If you know me, you know that once you cross me, there is no going back. Forgiveness happens to other people. That's my motto. As a result, I am short and have wrinkles I'd rather not have. I don't sleep well at night. I'm known for being dramatic.
Recently, a co-worker I don't like died. I didn't like him for a simple reason: he was mean. He was mean to me and others. Mainly, I didn't like him because he was mean to me. I ask you, how could you be mean to me? I'm a pup, a cotton ball, a sack of . . . sugar.
But, he died. Evidently, he was mean to a bunch of us at work, including some clients, because we've joked (yes, I said joked, and the man is dead) that we should form a support group because we feel guilty that he died and we don't mourn him. Oh. We are awful. We know it. But he could be really, really mean. Then there are those others who somehow liked him. To each his own, evidently. One client from India wrote in after hearing about this former co-worker's passing and said, "We are heartbroken by his sudden demise. . . it is a great loss . . . he was a noble man."
I asked Bernice in HR, "are we talking about the same man?" It pains her to talk to me these days, because she feels the need to write me up every time I so much as look in her direction. I am a walking HR violation.
Bernice is troubled lately, not only by this person's death, but how she can classify me in terms of HR violations. Am I insubordinate? Unprofessional? Harassing people? Of course, yes to all three. I'm the kind of gal who likes to go down in flames, my motto, to paraphrase Faulkner, is if you are going to screw up, do it magnificently.
I have been following Bernice around, taking notes of all the odd stories that have come out of this man's death. His daughter is a bartender at a 24/7 gambling lounge in Vegas. It's a smoky joint where balding men who think W and Cheney blew up the World Trade Center towers drink Smirnoff and talk about how cute Paris Hilton is. This man's memorial will be held there. The family is having a private service in a back room, where they will toast him with a Schlitz beer, his favorite. They will then pass around bits of his cremains so people can wear them in lockets around their neck.
No doubt, there are those who loved this man. His family is devastated, as are those few co-workers who knew him differently than I did. They did not see the man who tried to make me feel bad about the job I did, or the man who tried to pawn off on me the work he didn't want to do, or the man who was rude to clients, saying things like, "I'm busy now, what do you need?" or the man who liked to greet people with, "hey, so nice of you to show up today." Or, "Binx, working hard or hardly working?" He reeked of cigarette smoke. He had a TB laugh. He detested gays and blacks. This is my memorial to him, and yes, I am a bad person, maybe bordering on sociopathic. It is people like him that helped me be the bad person I am today. I feel sad for his family. They lost a father, his wife lost a husband. I'm trying to feel something, but, I have to admit, part of me feels relief. There is one less person in the world that will go out of there way to make me feel bad, who will play mind games with me.
It's not right, these things I'm saying. It's not right that his family lost him. And I'm sorry, but the way he treated people, that wasn't right either. I hope that when I go, there is not someone in cyberspace writing about me this way. I hope I never make anyone feel as worthless as he made some of us feel. Mainly, I hope my service is not held in a dive bar, where people toast me with beer.
