One of the Worst

I won't say she's the worst person I've ever met, but she definitely falls into my Top Three.

It was through my brief stint working in retail several years ago that we met.  Hired as a manager for the store, I naturally assumed she knew what she was doing.  If thievery and stirring up trouble were prerequisites for the job, it's no surprise the Powers That Be saw something special in her.

At first, I simply found her annoying:  she wouldn't stop talking.  I'm not much for chit chat, but her stories of her alleged past as a salon owner, security officer, and being the ex-wife of an NFL player she refused to name intrigued me.  I'm pretty good at spotting BS; little did I know the S would get even deeper.

Her sneaky S snuck up on us initially in the form of bullying.  A colleague with some serious personal issues was having difficulty doing her job effectively.  Rather than reach out, contact HR, cut her a little slack (you know, the things  managers are supposed to do) our subject opted to report this woman as 'completely incompetent' and drove her point home by keying the woman's car.

I S you not.

She mocked a wheel-chair bound customer behind said customer's back. She flirted with every man who entered the shop, except the gay ones.  She didn't like homosexuals, and made no secret of it.  She told a Muslim woman to 'take the curtain' off her head.   She forced junior associates to buy her sodas and never paid them back. She parked in front of a neighboring store and threatened legal action when they asked her to stop.   She was a horrible speller, and her grammar was no picnic, either. 

You can't make this S up, Gentle Reader.

Then merchandise went missing.  Small things at first - earrings, stuff like that. And the gossip!  She went out of her way to tell any and all about insults from other employees (supposedly) hurled against each of us. Needless to say, morale hit bottom.   Some of us were asked by the Powers That Be to keep an eye on her and report back any suspicious or unprofessional behavior.  That's not my style, but I did as I was told.  My only offering was a report of her spending three hours on the phone with her cable company when she should have been on the sales floor.  We were the only two employees working at the time, so she easily figure out that I was the rat.  She accused me of being a lying, racist, anti-Christan goody-two-shoes, and promised to make my life miserable. That night I went home, typed up my letter of resignation, and plotted all the different places I could park my car within a two-mile radius of the store.  I didn't resign immediately, but I kept the letter in my purse, just in case.  After all that, the worst she did was ignore me - a welcome respite from her constant chatter, to be honest.

We then began receiving surprise visits from the Head of Security for this particular store.  Big chain stores have those, you know, and they've got all this groovy equipment to not only track inventory but to track transactions as well.  I'd heard things about questionable sales and returns while under our subject's watch, but didn't think much about it until the day she broke her vow of silence against me.

"WHAT DID YOU TELL THEM THIS TIME, BETH?"  Typed in all caps because she yelled at me as the Security Head and another manager escorted her to the back room.  

They were in there for hours, and no one wanted to leave at the end of her shift. Too caught up in the drama, we made excuses to stick around.  

Finally, she emerged from the back, purse in hand, and yelling (again).  "I WILL OWN THIS COMPANY!  I'M CALLING MY LAWYER WHEN I GET HOME!  YOU ALL ARE TRYING TO CRUCIFY ME!  JUST BECAUSE I'M A WOMAN!" (that one didn't make any sense; the store was predominately female.) And with that, she left.

My shift was long over, so I went to the back to gather my things.  The Security Head asked me how to get to the nearest police department.  I told him, and he ran out the back door, violating store policy. No one was to enter or exit the back door. I'd learned my lesson about being a tattle-tale, though,  and I figured as Security Head he could come and go as he pleased.

We never heard nor saw from her again.  

I left the store a couple of months after the incident - nothing to do with her and everything to do with me not being cut out for retail.  God bless those who are.  It's a tough, thankless gig, and I admire anyone who can stick it out for longer than a few months.

Although it's been years since the incident, she still crosses my mind.  Curious, I did a little detective work recently and discovered that she had been punished accordingly for her misdeeds against the store. It's all a matter of public record.  Thank you, Internet, for showing me yet again that karma is real.

The Summer of My Malcontent

When I reflect upon past summers in which I had ample opportunity to do absolutely nothing, yet felt compelled to remain a little worker bee, I think to myself, “Wow, what an idiot.”

As a pre-teen, I continued my education during summer break through daily viewings of the CBS soap opera, Guiding Light (most of the little I know about life came from that show).   I then committed myself to reading any magazine I could get my hands on:  Seventeen, Young Miss., Bop – anything that had self-help hints, make-up tips, and the latest news on Rick Springfield. 

At age 16, I started working after school and during the summer months.  As an adult the allure of summer vacation drove me into a career in education, so what did I do?  I set aside each June, July, and August to work on my master’s degree (which I never got, by the way, and I don’t even care).  I then moved into an administrative role, and haven’t had any summer fun since.

 

That’s a lie.  We’ve taken many fantastic trips and spent a great amount of time around the pool.  I suppose my little musing today is my declaration of rebellion:  I’m not going to bust my hump working this summer.  I’ve got plenty of little tasks lined up to keep me financially sound until I return to the full-time grind in August.  The bills will be paid, the groceries bought, and a few gorgeous things shall be purchased, no doubt. 

Society tells us to work work work so we can get more more more.  I’ve got more than I need, thank you very much, and quite frankly I’ve been through the ringer the last few months, and I know that I’m no good to anybody unless I get some time to just sit and be.

Therein lies the challenge, though, Sweeties.  I find it difficult just to sit and be.

I feel guilty for doing nothing.  I always have.  Isn’t that ridiculous?

So I’ve made a little list of things I’d like to accomplish, which I know counters everything I’ve said up to this point.  Gosh, am I a contradiction today or what?  Who cares – it’s almost lunchtime and I’d like to get this thing posted.

Beth’s Summer Fun To Do List:

Proficiency on the ukulele (I dream of performing a little cabaret act in which I tell funny stories and then balance them with depressing songs.  Think about it:  ‘Guy walks into a bar…’ followed by ‘Today Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge..”)

Elegantly muse more –stop groaning. Ingrates.

Sew – My nieces’ Barbie dolls are swimming nude, and that’s just not done in my family.

Read – I do this already so I shouldn’t even put it on the list.

Anyhow, if you have the summer off, I encourage you to enjoy yourself.  If you don’t, I feel bad for you, you poor slob, and I do hope you can schedule in a little fun at some point. 

 

PS:  Because I’m a giver, here’s my recommended summer reading list, compiled with love just for you:

My Way of Life – Joan Crawford

Jenny and the Jaws of Life – Jincey Willett

Anything by David Sedaris

Gunn’s Golden Rules – Tim Gunn

The Complete Stories of Truman Capote

 

 

Baby, If You've Ever Wondered....

Just the other day, my inbox contained a very nice – and surprising – message. It was from a wonderful gentleman with whom I had the good fortune to work with during my radio days. I’ve not seen nor spoken to him in the last two decades, but he’d been on my mind recently, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to hear from him. Out of the blue. Just like that.

After the initial “How ya doing/what ya doing/” back-and-forth, my friend asked me whatever happened to our former boss, a man (and I use the term loosely here) I’ll simply refer to as Old Shan. Old Shan served as our station manager. My friend hosted the morning show, and yours truly was simply referred to as ‘The Afternoon Girl’. Anyway, Old Shan left quite an impression on my friend and me – and it’s not the impression he wanted to leave, I’m sure.

To put it bluntly, Old Shan was not a nice person.

Old Shan was not an emotionally stable person.

Old Shan might be your best friend one day, and your worst enemy the next.

I can support the above statements with the following examples: yelling, cursing, snap decisions, reversals of those snap decisions, poor business judgments, poor hiring choices, sexual harassment, manipulation, and far too much unpaid overtime.

And these all happened on our ‘good days’.

I stuck it out there for over a year, so you can imagine my reeling head when I finally wised up and left.

I’d often thought that perhaps it was just me. As the only on-air girl (and that term applies – I was only 21 or 22 years-old during this stint), I assumed that I was the problem, and that all of Old Shan's big and little rants actually meant something. Perhaps I wasn’t working hard enough. Perhaps I wasn’t doing my job effectively. Perhaps he didn’t like women. Perhaps he simply didn’t like me. I didn’t understand it then, but looking back, I realize that it wasn’t me.

It was him.

He treated everyone on staff deplorably.

During our exchange, my friend recalled some of his own Old Shan experiences, which were, of course, quite similar to my own. He said he’d often fantasized over the years about tracking him down and giving him a piece of his mind. I confessed I’d done the same thing, but because I truly believe in karma, I’m hopeful that Old Shan has learned a lesson, and has come out better for it.

And I have to hand it to Old Shan, for he taught me how to better deal with a couple of other ‘bad bosses’ I’ve had over the years. I suppose he entered my life in order to teach me that the world is made up of all kinds of people, and if you want to get anywhere in life, you’ve got to learn how to effectively deal with them. It’s okay, too, I learned, that if you can’t deal with them, you can certainly leave them. No need to get bogged down in someone else’s bad mojo.

A job is a job is a job….do what you love, do it well, and reap the rewards.

My friend is doing just that. He’s still in radio (God bless him!), and he’s tapped into another passion of his – he opened his own bike shop. I’m delighted for him, and so glad to reconnect with him.

Beth Newman
Newman Image
www.newmanimage.info
‘Look, feel, and LIVE your absolute best!’

Girls' Games

A friend of mine who manages an all-female staff recently shared soap-opera-worthy stories from her office: betrayals, lies, unfairness, whining, underhandedness, and such. “Well, when you’re dealing with women,” she said, “you’re bound to have drama.”

Excuse me?

I didn’t know whether to laugh or throw my drink in her face. Laughing would have been rude, and I hate to waste a good glass of wine, so I let it go.

As a woman who has always been a little worker bee, I found her proclamation absurd and highly offensive. It’s a myth that women can’t get along in the workplace simply because they are women. It’s a cop-out to merely chalk it up to ‘girls’ games’ rather than get to the root of the issue. (The issue in this case seems to be lack of teamwork, lack of respect for one’s colleagues, and lack of respect for oneself – how dare any woman run the risk of being categorized in such a way)

I have worked with women who’ll resort to certain tools to get their own way at work, but trust me: I’ve worked with just as many men who’ve done the same.

I’ve never liked gender stereotyping. I find it appalling when wives speak ill of their husbands and then wrap up their tirade with, “Well, that’s a man for you!” I found my friend’s observation (or lack thereof) regarding her female staff ignorant.

My first job was as a disc jockey at a radio station. I was twenty-years-old and the only female member of the staff. When he hired me, the program director of the station actually said, “Well, we need a girl. We may as well have a pretty one.” I vowed right then to work just as hard as the boys. As it turned out, I worked a lot harder than most of the boys. I was a team-player, hell-bent on doing what was best for the station. I was kind, never complained unless I had a solution to offer, and never allowed the stresses of the job or my personal life get in the way of doing my best each day. I was a kid, but I already knew what it meant to be a professional.

In my latter years of teaching middle school, a female colleague approached me with concerns about a male teacher whom she felt was not tending to his students properly. He never took lunch count in the morning, never monitored the kids at recess, and always – always was late in submitting paperwork and grades. “Well, it’s because he’s a man, I suppose,” she said. “No,” I responded, “it’s because he’s lazy and has no business teaching here.” That’s probably not the most professional thing I could have said, but it was true. We had several men on staff who actually took care of business beautifully. To describe this guy’s behavior as a ‘guy thing’ was a complete disservice to the other guys.

But I’ll let the boys worry about their own. Ladies, it’s you I want to address. How can we keep from being categorized as drama queens while at work? Here’s my Top Ten:
1. Don’t cry in front of anyone
2. Don’t pout, yell, scream, or curse
3. Don’t use your looks to get what you want
4. Treat each of your colleagues with the utmost respect
5. Take issues you have with someone to that someone confidentially
6. Show up on time and dress the part
7. Be honest and forgiving
8. Leave your problems at home at home.
9. Work hard and take pride in all that you do
10. Remember, unless you own the company, you are an employee - a team member, who must play the game fair or run the risk of being eliminated. Everyone is replaceable at work.

As women, I think we have to work a little harder – and a little smarter – in order to kill the idea that we as a group don’t play nice at the office.

Beth Newman
Image Consultant/Life Coach
Newman Image
www.newmanimage.info
Look, feel, and LIVE your absolute best!