Lifting The Veil

A friend who lives in Georgia (a ballroom dancer email friend) wrote me recently about harassment at work. She gets along fine with the doctors in the practice, but one of the employees is really going after her a lot. She has told the doctors about it and the head doctor, who is the owner, knows of it too. He told the person doing the harassing of this woman; she is on probation for something else she did a few weeks ago to a patient. Why in the world does he keep her on and let her torment another employee or even be disrespectful to any patients?

Is it possible he thinks she will say it is discrimination, if he lets her go? Is it a form of reverse discrimination to let one employee beat on another one? Is he waiting for the nice employee to get so disgusted, she will leave, because she no longer can take the intimidation and nastiness of this other employee?

It seems this bad one talks against the good one; the other employees take the bad one’s side, I believe, because they themselves do not want to replace the good one on the bad one’s list and become a victim them self.

When I worked over sixty years ago in the office of the printing plant; there was a girl doing this exact thing. She was tormenting other young ladies with snide remarks about their clothes, their families and their religion. I told the boss/owner and he took her aside for a good talking to, as it was called in those days. She pleaded innocent, smiled at him quite sexually and got away with it for another two weeks or so. It came to a close one day, when the bad one gave a push to the good one she had been irritating and she fell and broke her leg. The ambulance came and in those days, no one had even heard of health insurance and her bills came to over ten thousand dollars, which was an extremely high amount of money. The owners paid her medical bills, paid her salary in full for four months she was out of work and finally terminated the bad one. They should have done that many months before the accident happened.

They were fortunate, nothing worse happened to the girl than a broken leg. They were misled by her actions when she was called down and decided to give her a second chance which was one too many.

My friend mentioned above has written a letter to the two doctors and will present it to the owner and his associate. I can tell you what he will do and I do not even know him. He will try to get the bad one to tone down her despicable actions towards the good one. She will smile and say “I will be OK from now on and we can be friends.” Baloney, and I do not mean the meat on a sandwich. This will continue until the good one will finally give in, because her health will be deteriorating mentally and physically and the bad one will have won. The reason she will win, is because the doctor/owner will feel she might counter his actions, with calling it discrimination.

Jewish people, Asian people and African Americans have been discriminated against for centuries. I know of an American girl who just married an Asian man and she did not take his last name, because she was looking for a new position in her field and felt she might be discriminated against by having his Asian name and she would not get the job; even if she is extremely qualified, perhaps even over qualified. Her thoughts would be that his Asian name would deter her from getting the job she wanted. So she did get the position using her single name and she is satisfied with the outcome. She is sad she had to do this and at home and when she has children, she will be known with her husband’s last name and it will be her name too and she will be proud of it.

My dad changed his name way back in 1912 because of discrimination then. He disliked doing that, but he and his brother did it because they wanted to be available with the fine credentials they had for the jobs they desired. Actors and actresses did that too. Jack Benny, the comedian’s real name was Benny Kubelsky, Eddie Albert was Eddie Heimberger, Woody Allen was Allen Konigsberg, Lauren Bacall was Betty Joan Perske and there are dozens more too. These actors wanted to become famous and wanted to obtain acting jobs and therefore changed their names to more American style names.

Both my maiden name and married name do not connote any ethnicity. I have heard that on application papers for new jobs, you legally do not have to state your nationality or religion. This is a good thing and it insures a better method to be considered for a new job.

However, the bad one disrespecting and harassing the good one mentioned in the beginning of this article is doing a form of absolute discrimination.  The employer is allowing it either out of disregarding it and hoping it will disappear; or he is downright stupid to allow this between any nationalities or religions. He himself is with a minority religion and his name is quite ethnic sounding and even if owning his business, this does not give him the right to let it happen within the confines of his office in this building.

I feel sad for the good one, employee, that she has to write a letter to get things improved and I bet you five dollars, I hope I am wrong, she will be the one terminated and not the one instigating all this unnecessary trouble.

When we go to a dentist, doctor, and lawyer or even as they said in the old days, to an Indian chief, you expect respect, cleanliness, competency and kindness. So should the employees working there, receive it too. One bad apple need not ruin the whole barrel as the saying goes. You cannot make apple pie with rotten apples.

Percy Shelley said “poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”  We want all of our familiar objects, surroundings, workplaces, entertainment areas and homes to let the hidden beauty of the world blend into our daily lives and that means in the workplace; we should not have to defend our self against any evil there.

It is said that beauty is a light in the heart. Let us all experience that light every day, everywhere and not let one person destroy it, because they are unhappy and take it out on someone else. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “we must carry the beautiful with us or we find it not.”  The veil should be lifted from the beauty there is in this world, so we can experience it daily.

Let us carry it always, see it and never hurt others.