Closure Requested:  The Ice Queen Bitch

Until I read The Barbaric Yawp’s recent poetry posting, I’d forgotten (suppressed?) altogether about a person who’d had an enormous daily impact on my life.  Impact, like an asteroid affecting the face of the earth.  Yeah, not so good.

I worked for the customer service department of a Fortune 100 company; the department reported on a dotted-line basis to the Marketing Department.  Marketing consisted of a sweet-but-doofy Group Marketing Manager, a Marketing Manager (revolving door position, a new one every two years), and the Pricing Manager (a.k.a., the ICE QUEEN BITCH).  All my work involved pricing of product since I took sales orders, processed them, shipped them – meaning, I was a subject of the Queen.  All twelve of us (eight women, four men; a manager, a supervisor and staff) were her subjects in Customer Service.

The Queen called all men by diminutives.  If you were James or Jim, you became Jimmy; if you were Robert or Bob you became Bobby, and so on.  She flirted outrageously with men.  Although not particularly attractive, something about her interactions with men worked for her, kept her in power, fed her ego.  Perhaps it was that she was well-coiffed, impeccably dressed, and stank of money; that’s incredibly attractive to some men.  Maybe she spoke the language of sports, or maybe she had photos of men in compromising positions.  Whatever it was, they were in her thrall even if they did not like her one whit.

Women she never addressed except in the most belittling and scathing of terms.  “Have HER do it”, she would say to the closest man of rank while pointing her talons in the subject’s general direction.  Her shit did not stink.  Hell, she didn’t shit.  Ever.  (No kidding, I NEVER saw her coming in or out of the Ladies’ Room in the six years I worked there.)  She was not human.  If one were ever to insinuate otherwise, that perhaps her shit did indeed stink, she would go on a tear with the weak-willed doofy Group Marketing Manager, testifying as to the offender’s incompetence at breathing.  Worse, she would go on a whisper campaign.  She would slink around to key individuals, pour poison in their ears, undercutting the subject until the offender died a slow, grisly political death.  At close range, I watched the careers of two senior women dry up and die under this kind of assault by the Queen.

I’d never really experienced truly toxic co-workers, until I became an inadvertent offender.  Being a fairly new employee at the time, I made the error of offending a salesman who was in the Queen’s graces by innocently questioning him on the details of a particular sale that I was obligated to support by virtue of my role.  I’d seen her in action before, and at the time could only think that perhaps there was some merit to her laser-guided bitchery.  Becoming the target of her next offensive made me keenly aware how very spiteful she could be about the most insignificant detail.  I was her doormat, full time, day and night, until the next female counterpart in my group drew her fire.   I never left her attention after that first error, though; she would call me on the puniest of oversights, typographical errors, anything, making it clear I was nothing but pond scum on the waters she owned.

For whatever reason, even male managers were afraid of her.  They’d acknowledge in closed-door meetings that they would have to accommodate her “quirks”, but they dare not call her on them.  Even they would act as if her shit didn’t stink.  We could be drowning in her shite and management would still dog-paddle and pretend everything was normal. 

The Ice Queen Bitch could have been Madame Marquise de Merteuil’s twin; she even looked like Glenn Close did in that role, down to the pinched look that came from wearing a corset cinched to breathlessness.  I used to dread having to pass her in the hallway – unlike meetings, where I could avoid sitting near her, there was no way to avoid her while traveling through the tunnel-like hallways from one point to another.  One could feel the negative energy emanating from her, like the chill that some describe in demonic possessions or hauntings.  It was a palpable thing.  There were times when in passing her I could even hear her utter a disapproving hiss.  I still shudder thinking of her, swishing by me in cold silence, only to hear that trailing, sibilant hiissssss.

Until the Queen, I never truly believed in evil incarnate, always believing that Satan was only a legend or a figure for tales of morality.  I used to think evil was just a tidy label for bad decisions, poor judgment, lousy choices.  Ah, but evil does walk – unlike mere bungling badness, evil is deliberate, picks and chooses its victims, shows no mercy and takes no prisoners.  It is utterly malicious malignance, and it can wear a human face.

I’ve had a number of roles in different departments and subsidiaries since then; I’ve also gotten married and become a parent.  These changes and events all worked away some of the daily terror I used to feel around this person.  Eventually I forgot about her.  To be entirely honest with myself, I probably buried her deep in the recesses of my mind.  When I read Christopher’s poem, the Queen’s face immediately sprung unbidden to the forefront of my mind.  I wondered why.

Perhaps it’s just that it’s time, now on the safe and warm side of a decade, to acknowledge how much I learned from the experience of working with her.  In taking inventory of the last ten years since I was a subject of the Ice Queen, I learned that women are frequently their own worst enemies.  The Queen showed me by contrast how effective honey is over vinegar when attracting flies; I learned to praise my co-workers and staff, reward my team members, celebrate small victories for and with them.  I also learned the value of open books and above board, highly visible operations.  Having survived her attacks when I was young and still tender and naïve, watching my co-workers and managers cower from her, I’ve learned to be ruthless about outing anything that’s toxic.  What does not kill us should make us stronger; in this case, it surely did.  I grew a spine under the Ice Queen’s withering glare. 

The wicked Ice Queen Bitch taught me deliberate maliciousness against others should not survive the light of day; it should wither away and be banished like wind-borne ashes.  That bloodsucking vampiress has been staked and burnt; she cannot hurt me and I refuse to allow her kind to hurt me or mine again.

Thanks, bitch. 

5:24:26 PM    comment []

Movies enroute:  The second batch arriving

Got my Netflix confirmation that my next movies shipped on Friday; if we get lucky they’ll show up Saturday.  Here’s what’s on tap:

Unbreakable – nuts, this one shipped before I could demote it in the queue!  What the heck, it’ll be interesting on the heels of the last M. Night Shyamalan movie.

Salaam Bombay – I’ve heard nothing about this one.  This could be an adventure!  This movie was directed by Mira Nair; she also directed one of my favorite movies, Monsoon Wedding.  I’m betting I will like it.

Bottle Rocket – I love those Wilson boys; hope this flick lives up to other's raves.  (Good one for hubby since he probably won’t care much for the other two I’ve picked out; he tends to be a comedy/action flick pick kind of guy.)

I’ll come back and post an update here with feedback on them once we’ve viewed them.  Anything special in any of these to which I should special attention?

1:42:40 PM    comment []

Echoes from the past

There’s much to learn from this book: ‘In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam’, by Robert McNamara.   From the preface:

…I want to put Vietnam in context.

We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation.  We mad our decisions in light of those values.

Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong.  We owe it to future generations to explain why.

I truly believe that we made an error not of values and intentions but of judgment and capabilities.  I say this warily, since I know that if my comments appear to justify or rationalize what I and others did, they will lack credibility and only increase people’s cynicism.  It is cynicism that makes Americans reluctant to support their leaders in the actions necessary to confront and solve our problems at home and abroad.

I want Americans to understand why we made the mistakes we did, and to learn from them.  I hope to say, “Here is something we can take away from Vietnam that is constructive and applicable to the world of today and tomorrow.”  That is the only way our nation can ever hope to leave the past behind.  The ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus wrote, “The reward of suffering is experience.”  Let this be the lasting legacy of Vietnam.

McNamara says from a wealth of knowledge and experience that the mistakes made in the Vietnam conflict were of judgment and capabilities.  We’ve seen the on-going debates as to whether the Administration has or has not used the best judgment or assessed capabilities properly.  The alleged dispute between Rumsfeld and retired military (and now the Department of State) exemplifies this debate.

Putting aside the concerns for best judgment and capabilities assessment, are we sure the actions taken on our behalf in alignment with the real values and intentions of the American people?

Since Vietnam, America has become more integrated with the rest of the world.  Ifs interests are intertwined in the welfare of other nations more so than ever before.  Taking any action outside of the US must be in the best interest of those global relationships if we wish to maintain them.  Does our current foreign policy mirror the need for preservation of these relationships?  Is it the will and intent of the American people to relate peacefully with current and potential world partners, or to intimidate the same?  If intimidation has been our tradition, do the American people truly wish to perpetuate this practice?  Is “we’ve always done it this way” sufficient justification?

Members of the Bush Administration have repeatedly assured Americans we are not entering another Vietnam.  One of the reasons the US had difficulty winning Vietnam and transitioning defense to South Vietnam was the lack of a strong, popular, democratically elected government in South Vietnam.  Will placing a government hand-picked by the Bush Administration put us in the same position?  Are we seeing any commitments at all as to an exit timeline?  How long do we, the American public, and the Iraqi public, give the Bush team before we say ‘enough’?

Is no one home?  Is no one listening to the voices of the past?  Have we made/will we make even more mistakes than we did in Vietnam?  If so, how do we set this right?

And is it possible that short-term gains will blind us all to the larger challenges that lie ahead?

8:39:32 AM    comment []