Farewell

We lost one of the good guys this week.  Philip Clarke, someone with whom I worked at CRA, left us far, far too early.  He was only 48, but had a genetic form of lung cancer from which he had no hope of recovering.  He has left a wife and three children bereft.  So, so sad.  I wrote a blog about our last conversation, (see "Devastating", April 18, 2013)  I knew it would be the last time we spoke and I was so upset. 

Reading the online tributes from other colleagues, I spotted one by an ex-boss, Sue Wormington.  My mind drifted back to those nightmare years when I had to work for her.  She ranked at the top of the nit-pickers.  A peerless academy award winner in that category for sure!  The bureaucrat's bureaucrat.  A frothing clock-watcher and dimwit, all rolled into one dummie.  The type who pulls your official personnel file to spy on you.  She started prying into my personal life when she read my name had been "Nancy Russell" at one point, but got no where. 

Ya know, I am a writer, have been one all my career.  I would write trip reports, send them to Miss Know-It-All and there they would languish for weeks and weeks, while she red-pencilled them to death.  The field never received the reports, sitting in her in-basket as they did gathering dust.  I finally resorted to sending the field "drafts" so we could at least get on with the work while Ms. Wormington sharpened her red pencils. 

Ah envy.  Put me in mind of a couple of other female managers I had to endure.  Monica Jones-Kisil* and Dianne Gesior spring to mind.  What a pair!  For some reason, women seem to think that if they are your boss they must, by definition, be smarter.  No.  They are not.  Instead of being grateful they had an experienced woman working for them, Monica and Dianne nit-picked me to death.  I remember when Dianne landed on me a couple of dismal years before I retired.  She called me in and started.  "You know what Dianne?  F off and when you have effed off, F off again.  Don't talk to me for two years," I said.  "I make more money than you and you can't fire me.  My program is running like a top in the field, so don't talk to me ever again."  The look on her face was worth the price of admission.

She still decided to barge in on my program.  "I'd like to be on one of your conference calls," she whined.  "Perfect," I said.  The next one I held with the field was with the Shawinigan Tax Centre and it was completely in French, a language she could never master.  That was the end of that.  It disgusts me that so many English managers such as Dianne, Monica and Sue waste taxpayers' money not learning French. 

Rest in peace, dear Philip.  You were a prince. 

_________________________________
Note:  Could never figure out why this person hyphenated her name?  I mean, it's not like her maiden name was "Windsor", which would have been a good reason to have kept it.  No, it was "Jones".  Who cares?  I guess now that she's dumped her "Kisil" husband, she can drop that part.

Readers should know that my hyphenated last name is all my husband's.  My maiden name was "Griffith", which is why I use it on facebook to get around the fact that women disappear when they marry and take on their husband's name.