...I haven't spoken much about the job I went to after leaving my position as a flight attendant. It was new and different from any of the marketing positions I had and I was enjoying the change and challenges. As with all new jobs there is a honeymoon period but unfortunately mine didn't last so long. In the overwhelming sea of positivity that I had in my life from friends, family, counselors and law enforcement I ended up working alongside one of the most negative, self-absorbed, stupid people on the planet. Not to mention an utterly useless employee. She showed up late for work every day and droned on to anyone who was unlucky enough to be stuck near her while she started telling the most inappropriate stories of her personal life. At best she was mediocre at her job with the mental and emotional capacity of a teenager. I'll refer to her as BL. We had some shared responsibilities and the same supervisor and over time I would be forced to pick up more and more of her slack because she was so inept at her job that very few people in the company trusted to task her with anything. After a few months there she announced her pregnancy which was shocking to us all because she had complained about her horrible husband for weeks and how she was leaving and divorcing him. I knew this would not be good for me as I had covered a maternity leave at a previous job and it's months of thankless additional work that you're not asked but expected to do and not paid anything additional for it.
In the months to follow before leaving on maternity she became extremely paranoid about me and began complaining to our new supervisor as our previous one left for a new job. I guess she thought she could jump in and make herself look good but remember she's not that bright. BL began a campaign to get me fired. I was repeatedly brought in to my bosses office to defend myself against stories BL made up about my work. This continued even after she left on maternity until our boss changed the password on her email and told her she wasn't allowed to check it while out on Leave. She returned to work in the Spring of 2009 and began her passive/aggressive campaign again. You see while she was out on maternity Sr. Mgmt realized her incompetence and the majority of work she was responsible for I reorganized and completed in much less time and more efficiently not to mention the large number of mistakes she made that everyone was finding while she was gone. So upon her return she was stripped of many of her duties and my lesser tasks where given to her. She had every reason to be paranoid as she knew her shortcomings and days of sitting around doing very little would catch up to her.
This was all going on while I was mentally preparing for the Idaho trial and what the outcome would mean for me and all the other victims. I was also getting myself together in anticipation for the ABC News interview. BL and her actions were so toxic to my well being at a time when I was fragile and needed only positive things and people in my life. I spent part of many of my counseling sessions with Laura talking out my frustrations and working with her on how to get through the poison that was BL's negativity affecting my workday. I did my best to use at work what Laura and I discussed in session.
Everything came to the surface one day at work when BL interfered with me and my work one last time. I walked into my supervisors office and told her I wasn't going to deal with this nonsense any further. I had a lot of work to do and didn't need the distractions. She brought us both into the conference room and it got ugly. While I slowly and methodically (albeit a bit loud at times) laid out for my boss everything that BL had lied about and the little things she was doing almost daily for months to sabotage me. Although passionate, I stuck to the facts because I knew it was the strength I had on my side. On the other side of the table the uneducated, incompetent BL cried the entire time we were all in there which was nearly an hour. She had no facts to defend herself so every time I hit her with something else she had done to me she cried some more. I really did despise that woman I just can't stand weak women who play the victim all the time. I had seen so much courage from women the past few years BL was a disgrace to our gender. Finally when all was said and done our boss said to stay out of each other's way and for BL to just concern herself with her own work and nothing else. That was the best I could ask for because I would learn as more time went by at the company and other unrelated BL issues would arise my boss would seemingly be on my side but when it came down to it she never really was and didn't have the courage to stand up for me when necessary.
Ultimately, at times in our lives when things are the most challenging and we don't think we can take anymore we are faced with another obstacle. We might scream and question why but we tackle it head on and move passed it because that's just what you do. I have learned to cut the negativity and poison out of my life and am much happier for doing so.
There would be some good times at the company for me and I just loved everyone else I worked with but mostly it was all downhill from then on until the day I walked out the door for my new life in LA. More of that to come later...
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