogether as soon as employees began feeling comfortable with those that were already in place. Is it really necessary or even desirable to get a new car every time a new model becomes available?

I kept writing. That's what authors do. Some co-workers enjoyed my published work - they of course are the gems in the employee setting - but most were indifferent. Predictably, some even trivialized it. This didn't surprise me. They may have been if not insulted by implication then certainly intimidated by inference. Anyone can report facts. Lots of people can string words together coherently. Some can even share what they know by writing a good story about it. Not everyone, however, can see his work in publication. Apparently such things as landing a catch on a fishing trip warranted the congratulatory glad-handing and back-slapping the corporate lawyer got from employees after such victories. That was the kind of accomplishment to which most of these people gave priority.

I expected being a published author to make no difference to the situation I was in. It did in some ways but not in others. I soon learned that a personal success for some can be as dangerous as a professional failure for others. The good luck some people wish you comes with a resentment when you find it. Umbrage takes many forms.

My stay at the firm turned out to be a 24-year-long temporary job. My employment was terminated. Some would say that my growing publication successes, however modest they might have been at that time (and there's value even in modest accomplishments), had no bearing on the termination. This is at best naïve and at worst willful blindness. The hostility from co-workers and management was, in a word, palpable. It could be if not admitted by them, or articulated by me, then certainly felt - and I say this even at the risk of sounding paranoid. (If you're walking along a dark street, you are not paranoid if you become aware that someone is actually walking close behind you. That's an awareness of your surroundings - not paranoia). It was difficult to define and prove but very easy to recognize. When a former assistant of mine was terminated (for "economic" reasons, i.e., this multi-million-dollar firm would save a big $8,000 per year by eliminating him and hiring someone else at a lower salary), he was given more information and out-placement assistance than he could handle. It's revealing that I was offered none, in keeping with the office manager's personal selectivity and propensity for whim and making her own rules.

More than anyone else, it was she who initially set the wheels in motion, injecting into the company's system a poison that spread throughout the entire office. Conspiracy and collusion interest questionable people. What was done created a corporate petri dish in which the culture of this cancerous situation grew and flourished. She and others nurtured the proceedings through a detestable web of office politics, petty squabbles, and despicably mean-spirited intrigues. We all know that kind of mentality.

Everyone there was afraid for his job and no-one had the strength or integrity even to try saving an underling from being molested by others in positions of authority or influence. My requests for help fell on ears deafer than Beethoven's. Why were they doing this? They did it to see if they could get away with it. It was an experiment - and those in charge just sat back and let it happen. I was seen as easy prey and one could positively sense them waiting to pounce. There are those who value us only by what we can do for them. We all know this kind of mentality, too. When you're treated with loathing and contempt your surroundings assume discomfort; when you're treated like excrement they assume cesspool characteristics.

Age discrimination is illegal but only a simpleton would believe it's no longer practiced. "He's too old!" is what I heard the comptroller tell the personnel manager (as if it was any of his business) about applicants on more than one occasion - though the concept certainly had no bearing at all on what happened to a middle-age man like me. A thinly-disguised but obvious reference to age shone forth in an executive's remark to my new supervisor about me, "He should be thankful he still has a job at this stage!"

* * * * * * * * *

I used to awaken preoccupied, sitting at the edge of the bed wondering, What new orgies of nonsense await me this day? Nowadays I awaken with a smile and go to my desk refreshed to entertain new ideas and spend my days developing and sculpting them into articles, essays, book reviews and narratives I ultimately see published. Now, instead of an office filled with petty adversities, my research and writing awaits me each day.

There can be a balance without symmetry: I endured the corporate abuse and discomfort, lived for evenings and weekends, wrote my articles at home and saw them published in magazines and newspapers. "Don't crawl," my father long ago taught me. I lost a job, but I still didn't crawl. I was helpful and flexible, but I refused to grovel and buckle. Some call it stubbornness and decline, others integrity and progress. We journalists know this. The situation prompted me to re-examine my priorities. I concluded they've always been the right ones.

They had finally found an antidote to boredom. Their countless, ceaseless attempts at intimidation were obvious but fruitless - and that they never had the satisfaction of hearing me identify or even acknowledge their specific but thinly-veiled efforts in that regard plainly disturbed them even more. "Just ignore them and you'll wear them down," suggested a co-worker whose modicum of intelligence allowed him to see the situation as it actually was. I had to inform him that people like them couldn't be worn down, and that they'd continue as long as they could - because they thrived on it, because they were allowed to get away with it, and, mainly, because they enjoyed it.

To avoid relinquishing severance and other benefits, rather than comply with their wish that I resign I awaited the termination that had clearly been pre-ordained. (To be suddenly put on "probation" after nearly twenty five years with the same company bespeaks a managerial agenda). The firm did me an unintentional favor. The following couple of years were my most logistically bothersome but personally satisfying time. It's been said success is the best revenge. If you enjoy and find fulfillment in what you're doing, you are successful - and I enjoy and find fulfillment in what I'm doing. Now I don't have to do things his way, her way, or their way. Now I do things largely my way. I now live a simple but far more fulfilling, and happy, life in a city (for the moment) and in a world full of strife.

My severance package enabled me to take a very long sabbatical which resulted in nearly 50 articles, almost all of them published, here in the USA and some abroad, in print and in online publications, and in several languages. I was paid for most of them, which many of my former co-workers would still refuse to believe. The resultant period of creative leisure and independence, thence the income I realized from my articles and essays, enabled me to acquire a computer - and that severance package, though in and of itself not enough to live on for the rest of one's life, made all the difference in the world: it enabled me to acquire some property and a large house in another area, to which I'll eventually relocate.

For reasons of logistics, an intentionally low financial profile and some good investments over the years, after examining my personal economic situation I concluded that whatever assets I had were certainly more than enough for me to live on - and what's more, to live on comfortably. I decided, therefore, to "cash in my chips" and was soon able to realize a long-standing dream: I took an early retirement.

I seem to have more to do now as a literally independent writer than when I had to be involved in the cesspool that's euphemistically called the contemporary work force. For me there aren't enough hours in the day, days in the week, etc. The simpler your needs, the more enjoyable and fulfilling your retirement can be. Unless one has unlimited wealth, retirement doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want to do. It means you don't have to do things that you don't want to do - and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Those who organized and joined the witch hunt to have me ousted certainly ruined me. They gave me a small gold mine, though they thought they were just giving me the shaft. They hadn't realized that my circumstances there had deteriorated to such an extent that I wanted, truly wanted, to be rid of them. They actually thought I wished to remain there. The worst thing they could have done to me would have been to retain me. The best thing they did for me was to free me - and all the severance specifics constituted the major contribution to what actually made the literally life-enhancing difference for me: more than anything else, it's what enabled me to take my early retirement.

Now there's justice. I'm compensated by writing about an injustice. My reward is that this is being read. I've had if not the last word surely the last laugh. I've never slept better. My intermittent back problems have disappeared completely and my overall health has improved dramatically.

Was it worth it? They destroyed my job but improved my life: more of my work has been published (or accepted and is awaiting publication) in the past year alone than in the previous five. Writing for publication isn't always enough to earn a living. It's a reason for living. God and writers know this. I'll always have my work and I'm seeing it published, more now than ever.

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About the Author - - - by the Author

Jeffrey Dane is a historian, researcher and essayist whose writing appears in print and online publications in the USA and abroad in several languages. Now that he's taken an early retirement, he can afford to spend his time as a man of creative leisure - and there's not a darned thing the resentful can do about it. He's found that poetic justice exists - not just in the mind of the poet, but in life as well: he's experiencing it now, and he finds the balance and equity of his situation a great pleasure. Most of his work has a musical focus, but as a relaxing diversion from the norm of routine, he researches and writes articles and book reviews on other subjects that interest him, especially Western history. He has also contributed to several books, including "An Illustrated History of Texas Forts" by author and artist Rod Timanus (Republic of Texas Press, Plano, Texas, February, 2001), and he was asked to write the Foreword for "The Alamo Story: From Early History to Current Conflicts" by Western historian J.R. Edmondson (R. of T. Press, February 2000). He's observed that those in the territory of Western history are among the sanest and most enlightened of all the sometimes convoluted folk in the various historical fields.

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