Meanwhile, back in DC...

Warning: Those of you who believe being honest and open about one's past troubles and unfairness amounts to whining might want to skip this post. Alternatively, you might also want to consider the possibility that sometimes people have good reasons to be upset about things. Just a thought.

I interrupt the account of my vacation because I'd like to share some news and thoughts which, I hope, will lend some perspective on why my last couple of days in Malaysia were so cathartic and overdue. I got an e-mail recently from a friend I used to work with back in DC. It seems that my ex-boss from my first job out of grad school has been promoted. He's now the second in command for the entire bureau I worked for under him.

Now, this individual is basically pure evil, but I also feel like I probably ought to be grateful to him in a perverse way, because he's the one who started the chain of events that led to my coming to Taiwan. He started it by trying to fire me, for no discernable reason that he ever actually shared with me. He had a reputation for such things - something I have often desperately wished I were aware of when I took the job in the first place, but of course I wasn't.

All told, I worked for him (if you can call it that) for a bit less than a year. For nine months, I went to work every day and did the best I could to learn how to do my job, with extremely little guidance from him or anyone else. (I'm tempted to say there was no guidance at all, but the memories of this time are fuzzy now as I've done my best to block it all out.) Although I was often vaguely aware that the boss didn't like me, I never received any kind of specific criticism that would have enabled me to change that. Besides, he didn't seem to like anyone too much, and at least I didn't call in sick when I was really just taking a long weekend, or take off three hours early on a Friday, like colleagues of mine did. They got in trouble for it, but no one's employment status was ever threatened as long as they agreed never to do it again. So it seemed to me that I ought to be okay.

I wasn't. I got an e-mail one afternoon calling me into the boss' office, where I was told in gentle but firm terms to start looking immediately for another job. Once again, no specific reasons were given. I have my theories about the boss wanting to hire a very attractive young woman who had applied for a job at a time when there were no vacancies, but I concede that I have no proof. I did my best to reason with him, but there's really no reasoning with a dishonest man who's holding all the cards. Of course what he did was completely illegal, since he hadn't shown any kind of cause and I was exempt from the rule he was trying to invoke anyhow, but the rules only matter to the extent that they're enforced. And in this case (as in so many others where the boss doesn't like the rules), they weren't enforced at all. This led to six weeks of mostly sleepless nights and the humiliation of going in to spend eight hours a day with colleagues who knew all about what had happened while I searched desperately for a new job. In order to keep my tenure as a federal employee, I more or less had to take the first new job I could find before the ax came down (illegally, but who cared about that?).

That new job turned out to be just down the hall from the old one, which was at least convenient. But while I escaped with my employment status intact, the new job was essentially as a glorified receptionist with no substantial duties of any kind. I tried to persuade my new boss to let me take on some meatier duties, but she demurred and then refused (and later had the nerve to criticize me for "never taking the initiative"!). I ended up spending a year and a half there, first trying to make something of the new job (I felt I owed the new boss that much for bailing me out of the tough spot I'd been in), then trying to use it as a springboard to a better job. This almost worked several times, but various bulls**t bureaucratic rules always got in the way. Of course this wasn't the old boss' fault, but then if it hadn't been for him, I would never have been in a position where I was forced to take the new job.

All of which is why I was only too willing to make as drastic a move as I did this past February. I really am glad something shook me out of my inhibitions about taking such a big step that I'd always wanted to take anyhow. But it continues to gnaw at me that it all started with an unscrupulous boss who got away with being unscrupulous - and who has now received a cushy promotion. Understand, if you will, that this guy is extremely unpopular with just about everyone who knows him. His behind-the-back nickname is "The Prince of Darkness," which tells you pretty much all you need to know. I must admit that I've gotten a degree of perverse enjoyment from knowing that even if he screwed me, I have gone on to much bigger and better things and he must be a very unhappy person, since he's so unpleasant to be around. Still, the man drives a Porsche, owns a house in a ritzy Northwest DC neighborhood, has a job that enables him to travel all over the world, and can never be fired under any circumstances short of committing a felony. I find it hard to believe he's all that unhappy no matter how many enemies he has.

And there's something deeply unfair about such a person being placed in a position where he can destroy even more careers. But it does make me that much happier that I've made my escape to such a better-suited place, anyhow.