Feisty Repartee

Gall

Do you get the feeling I am not particularly enamored of the people with whom I work?

There are probably three in the office of eighty-five that I really give a damn about and am blessed to call friend. The rest...well, the rest are the rest.

Over the weekend one of the ladies (B) in the office died after a protracted illness. She was only forty-four-years-old. In addition to having a longitudinal history of diabetes, she was morbidly obese.

Now, I am not picking on her at all.

I could stand to drop a stone or two myself; however, if someone could lose 100 pounds and still be considered obese, that is generally referred to medically as morbidly obese.

B was young, unmarried, and from a good family.

She had friends in the office and I have no doubt will be mourned by many.

I honestly did not know her that well, despite mentoring her when she was promoted to paralegal. I found her to be bright and quite capable in that position; however, over the past five years since that promotion, I watched from afar as she abused the system and did next to nothing work-wise.

My preference is not to dwell on work-related issues and as I was not directly responsible for her, she was not my problem. I have learned to be that way, the hard way.

Our office, as a whole, has issues.

Instead of the haves and the have-nots, the lines are drawn between those who do and those who abuse.

It has been my observation that those who do walk around with targets on their backs as those who abuse attempt to drag them down and assault their credibility because, apparently, competence is threatening.

For a myriad of reasons management's hands are tied and I have yet to see one person fired in the ten years I have been around.

At the rosary for B last night several members of management were in attendence to pay their respects, as well as several individuals from the those who abuse group who have retired or moved on, employment-wise, in recent years.

One of those former employees stepped up to speak a few words of remembrance: "[B] would be here today if management had not pushed her so..."

It deteriorated from there.

Those in management have thankless jobs. It is not a job I would ever want, but someone has to do it. I may not agree with everything they do; however, I am not privy to all the information they have.

Several years ago another employee died in her sleep from uncontrolled hypertension. She knew she had high blood pressure, but refused to take her medications.

The day after she died I walked into the break room and B made the statement: "Management killed [Y]."

At the time I asked her what on earth she meant by that.

She explained management put too much pressure on the employees to produce and drove Y to her grave.

Astonished, I replied: "There are probably only five people in this office who could survive in a private law firm. The only people who are stressed out over their jobs are those who are either completely lazy or totally incompetent."

That did not endear to me that other group that day.

I am sorry B died. I really am.

While not her doctor, I find it very hard to believe this job had anything to do with it.

Do people go to hell for speaking ill of the dead?

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