Monday, August 20, 2007

Revenge!

Jane's blog supergroup wrote a note about revenge and it resonated with me.

Before I write anything, I have to admit, I am too much of a weeny to actually exact revenge on a person. I just don't believe in it, at all.

Back in the late 90's, I was just returned from doing my stint in Peace Corps in Russia. I came home from this "mountaintop" experience with little cash and alot of school debt. The idea of going on for a Master's at this point nauseated me, knowing I would just end up making that debt larger. And while I wondered just what it was that I was supposed to do with my life, I worked as an Executive Assistant/Office Manager.

I began the job ambitiously, hoping they would see good things. But I don't think they could have, because my level of frustration at being reduced to inventorying paper clips after having had done the job I did in Peace Corps left me with a strong sense of anxiety and desire to escape.

When a person doesn't like their job, it is usually at least somewhat evident. Changing printer cartridges, training people how to use their voice mail, showing VP's how to use their cell phones and feeding the fish of the man who originated the company was making me crazy (because I was supposed to be doing more than this).

So my demise/liberation was at the hand of two women who were disgruntled because they had been left them off the party planning committee for this big bash I organized at the Portland Art Museum. No one ever told me I had to include them, so I didn't. I think I was just suppose to know.

I enjoyed planning the party, but honestly when they hired me, I was supposed to be an executive assistant, and event planning was not something I was skilled, trained, experienced or otherwise. Everything about it was relatively easy and fun, except for the invitation lists.

*edit*
I pretty firmly believe that one of the only ways a person can be happy in life is to forget the bad stuff and just remember the good stuff. Hence, remembering this is going to drag up stuff better left in the sediment of my memory.

The long and the short of it was that I ended up being a disgruntled employee. I got hammered for doing wrong something I was never told how to do and had never done before. Something that was ultimately superfluous. As I left, my stifled anger was so acute (my job wasn't the only source of frustration at this time in my life, I can safely say that nothing was going very well...) I concocted some very well crafted plans to humiliate and inconvenience people at that company who I deemed, well, evil. Naturally, I didn't do any of them, but the plans were therapeutic.

But alas, in the end, it all turned out ok. I left, happily, the cool people there came to a big going away party for me at a Greek restaurant. And I left it all behind like a bad memory.

And there was a time when I was (gasp!) unkind. I was graduating college. I made a terrible mess of a relationship. It was awful and stupid, and by the time it was all over.... well, because I had behaved so poorly, I had a mean rock and roll song written about me, wherein I was compared to Holly Golightly of the book Breakfast at Tiffany's. My bad behavior was not motivated out of spite as much as fear. Alot of it.

That last one constitutes the only thing I did that I ever really regretted.

NOW I want to hear your revenge stories, y'all! pony em up! Happy Chick, Mrs. T, let em rip!

2 comments:

Mrs. T said...

I'm not a huge revenge monger myself, but one of my colleagues, who I can't stand, was the victim of someone else's revenge. Several years ago, there was a huge rennovation project at school; consequently teachers were constantly being uprooted out of their classrooms and having set up shop in various and sundry places. I guess this colleague of mine really pissed off the powers that be, because he had no fewer than 12 room changes that year.

Unknown said...

caramba! argh, just thinking about it makes me itch.