Back then, I was still naive
and didn't believe that people could be mean
for no reason.
Anyway, one day
I looked up from my desk
at my new job
and saw a peacock
strolling down the aisle toward me.
It's tail was dragging on the dusty floor
and it was such a funny
and unexpected
sight
that I laughed out loud.
A total silence settled on the office.
Everybody kept their noses to the grindstone.
I knew I had done something wrong.
The peacock picked its way
down to the glass-walled office
where Erle, our boss
worked and watched us all.
Later I learned that nobody
was allowed to mention
or pay any attention to
the peacock.
We were supposed to keep right on working
as though we didn't see it.
Because Erle said so.
On another day
I was working
laying out ads for our Pennysaver
when Erle burst out of his office
and started screaming about the refrigerator.
"Dorothy and I have had that refrigerator
since we got married
and it's filthy!
You people have no respect
for other people's property
piling all your lunch bags
and cokes
and soup
in there day after day
and not cleaning it out!"
He picked me and Pat
to go clean it out
and we threw out some old Tupperware
with soup or beans in it
and cleaned the inside
of the fridge
but it wasn't really dirty.
It just needed rearranging.
Besides, it was old as dirt
one of those little ones with the rounded tops
from the 40's.
Certainly not worth all that screaming.
Another day he fired our office manager
a kind and helpful lady
who he fired in front of us all
calling her a lousy worker
and promoted Betsy
a nasty-tempered complaining lady
to that position.
The first thing she decided to do
was to cross-train everybody.
So she gave Middie in accounting my job
and me hers.
I had to balance ledgers.
Work with Accounts Receivable.
I had absolutely no idea how to do either one
and was terrible at math to boot.
"We can't afford to run late,"
she would hiss at me.
"Get it done or get out."
Yikes! She was a scary woman!
But the truth was
Middie
not me
could run that calculator
like a house afire
never even looking at it
clickety-clack
and balance the books on time every week
while I had to pick at it
with one finger
and spent hours trying to balance
one ledger sheet.
But I didn't want to make waves
because I was alone in the world
my children grown
my divorce in the works
and I couldn't live
without that paycheck.
So I suffered along
looking enviously at Middie sitting at my desk
struggling to learn
how to do page layouts.
It all seemed ridiculous to me.
People should do what they're good at.
Monday morning the phone on my desk rang
and it was Erle
and he wanted to see me
in his office
pronto.
He was reclining in his chair
petting his peacock
and without so much as a Hello
he said,
"You're doing a bad job
on Accounts Receivable
so you're fired."
Fired!
My knees buckled
and I started to cry.
I had never in my life been fired from any job.
"But I told Betsy I wasn't good at math!"
I sobbed.
"It's not just the math,"
he said, holding the peacock's head close to his chest
kissing it
"it's all those absences too."
"I've only been absent 3 days in 18 months!"
I protested.
I couldn't afford to be absent
under my life circumstances.
"I have you down for 11 absences
and only those 3 days with a doctor's note."
Well, he was lying
and I was crying
and everybody was looking at us
and I was ashamed
and as I walked out his door
he said
"Don't bother to try to get unemployment
because I won't give it to you."
Well, to make a long story short
I did get unemployment
after I explained my situation
and what all had happened
to the lady who had my case.
She told me he was just bluffing
hoping I would be too scared to apply.
What brought all this to mind
was the knowledge that now that I'm older
I really don't care all that much
about pleasing everybody
making them all happy
working myself into a lather
to prove how good I am
or any of the other guilts
strivings
pressures
that plague us when we are young.
Also I know now that people can be mean
for no real reason.
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