Post #172 – Women’s Memoirs, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
All Things Labor — Memoir Contest – Honorable Mention Story, Labor Day Category
Today Women’s Memoirs is pleased to publish an Honorable Mention winner in our September 2011 Memoir Writing Contest, Labor Day Category.
Linda Hoagland takes us to the workplace and reminds us that it isn’t always pleasant interpersonally. I wonder how many of us have turned around the situation the way you did.
Congratulations Linda on your story. We’ve all had a variety of workplace situations and we love how yours worked out.
We invite you to leave Linda a note in the Comments section below her story.
PENANCE
by Linda Hoagland
“I think you’d better sit down for this,” says the school division superintendent as she motions me to a chair.
“I’d rather stand,” I reply in a whisper. I am afraid to sit down, afraid of what she is going to tell me, afraid that the stern statements being issued from her mouth are going to change my life forever.
“Ellen, please sit down,” she commands.
I plop my body down onto the chair and stare at her with my mouth hanging open. I have been called to the office before and I know the tension that is building around me from coworkers have caused the air to bristle and the sparks to fly.
“You and Susan have been having a problem lately. Is that right, Ellen?”
“No more than usual,” I stammer.
“Susan tells me that you have been rude to her. When she asks you a question, you give her one word answers and nothing else. What is that all about?”
“I’m no more rude to her than she is to me,” I snap back at her.
“You ladies are going to have to learn to get along together. I can’t have this constant bickering and tattling going on. It will affect your working ability and I won’t have that either. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”
“Yes,” is my one word reply. It seems that my one-word replies always get me into more trouble than I want to handle. I think those who are questioning me want me to expand my answers and include words and phrases that are guaranteed to get me fired. Yes or no shouldn’t be the reason I am being reprimanded, but it is.
“She tells me you are rude and abrupt with her. That is no way to speak to a coworker. You know that, don’t you? What are you going to do to correct the situation?”
My anger is reaching its point of explosion but I can’t allow that to happen.
In reply to her question tears start to flow down my flushed cheeks. I hate it when the tears start, but anger does that to me. I’m not remorseful because I didn’t do anything wrong. The tears make it seem that way. They make me look as though I am so sorry about how I treat Susan that I can’t control my emotions. That just isn’t true. I’m not sorry about anything. I didn’t do anything wrong.
Why didn’t I know this brow-beating was coming? Why didn’t I know that Susan would run to the superintendent and tattle about each and every disagreement we have or would ever have? She’s has done the tattle-tale thing in the past. Why did I not see this coming?
I’m not prepared to defend myself and I don’t like this sudden attack from the superintendent and Susan; not one little bit.
I am having trouble trying to form words because of the angry sobs wracking my body. So – I don’t offer an explanation.
My guess is that no plea for forgiveness from me isn’t setting well with the superintendent.
“I’m going to ask Susan to step in here so we can work this out together,” the superintendent says as she dials Susan’s telephone extension.
“Susan, would you please come to my office,” she says sweetly into the mouthpiece.
Susan enters the room struggling to keep the smirk off of her face.
“Ladies, we need to talk this out,” says the superintendent with a smile directed to Susan. “What started all of this antagonism, Susan?”
“It’s the way Ellen talks to me. She is so short and abrupt. She is so rude. If I ask her a question, she answers me in a dead monotone voice in mostly one word sentences.”
“Ellen, what do you have to say?”
“Nothing – except that I answer her questions. I don’t beat around the bush like people around here do. I was trained to do office work in a large city where direct responses were expected. What you call abrupt and short was the normal for me in the city. What else am I supposed to do?” I answer in a voice that is broken from all of the angry tears.
“You two need to be nice to each other, especially you, Ellen. You need to be nicer to Susan. We all need to get along. If we don’t, I will have to use stronger measures to correct this problem.”
I look at her and wait for her to direct the statements and the stern face toward Susan, too. That doesn’t happen. I am the bad guy in this scenario. I am the one being threatened, not Susan.
“Now, Ellen, do you have anything to say?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“You have nothing at all to say to Susan or to me?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“In that case I’m going to make a few suggestions for you to follow to help eliminate this problem.”
“First, I want you to speak to Susan in pleasant tones at all times and refrain from the one word answers.
“Second, Ellen, I want you to take about a half-hour each and every morning you are here on the job and walk into Susan’s office and spend some time in there talking with each other and trying to be friendlier.
“Third, if things don’t improve around here, I will have to take stronger measures. Do you ladies understand me?”
Susan smiles and replies, “Yes, Ma’am.”
I nod my head in agreement without uttering a word.
The lecture continues until it appears the superintendent finally runs out of words.
“May I go?” I whisper with my raspy voice.
“Yes,” is the one word reply I receive from the superintendent.
I rush to the second floor to get my handbag containing my car keys and to get out of this God-awful place before the tears begin to flow again. As I walk back down the steps, I hear the laughing voices of the superintendent and Susan.
It isn’t until I am in my car driving home that I realize why I had been subjected to such a lengthy period of time in the superintendent’s office.
The superintendent was waiting for me to apologize.
I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not going to apologize.
The tears start again and they keep reoccurring during each night of the long Labor Day weekend..
When I arrive at work the Tuesday morning, I walk down to make nice with Susan passing Penny who is exiting her office.
“Where are you going, Ellen?”
“Penance,” is my one word reply. I guess things aren’t going to change.
Ten years have passed since the order for me to visit Susan every work day morning. I now have a new supervisor and I am going to have to explain to her why I waste valuable work time every morning talking to Susan. I need to stop the stern stare I feel on my back every time I walk passed her office each morning.
The tables seemed to have turned a bit. Now – I am in trouble for talking to Susan. I wonder what my new summons to the Superintendent’s office will lead to.
Should I stop talking to Susan? I don’t think so. We have become friends over the last ten years and I don’t want to change that.
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