Chapter 30
Discover more from Transforming Trauma
In the ten months following Dad’s death, I didn’t know what was happening to me. I started having migraines that were so intense that I puked. My periods were so heavy that I should have bought stock in Always.
Any time I was outside in the heat, I sweat so badly that my entire T-shirt was soaking wet. Because I was over 35, my doctor believed, and everything I found online told me all of these symptoms were peri-menopause and that there was nothing I could do about any of it aside from taking migraine medication. At the time, I didn’t question the doctor’s conclusion because I didn’t have any information contradicting that, so there was no reason not to trust him. I took all the drugs that he prescribed; I had the CT scan and saw a neurologist who, for some reason, wanted to double up my meds by giving me another drug that had the exact same mechanism as the one my GP had prescribed. Had I not known how to recognize drug families, and had I not had the courage to question him, I would have double-dosed for no reason.
On top of the grief and all the other emotions I felt after Dad’s death, I had new medical issues to contend with, and I was beyond stressed at work. The manager I supposedly worked with, and I say that because he showed up most days but didn’t work at all. As the assistant manager, I assumed all administrative duties and, therefore, the burden of our location’s financial pickle. Jason (not his real name) took credit for the store’s success while I and everyone else did all the work.
Jason loved the power of being the manager and lording over everyone. He was a master manipulator who genuinely enjoyed manipulating people. To him, it was a game. He saw himself as superior, and the manager role gave him ample opportunities to denigrate people. He readily fired newer employees that he didn’t like, which made the remaining employees fear for their jobs, so they quickly learned to be on his team or face the consequences.
He was one of those guys who thought he was God’s gift to women, so when women didn’t fall at his feet, he made it his mission to portray them as either stupid or man-haters. I worked in a male-dominated field, and until this manager came along, I never had any real problems with my co-workers. There was adversity, of course, and blonde jokes, but there was never outright intentional degrading sexual harassment or threats. My best friend and former co-worker warned me not to take the assistant manager position, but my arrogance over-ruled. I thought I understood who and what Jason was and could handle him, but I had never come up against a master manipulator and narcissistic abuser before.
Not too long after Jason was promoted to manager, the office manager and a senior employee approached me with concerns that he was watching porn at work. Someone had tried to use his computer for something, and when they clicked on the space bar to open the screen, they saw multiple windows to porn sites. We confronted Jason. He claimed that one of his friends had sent him an email with pop-ups. We were not very computer-literate then, so we accepted his explanation. He got better at hiding his screens.
The office manager wasn’t fooled, though; she caught him more than once. Her disdain for his behavior became apparent, so he started laying the groundwork to get rid of her.
In large companies, you can’t just fire a long-time employee without sufficient cause, but what you can do is make their daily life miserable. Jason made her life miserable. He berated her at every moment and added duties outside her original job to her already busy day. He created an inner circle that would protect him by recruiting those who also enjoyed power, promising them raises and other perks. These employees joined in the fun, criticizing this poor girl at every opportunity. They were the bully brigade, and not a single one of them knew they were being manipulated. They found out, though, years later.
Hindsight, as they say, is 20-20, and now, looking back, I can see what happened plain as day, but at the time, when I was in it, I couldn’t see what was really happening. It’s the perfect situation for using the analogy of the can’t see the forest for the trees.
Eventually, the office manager became so stressed that she started making mistakes. Her work suffered enough so that Jason had sufficient cause to fire her. There was nothing I could do to help her. His inner circle included long-time managers from outside our location who had significant influence at head office. I know she felt I had betrayed her by not standing up for her, and she wasn’t wrong. What she didn’t realize was that I had gone above his head once before and suffered consequences as a result, and more importantly, my response to him, when he suggested I sleep with him, wasn’t received well. The conversation went kind of like this:
Jason “Pen, I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately, and you know I love my wife, right? But I really want to sleep with you.”
Me “What? This isn’t Fantasy Island, for fuck’s sake! I would never do that to your wife, and I can’t believe you would either. What an asshole!”
I had bruised his ego, and that was strike two. He made it his mission to get rid of me after that.
My dedication to my job had earned the respect of everyone at the head office, so I didn’t have a problem going over his head, and I was reasonably confident that he wouldn’t be able to fire me. I had no idea, however, what he was telling people about me. He had made it his mission to destroy my reputation, and people I had worked with for many years and thought knew me didn’t bother coming to me to find out what was happening. Instead, they chose to believe him.
The first time I went to the district manager because Jason was undermining me, Jason was reprimanded. In retaliation, he began the daily verbal assault. He ramped up the abuse when I bruised his little ego by saying NO to his proposition, which was the second strike. I had no idea how vindictive Jason would be or how loyal his inner circle was, but it didn’t take too long for me to find out.
Jason hired his daughter for the office manager job and split the duties of that position to open up another position. As a reward for being loyal and helping to get rid of the office manager, Jason hired the wife of one of his inner circle guys for the new position. Everyone could see now that loyalty was rewarded.
Once the office manager was gone, he turned his attention to another female worker who didn’t fall at his feet. He did exactly the same thing to her as he had done to the office manager, but she quit before he could fire her. Many months later, I learned that he had also sexually harassed her, but no one at Head Office felt it pertinent for me to know that she had lodged a complaint. Apparently, I didn’t have nearly as much respect from them as I thought.
When I returned to work after my dad died, Jason turned his attention to getting rid of me. I was the last of three original females working there when he started and the last to go. He ramped up the daily verbal assault, criticized everything I said and did, demeaned me in front of co-workers, and made my life a daily hell. He had managed to destroy a reputation that I had worked nearly 25 years to build.No one had done my job while I was away, so I was beyond stressed trying to catch up. My health was declining rapidly, emotionally and physically. I was short-tempered and was feeling incredibly betrayed by my co-workers.
Ten months after I returned to work after my dad died, and four months short of 25 years, I blew an emotional gasket. One minute into one of Jason’s daily berating exercises, I came unglued. I started screaming at him. He sat in his chair, smirking, then continued criticizing me. That was it. FUCK YOU! I screamed and stormed out of the building. The following morning I handed in my resignation. I gave two weeks’ notice, but Jason was concerned I might recruit allies, so he escorted me out of the building.
He thought he had won, but the Universe had other plans.
It cost me $300 in legal fees to find out that the only repercussion I had for sexual harassment was to get my job back. I didn’t want my job back! Why would anyone want to work with a building full of people who abandoned her? I left the lawyer’s office feeling betrayed by the system.
It took three months for me to calm down. I was so furious at myself for playing right into his narcissistic plan; I was furious that not a single one of my co-workers, one whom I had worked with for the entire 25 years, and another I thought was a close friend of 15 years, had the balls to stand up for me or confront me with Jason’s accusations about me, and I was afraid of the unknown.
In the fall, I was hired to take over an office management position for a woman retiring from a large plumbing and heating company. I uncovered fraud while restructuring their accounting system one year after starting there. The employee was arrested and charged with fraud over $5000.
I am not a forensic accountant, but I put enough of a case together that the Crown Prosecutor thought there was sufficient evidence to convict.
It was an extremely stressful time, but I learned what I was capable of.
I went back to school thinking I would get a degree in psychology, but again, the Universe had other plans for me.
Four years later, and at the same time - 2 pm - on the same day that I was burying my brother after a successful suicide, the fraudster pled guilty. To say that this was a life-changing event for me would be an understatement.