Saturday, March 07/20
So this blog has been almost a month in the making and is the longest entry I've ever posted.
Be warned, this is a very long blog, so much so that I debated splitting it up into two separate entries but didn't feel the end products would flow as well when reading it if I left it as one entry.
As long as it is, it could have been much longer but I've pruned a lot of things out of it in order to condense it a little.
Apologies for making you wait so long for it to come online but hopefully as you read it you'll understand the difficulty I dealt with while writing it and appreciate why it took me so long.
Marcus
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Started - Sunday, February 16/20
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. Probably one of the best spaghetti westerns ever filmed and also a pretty damn good description for my life at work the past 6 weeks or so.
One thing I've learned recently is that sometimes doing the right thing isn't always in one's best interest and I'll forevermore be cautious when trying to extend a helping hand after what I've had to deal with these past few weeks.
So when I started at my current position there was a group of us who were in the finance and accounting group, the group of 5 as we jokingly referred to ourselves. Two were in accounts receivable, 1 in fixed assets, 1 as a team lead in general accounting, and myself as a business analyst.
Both the team lead and I sat in the accounts receivable section as there wasn't any room in the general accounting group for us due to some pending workstation moves. Now we'll call the team lead Jessica, not her real name but it'll do for my purposes. She was responsible for payroll, intercompany accounting, and master data. Jessica became buddies with Maggie, the team lead for general accounting. Maggie liked to come down and sit on the shared table between my work station and Jessica's and talk about her team with some pretty severe disdain. Probably my second week she came over and asked me what I was trying to do with some worksheets I'd created and saved in my network folder as they didn't make any sense to her. I was a little annoyed by her questioning me and going into my worksheets as I reported directly to the accounting manager and didn't feel like I needed to justify anything I was doing to her, she made some comment about how she was going to know my job better than me and she'd make sure I was placed on her team so she could keep an eye on me.
I looked at her like "What the Fuck?" and then proceeded to ignore her and her questions.
About a month later I got to work to find out that Maggie had been fired and walked out of the building as she was micro-managing every person on her team and creating a toxic work environment.
Now a normal person would have noted this and tried not to emulate that kind of behavior but our Jessica just couldn't understand why Maggie was terminated and let everyone know she thought the team members had let Maggie down. My first clue that all was not well with our Jessica.
Over the next nine to ten months I had limited direct interaction with Jessica but a lot of interaction with her team, couldn't quite understand why they were always coming to either myself or Barb, the other team lead who'd taken over for Maggie, but over time it became kind of apparent that Jessica was in over her head and her entire team knew it and didn't bother going to her for any kind of assistance.
My first real interaction came in October when we got a new accounting manager and she tried to throw me under the bus, for those not familiar with the term, it means an attempt to make one person look bad without any real purpose other than to promote yourself.
I had been called over by Barb and Jessica to help them try and understand why our intercompany accounts were out of balance between two of our operating companies, found the issue, and had walked with them down to the master data analyst to have a change made in our ERP system that would fix it moving forward. So there we were, 2 team leads, myself, master data, and the intercompany accountant all gathered around a laptop when our new manager walked by, stopped to smile at us, and said: "what are all of my smartest people working on?"
Whereupon Jessica smiled at him and replied "Well Barb and I are fixing an issue with the interco accounts but I'm not sure what he's doing here" and proceeded to point at me laughing. Thinking she was joking around, I waited for her to continue and when she just stood there looking at me like she really had no clue why I was there, Barb and the other two exchanged a look silently asking just what the fuck happened. I looked at her while replying to our manager "The error was simple enough to find when you understand how the interco works but the master data team lead doesn't have enough experience to know these kinds of things and thus I keep answering the same question from her over and over, kind of tedious if you know what I mean" and walked back to my own workstation.
As I walked past Barb she sotto whispered while smiling "Damn, well played".
To say I was slightly pissed would be putting it mildly. You call me over to help and then when questioned about what we are doing make it look like I'm just hanging around wasting time? Fuck that shit! I spoke with our manager later that afternoon and let him know how unimpressed I was with the whole thing and explained how I got to be there in the first place. He smiled and said that Barb and Barry, the master data analyst, had already told him the real story and I shouldn't let it bother me.
But bother me it did and I couldn't understand why Jessica would throw me under the bus like that, we'd never interacted on anything at work in the previous 8 months, though I had worked with her team on a number of issues but never with her. After about two weeks I decided enough was enough and asked to speak with her in the small meeting room near our team, we went in and I outlined my displeasure and she actually acted shocked and said she didn't remember saying that. I told her she absolutely had and I was one to sit around and allow myself to be walked over. She apologized, though it was more lip service than real in my mind.
The next couple of months went by without any further incidents or even communications between us as our focus was on different aspects of the operations. I continued to get requests from her team for help on a variety of things but she never involved herself in these discussions.
The next time I had any real contact with Jessica came in the afternoon of December 20th just before the company Christmas party. She appeared rattled for most of the morning and left early, as did a lot of coworkers to get ready for the party. Barb came by and mentioned that Jessica was going through a bad breakup and had left early to deal with things at home. I took that to mean she had been on the receiving end of the breakup and felt kind of bad for her.
I saw her a few times later at the party as we crossed paths among the almost 3K employees and guests and she sort of came across to me as a bit tipsy. Our annual party is held at a very upscale hotel and they always reserve a block of rooms for employees to book in case they don't feel like driving home and I found out later she'd visited one of the rooms a coworker had booked for the night and started the party quite early. Tipsy was putting it mildly, she was two sheets into the wind and it got worse as the night wore on, least that was the story that developed.
Now the first week following the party was pretty much dead time workwise as we were off the 25th and 26th and encouraged to either take vacation time or work from home so we could spend the week with our families and the second week wasn't much better with being off a half-day for the 31st and off for New Year's Day, once again we were encouraged to take off the 30th and/or work from home as our CFO and CAO were both big on the whole work-family balance.
So Monday, December 23rd rolled around and those of us in the office heard quite a bit about Jessica's exploits at the party with more than a few commenting on how sad it was seeing her trying to act like a twenty-year-old instead of her age. From the sound of things, she went around the party trying to get as many people to take selfies with her as she could, including some of the senior executives.
Now I'm not a fan but could relate to her feeling overwhelmed by the breakup since I myself took a very long time to get over the end of my relationship with Corinne. So I tried to keep an open mind as the stories seemed to take on a life of their own.
Even though we had the option of working from home I still went into the office most days as my work usually involved having multiple programs running on 3 screens on my desk, not something as easily accomplished when working at home on my laptop.
So as I sat at my desk on the 26th, yes I was working on Boxing Day as I had nothing else to do given my son was with his mom and I was not going to brave going to a store on the day, I typed an email to Jessica saying I had heard she'd received some bad news just before the party and I hoped she didn't let it define who she was as we have no control over shitty news but our response to it is what really matters the most. She responded on the 27th thanking me for the message, expressing happiness at our being friends again, and mentioned seeing my profile on a dating site but having swiped left as that would be too st5range to date someone from work. I laughed as I read it and told her no worries as I'd seen hers as well back in November and had also swiped left as one of my dating rules was to never date where I work and ended it by telling her if she ever just needed to vent or talk to someone about things to send me a text or give me a call.
Early on the morning of the 31st, my phone pinged with a new text message. How early you ask, try 3:16 in the morning, early enough to make me take notice and have a momentary panic that something was wrong with one of my kids, so I reached over and saw it was from Jessica.
She asked if I was up as she had insomnia and needed to talk to someone. I responded with a laughing emoji saying I was now. She said she was sorry for waking me and I told her not to worry about it as I had offered to listen if she needed it.
I'm not going to replay the entire 2-hour text conversation but will say I was more than a bit shocked at some of the things she disclosed to me.
Turns out I was completely wrong about her breakup, she told me she'd kicked her boyfriend out of her house when she found out he'd had a woman over while she back east bringing her son's home for the Christmas break from university. Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact she told me she'd convinced him to have an open relationship so she could feel a little spice again, that she'd actually been having an affair on him on and off for the past 5 years with a former boyfriend, who was married with 2 young children of his own. Her only regret at breaking things off with her boyfriend was the lost rent she needed to replace since he paid to live at her place, especially critical since she was selling her place and buying a new one a little south of Kanata.
She then went on to comment on how it sucked we weren't going to get any Christmas bonuses and I responded that would be hard to justify since we were looking to record some large reserves, she said maybe but the entire executive team was getting them and it wasn't fair. I don't think she realized that the bonuses paid last year weren't for Christmas but as a way of thanking the staff on hand for going above and beyond in meeting some crazy work schedules as we went public with a new offering.
She commented on how she had 2 dates lined up for later in the day as well as a going to a girl's night party at Moxies to ring in the New Year. One of the dates was a hot tub date at her place with a guy she'd been chatting with on Tinder. That one sort of made cringe as she was having someone over to her house she'd never met before and her sons would be there at the same time. She said she was exploring her sexuality with younger guys as they were more willing to learn from her. I joked she needed to be safe and wear a one-piece so the guy wouldn't get the wrong idea and she laughed and said it was the same suit from the profile I'd swiped left on and she wasn't against anything happening if he was cute in person and built to rock her world.
The last part of the text conversation centered around how our former CEO had hit on her at the party and was totally into her, she shared a selfie she had taken to prove her point and yet to me it looked like just a normal picture but she was absolutely convinced he wanted to take her to bed. She went on to ask me if I knew if a certain executive was married as she'd seen his profile on Tinder as well and thought he was yummy, as well as if another one was happy as she'd seen his wife at the party following him around like a lost puppy.
As we ended the text conversation I told her I was going to have a hard time looking her in the eye on Monday. She asked why and I said she'd shared way too much personal information with me, some of it was confidential. She just ended it with another smiling emoji and said she was going to get some sleep and I should crash the party at Moxies.
I didn't crash the party but instead spent my usual New Year's Eve, watching some movies and reading a bit before actually crashing for the night before the clock even struck midnight lol
My next exchange with Jessica took place on Friday, January 3rd at 2:18 am when she texted asking if I was awake but I didn't respond at that time as I wasn't sure what she was going to say this time around. Instead, I texted her back at 6:26 am when I would normally be awake, saying that I'd been asleep and missed her text, she responded telling me I was lucky and had wanted to chat about her master data team, she wanted my opinion on the two analysts as she felt she needed to make some changes. I told her I'd give it some thought and we could chat about it on Monday when we were both back in the office.
So Monday rolled around and as soon as I walked onto our floor Jessica was up and walking towards me while motioning to the meeting room near our end of the floor, all before I've even had a chance to take my jacket off and unpack my laptop and get it set up for the day. I followed her into the room and watched as she closed the door, turning to face me and without even a "how was your weekend?" asked me if she should recommend that Kevin be terminated and Barry have a note made in his file about his failure to properly train Kevin. I was stunned by her tone and directness and it must have shown on my face as she looked at me and said "You know Kevin struggled to get the simplest things done when Barry was on holiday the last 2 weeks and I can't let this reflect poorly on me"
Now understanding dawned in me, this was nothing more than her trying to cover her ass as the lead for a team that had almost completely failed to meet and fulfill requests. The last two weeks of 2019 were a brutal struggle as it became apparent that Kevin wasn't able to meet the most basic tasks asked and I think it was a reflection of his training but from both his own failure to let people know he didn't fully understand the material and his team lead for not paying closer attention to the entire process. I think sometimes people are nervous to express that they are not comfortable with a topic and this was probably the case with Kevin. It didn't help that his lead knew the subject even less than he did and wasn't able to be of any assistance when issues developed, other than to critique how poorly he was doing, sort of making it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I looked down at my phone to check the time as our first daily quarter close huddle was scheduled to start at 9 am, about 10 minutes away, and I wanted to unload my stuff to prep for it, so I looked at Jessica and told her as bluntly as possible "I'm not in any position to recommend someone be terminated or if one member of your team failed to train another, that if I'm formally asked for my thoughts on how things have transpired that I'd say Kevin performed as well as can be expected given the leadership he was provided during that time"
She looked at me like I'd just sprung horns from my forehead and asked if that was all the support she could expect from me on this and I smiled at her while opening the door to leave and said "Absolutely" and left.
I'm sure you can imagine the dagger looks I received from her when we were in the huddle, so much that Barb, who was standing next to me, leaned over and asked: "What the hell crawled up her ass and made her so pissed at you?" I laughed and said I'd tell her later when we were done with the huddle.
I'm not going to detail day by day what transpired as that would end up making this blog entry the size of a novel and it's already the longest one I've ever published and not even done yet, but I will detail out some of the events to give perspective to what I had to deal with.
The Tuesday huddle was interesting as Jessica was caught unprepared when questioned about some unposted payroll entries and pulled the same stunt by saying the payroll accountant hadn't finished them yet and she'd have a word with her about it. The problem with that statement is that our payroll accountant has been with us for years and totally understands the critical timing of preparing journals at quarter-end given the time constraints we face filing our financial statements with various regulatory agencies and stock exchanges. After the huddle ended I stopped by Patty's desk to ask her if there was anything I could do to help finish off the journals and she asked what was I talking about as they'd been done since Friday and waiting for Jessica to approve and post. I cringed when I realized Jessica was trying to throw Patty under the bus as she'd been too busy partying all weekend to actually do her job. I told Patty what had been said at the huddle and she was furious, printed off the journal queue to show them sitting there since Friday, and marched down to our manager to have a word with him about it.
Later that day I got a text from Barry asking what was going on between Jessica and myself. I responded nothing at all and why was he asking me, he texted back right away that he'd just come from a meeting with her and she'd ripped him a new one about all the issues Kevin had while he was on holiday and out of the blue she dropped the bombshell that I was into her and had been totally hitting on her lately. WTF? I replied that one shouldn't believe everything they hear and left it at that.
Over the course of the next 3 weeks, I was constantly being asked what was going on with Jessica and found out she'd been going around telling everyone she could that:
- I was totally into her
- I was constantly texting her
- She'd had to block me on Facebook
- I was upset with her for her rejection of me on a dating site
To say I was annoyed by her and this would be putting it mildly.
I'd had to do damage control an additional 3 times in the huddle for things she was blaming other people, including our direct VP who was absent from that meeting. I mean who blames her bosses boss without thinking it's going to get back to them at some point, a boss I've worked for before and highly respect.
During this same time frame, we all noticed and commented on her increasingly erratic behavior, that since we'd returned from the Christmas break she'd yet to work a full day and spend most of her time working from home and when in the office being distracted by her cell phone, appearing to be texting during key meetings.
It was like watching a teenager dealing with high school angst. She was inviting people to be her friends on Facebook at the same time she was posting pictures that most normal parents would never share given her own kids were among her contacts.
It was almost funny to be told how she'd complained to Carla about how she was making less than Brenda and she really thought that she should be the senior team lead and making substantially more than her. Why is that sort of funny? Carla is friends with Brenda, Brenda actually recommended Carla for her position so why in the hell would Jessica complain about what Brenda made is beyond me, plus the fact that it was obvious she was scouring the payroll system to see what other people were being paid was now obvious, add in the fact that she told Carla if she wanted any payroll information to let her know as it wouldn't be an issue getting it for her. Again my initial thought was WTF!!!!
Things came to a head for me when I got a google chat request from Krista, one of the group of 5, telling me I needed to go get a coffee downstairs in the cafe right away. I typed back asking why I would do that when I could just go to the lunchroom and get one and she replied saying it was in my best interest to do so right now. So being curious I did as asked and went down to the cafe only to find her waiting for me looking really anxious.
Krista pulled me to a side hallway and told me that I needed to go to HR right away and tell them what was going on with Jessica as it was getting out of hand. I asked what she meant and she told me that Jessica had been over to her area asking all the females if I'd ever said anything sexual to them, made inappropriate comments, or asked them out. Krista told me to get my head out of my ass and take the offensive as it looked like Jessica was trying to build a case against me and enlisting any help she could get.
I went back to my desk feeling sick to my stomach about everything. I'd already been dreading going to work most mornings and now felt like I was being bullied and harassed. I sent an email to HR asking if I could meet with someone and we set up a Google hangout for the next morning, Thursday.
I spoke with Jimmy from HR and outlined everything that had been going on and he patiently took copious notes and asked a lot of questions. He asked me what I hoped to see happen and I said I wanted her to stop talking about me to people, stop spreading lies, and honestly, to go and get some help as it was obvious she wasn't well mentally and needed to talk to someone about the issues going on in her life. He asked me if I had considered talking to her one on one about the whole thing and I told him I would not be in a room alone with her out of fear for how she'd interpret our interaction and twist more stories up about me. He told me he'd review it with a couple of more senior HR managers and get back to me in a couple of days and I shouldn't have to go through this ever.
Friday morning rolled around and I was sitting at my desk when I got a Google chat message asking me to go to a meeting room right away to meet with HR. I thought that was a pretty quick turn around by Jimmy as I walked to the room. Knocking on the closed-door I was told to come in and found both the senior HR executives waiting for me and was requested to take a seat. The mood in the room was pretty intense and right away put me on edge. They told me that Jessica had filed a formal complaint of sexual harassment against me and they were there to begin the review.
Over the course of the next hour, they outlined all the things I was accused of doing and I offered up my rebuttals. They asked me if I thought it normal to send Jessica numerous text messages at all hours and how she had shared some screenshots of our exchange with HR.
I looked at both of them and said I'd never sent her an initial text and all had been in response to ones she had sent me. They asked if I had any proof of that so I reached down and opened up my cell phone to the messages app and handed them my phone and asked them to look for themselves. They asked how we even came about to be texting one another and I explained about hearing she had gotten some bad news before Christmas and I'd send her an email of encouragement. The two of them exchanged a look and then the more senior of them asked me if I could forward them the email in question, which I did as we sat there. As they read through the messages it was apparent to me that Jessica had done some editing to what she'd shown them as they both looked stunned by what they were reading, at one point asking me why I'd kept the messages and I told them that I had a hunch that I might need them at some point.
They asked me for the names of coworkers who could confirm my comments, told me that the review should take about a week and that I shouldn't discuss it with anyone.
Over the course of the next week, I kept my head down and when asked about things said I couldn't comment on it. Jessica worked from home the entire time which made her team extremely happy as it meant they could come to either Brenda or myself for sound directions and assistance.
That didn't mean the drama ended for us, oh no, that would be too easy.
Monday our manager received an email saying that Jessica had fallen in the bathtub, hit her head giving her a concussion and been knocked unconscious, almost drowning. She updated her Facebook profile with pictures of the clinic she went to for an MRI as doctors were worried about her. Yet these same doctors left her with the ability to drive herself around town, not fucking likely.
What was telling from this was that not a single person in our 18+ member team felt any compassion or concern for her and the consensus was that Jessica realized her claims were seen for the pure bullshit that they were and she was trying to set up some protection in the event things didn't go her way.
Almost two weeks to the day of my initial meeting with HR I was called up to the boardroom on the 10th floor and found Anna, the senior HR executive waiting for me. She asked me to have a seat and smiled at me while doing so. She looked down at a file folder in front of her before making eye contact with me and opening up with "We have completed our review and find nothing whatsoever to substantiate any of the claims made against you, this decision is based on the materials you shared with us and statements made by over 20 of your coworkers, including those brought forward by Jessica in an attempt to support her charges, it should be noted that not one person had anything negative to say about you or your behavior".
I asked that happened next and she said that the follow-up review was in progress but that my part was closed and nothing would be noted in my file. I asked how I was to handle Jessica's recent attempts to block my work and she told me to document everything and present it to my manager.
So after over 7+ weeks of torment, it was done and life was expected to return to normal and I would have the pleasure of seeing Jessica's smug face every single fucking day, a daily reminder of what she'd put me through. I was pissed that she could make a claim like that and I was just expected to let bygones be bygones and continue working with her, such unmitigated bullshit!
The following Monday actually saw Jessica in the office and acting like nothing had even happened, well she acted like it and I did my best to ignore her smug looks. She might have thought nothing happened but the rest of the team let me know what they thought by making a point to come to my workstation to say good morning and asking about my weekend while totally failing to even acknowledge her presence. To say she was given the cold shoulder by every member of our group as well as the other teams in AR, AP, and Fixed Assets was telling and made me realize I was liked by my coworkers more than I ever thought.
The following days were filled with her strutting past my workstation acting smug, like slandering me for weeks was just something to be expected. She made comments to more than one person that the only reason I hadn't been fired was my previous work history with our controller but that just went to show how little she understood the organization or our bosses boss, she is one person who has never played favorites.
A week ago Tuesday our manager, Mack, called a staff meeting and as we waited for it to start I realized that Jessica wasn't in it but had been in the office that morning. Mack left to grab his laptop saying he had some notes he wanted to share about the close and then when he came back into the room looked around at us and said "Effective immediately, Jessica is no longer with the organization, have a good day team" and walked out of the room while sending a smile my way.
I don't think I've seen a happier group of people than I did at that moment. There were a lot of smiles sent my way and some squeezes on my shoulder as people filed past me as I just sat there soaking it all in. As I headed back to my workstation I walked past the AR and AP teams and got many more smiles sent my way as well as a couple of high fives lol
I was of mixed feelings as I hate to see anyone lose a job and maybe felt a little pity for her as I really believe that something is going on in her life but she refuses to see it or talk to anyone about it, instead acting like a twenty year old fresh out of university, spreading her wings and discovering what makes her happy, regardless of the toll it takes on those around her.
Barry shared a text he sent his wife telling her about the termination and her response was "Tell Marcus, drinks are on us tonight"
My son responded to the news with "It must be a party scene at work right now"
One of the senior accountants asked me how I felt and I said I did feel a bit sorry for her and his response was "Fuck that, she brought it on herself dude, she wanted you fired so bad she couldn't see straight"
Just the other day I was asked by a member of the team if I was worried about her trying to get even with me and I admitted I was nervous she might do something to my car and she looked at me kind of funny so I asked her what? She said, "I thought you knew but Jessica had said you slashed her tires after HR closed her claim and she was afraid to leave the building without an escort"
So even after being cleared of her other claims, she was still doing all she could to ruin me...
That little nugget took away any pity I had for her, she truly did get exactly what she deserved.
So you ask what was the good, the bad, and the ugly about all of this?
The bad was realizing that one person could be so toxic that they could try and destroy someone for not agreeing with them, the ugly was the feeling that should I ever come across someone going through something difficult in the future I'll likely hesitate before offering my help, and the good was learning I have more work friends than I knew.
This whole situation really hit me hard, left me with little to no appetite most days and want to just hide away in my house, avoiding people and all interactions.
Thankfully my family wouldn't allow that to happen and reminded me that in the end the truth always wins out.
I've never had the misfortune of dealing with a narcissist before and hope to never have another after this little adventure.
It amazes me how much power one person can have over another with a few well-placed words, whether they be true or false.
I'm slowly getting back into the groove of things and hope you can understand why the blog took a brief holiday while I dealt with all of these things.
The one good thing that did happen during this time was the arrival of my first granddaughter back in early February. Seeing her beautiful smile and being able to hold her helped me so much and I'm ever thankful for those who come into my life and make it a better place.
My name is Marcus and this blog documents my ongoing adventures in trying to live a good life and be a decent human, all the while hoping to minimize my golf addiction and maybe, just maybe meet my one with whom I share my last first kiss..............
Today's musical suggestion is not one song but a compilation and resides in a YouTube video from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
Trinity Orchestra, the student-run orchestra at Trinity College, has done some covers of different artists and I stumbled upon them one night and fell in love with the one they created covering off "Gorillaz". The vocals are pretty good but the solos by Gemma Doherty just blew my mind. Take a look/listen and tell me if you don't agree, she rocks the final song and totally captivates the crowd.
Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAI4XrbEyPM
I've said it before and will say it again as many times as it takes.....music, books, and film make me complete and are my oxygen.
The misguided man behind this social experiment can be reached at ooasm2018@gmail.com
