June 2003 to February 2006, California

By Suzanne Russo

Sometimes the “friendly boss” can be just as dangerous as the outright mean one….

I was fresh out of college, fresh off a six-month jaunt around Europe, and despite the frugality of my trip – from the bedbug-ridden hostels to the Snickers Bars for dinner – I was broke. Not just broke, but in debt, and without a job to be found. Until, that is, my older sister contacted some friends, and the glorious, most glamorous first job imaginable was dropped into my lap.

Little did I know that for this golden fiddle I was going to experience a hell, unless I chose a friendship that seemed an equivalent to selling my soul….

I was to be an event planner at a large, promising high tech company; I would plan events and then travel to places like Miami, Paris, and South Africa to oversee them. And I wouldn’t be staying in bedbug-ridden hostels. On my very first day I reported not to the office but to the airport, to fly to Orlando and stay in a 5 star resort that was like a town in itself. I was in my glory. Until, that is, I got on the plane.

My boss (I’ll call her Wendy) had seemed so lovely and friendly on the phone. So that I didn’t have to fly by myself, she gave me her flight information and we met at the airport and sat together. But then I realized the real reason: She was terrified of flying. Within 20 minutes of knowing the woman I found myself holding her hand and patting her head as she bawled during take-off. I felt entirely sorry for someone that afraid, and felt it was a good start to my job that she felt so comfortable with me, but then comfort when too far.

Upon the conclusion of our event, Wendy decided that I should stay on for the subsequent site she was doing for a future event visit in Miami. I was thrilled … briefly. Because of my late attendance on the trip, Wendy asked if I minded sharing a room with her instead of asking the hotel to host another person. I was excited just to be going, so that seemed fine to me. But then I learned the real reason we were sharing a room. It wasn’t the very expensive Miami resort was unwilling to host a second person from a very high profile client, but that Wendy thought it would be fun to have a sleepover.

This all seemed fine, as I thought it a good idea to bond with my boss, but Wendy took the sleepover idea a little too far. When, feeling sick from the heavy and fried convention center food I’d eaten all week, I wanted to order a salad from room service, Wendy overruled and insisted that, in keeping with the spirit of slumber parties, we must eat junk food. Then she determined that we should stay up all night, and took to tossing her balled up, smelly socks at me if I appeared to be falling asleep, all the while giggling a very high-pitched, obnoxious 13-year-old giggle.

After that night Wendy considered us best friends. I, much to my own detriment, did not.

Wendy, who lost no time telling me all the gory details of her colon disease, was a short woman with dull, frizzy blonde hair that she wore in a straight cut, ballooning out around her already round, makeup-free face. Her face and body were puffy from overeating and medicines for said disease, and she wore boxy, faded clothing and, most loathed of all, scrunchies. Every day she donned a floppy hair relic that anyone remotely familiar with Sex and the City knew was now strictly a tool of face washing in the privacy of one’s own home. What was worse, if Wendy wasn’t wearing the scrunchy to hold back a messy pony tail, it was on her wrist, a fashion statement that should have been thrown away decades before, along with her stretched out, faded work clothes.

As best friends, Wendy and I had “play dates,” defined as my working from her home instead of the office, mostly because she was afraid of being home alone. These usually wound up with her reciting to me all the office gossip, which interested me about as much as the subsequent vivid descriptions of her colon. And all my glorious travel opportunities disintegrated with the dawn of our friendship.

If Wendy wouldn’t fly, I wouldn’t either. We both kept to events within a 40-mile radius of home. The most exciting part of said events (the hotel room) was tainted by the fact that each hotel stay was not unlike that first in Miami, complete with adjoining rooms and doors left open so that we could “have fun.” She reminded me of a child starved for attention, or, worse, what she was: a grown woman with so little in her life that she pressured her new and nervous employee into forced “revelry.” I endured all this with quiet annoyance, looking for ways out but unsure how to complain to my boss that the “quality time” we were spending together was anything but for me.

My description of Wendy may seem cruel and harsh, especially regarding a sick, friendless girl, but it only became so because of the many despicable things she did to me, all in the name of friendship. One night, after a long, 16-hour event, I was curled up with a book in my hotel room when Wendy came through the open door that connected our room (ignoring the fact that I’d pushed mine almost shut) and sat on the bed.

This was not unusual, but that night, Wendy was upset. She was complaining of stomach pains, which I wrote off at first because such complaints were also not unusual. But then, sworn to secrecy, I tried not to cringe as Wendy told me every last unwelcome detail of her recent abortion. I was unsure as to whether I should have felt honored or horrified that she’d chosen to confide in me when she hadn’t even told her boyfriend (and didn’t intend to). Wendy was afraid something had gone wrong with the procedure because of the pain she felt.

The next day, instead of calling a real friend, Wendy made me accompany her to the abortion clinic, joking that it was “part of my job” as though it were some special field trip she was taking me on. I sat in the waiting room, feeling I wanted to wash the stench of the entire experience, and Wendy, off me for good.

Our subsequent relationship was far less … friendly. I passive-aggressively tried to show my boss that I wanted her to be only my boss. She made it clear I’d made the wrong decision. As my friendship with Wendy waned, so did any of the worthwhile tasks that were part of my job function. I was relegated to sorting the lanyards event attendees wore around their necks, compiling shipments, and making copies. I was belittled and patronized in front of peers and colleagues, and if I showed any signs of being friendly with anyone else at work such treatment intensified.

As new employees were hired, I was considered strong enough at events to train them, but then was left to send their faxes and run their errands instead of working on my own real events. All the while, I tried to maintain a distant camaraderie with Wendy, simply because it seemed to make work life less miserable if she at least thought we were friendly. When I finally went to her manager to ask for more responsibilities, Wendy took it as the last threat against our friendship, and went so far as to make me her enemy. My tasks became increasingly more administrative, I was placed on “trial” for a series of phantom complaints that had never before been presented to me, and still failed to appear after the trial, and I began receiving emails at all hours of the night requesting information first thing the next morning.

Finally one morning, after Wendy’s manager had left the company, taking my job security with her, I was told my services were no longer needed. My scrunchy-wearing boss proceeded to announce in a team meeting that she had “let me go,” and then scheduled interviews for my replacement in the conference room directly outside of my cubicle. I subsequently learned from numerous colleagues and friends that Wendy had been trying to bring this about for months. She had told a newcomer to my team (who after my departure received the same treatment I did) that there had been many complaints about me, and asked her to watch and report me to superiors. She told other colleagues wholly untrue stories that dealt with me showing up to work hung over, and otherwise tainted my professional and personal reputation with those who did not know me in the office.

On my last day Wendy appeared at my desk, gushing that she would miss me, and would love to be a reference for me. I only smiled while she stood, wringing her hands within her too long sleeves, and telling me how much she really did care about me, and hoped I knew that. Then the tears began to flow from her small beady eyes and my “old friend” reached out to hug me. I allowed her hug, calmly patted her back, and fought the urge to pull out her scrunchy.

Suzanne Russo lives in Manhattan and is pursuing her Masters degree in English and American Literature. Her travel writing has appeared in Las Olas Magazine and on Classictravel.com

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 | Email This Post

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