“She’s still here Linc.”

I blinked a few times. “Are you @#$% kidding me?”

“I kid you not.”

I hung up my cell and threw it across the room. The woman almost drew a gun on my relative (who also works the same job), and they expect me to work in the same section as her???

3 weeks of this crap. I called my union. My union thinks I’m the bad guy. But after hounding their fat hairy asscans for days on end, they finally talked to the bigwigs and my union rep assured me she would be moved out the day after Thanksgiving.

She lied right to my face. Motherfrick useless union whore. I called her cell and left an urgent message, but of course she never called back.

Well that’s it then. I donned my uniform, grabbed my audio recorder and headed out the door. I was going to make a visit to the Commissioner’s office and see the big man himself. I had enough.

After I pulled up alongside headquarters, I took a long, deep breath. In seven years I had never gone in to see the Commissioner. Hell I didn’t even know what his office looked like, but I would soon find out now. Rather appropriately, the commish’s office was at the end of a long hallway on the second floor, and as I walked that last mile, I knew I was putting my job on the line. I was going over the heads of all my bosses and bypassing my union altogether. I paused for a few seconds outside the door, trying to gather myself and keep myself from visibly shaking. I prayed hard and asked God to watch over me.

And then stepped inside.

I won a small victory at work, but it may not be over just yet.

Tomorrow I go back to my job for the first time in a month since this whole debacle began. Even though my union called and let me know the Devil Woman would be moved back to her old section, my coworkers were telling me a different story. I also heard that my supervisor might be transferred out as well, but nobody seems to know anything about that either. There’s a feeling that the brass might be pulling some maneuvering stunts here so that if my supervisor does get transferred out, they will move Devil Woman in his place and she’ll end up becoming my new supervisor after all.

I’ll know for sure tomorrow, at which point I’ll be calling in ahead of time to make sure she’s really gone. If she’s not, it’s war.

You know, finding justice is a noble calling, but the road to it is not a pleasant one, and there are no guarantees either. I’m in this alone, without the support of my coworkers, my union, or anybody else. All I have is God and a clear conscience in knowing I’m doing the right thing. The line has been drawn. This madness has to end now. People are getting hurt, and the integrity of our workforce is being compromised. And yet nobody wants to take a stand here because they’re all afraid for their jobs?

To hell with that. I’d rather stand in line at the unemployment office than take this kind of abuse. I want to go to bed at night knowing I stood up against evil and that I refused to be cowed by their intimidation and threats. I will not be their @#$% rug for them to walk all over.

And if they don’t know that already, then they surely will soon.

I called up the Director’s office, but apparently the Director is such an important guy that I have to write a letter formally requesting a meeting with him first, then outline the reasons why. Good grief.

So I wrote a nice long letter explaining everything: naming names, describing Devil Woman’s long and sordid history, and my request to be immediately transferred either to another division altogether, or somewhere outside of headquarters.

Then I drove down to HQ and parked next to the building entrance. I grabbed my MP3 player in case the Director decided to see me then so I could record the conversation, and braced myself. In 7 years I had never done anything like this, and now my job and future was on the line. Once I turned in that letter there would be no going back. All of hell was about to be unleashed. I let out a long breath, and opened the door…

*RING*

My cell phone lit up, but I let it go to voicemail. I hesitated long enough to check my message just to see who it was, and it turned out to be my union rep, letting me know she had good news and to call her back as soon as possible.

Hmmmmmm… I looked at the entrance again for a moment, then decided to call her back.

“Hello?”

“Hi Del, it’s Linc. You had news for me?”

“Yep, she’s gone.”

“…………..what??“

“She’s gone, back to her old section.”

“What happened??”

“Apparently she wasn’t authorized to be in that section to begin with, so she’s been ordered back to her division.”

“……….well I’ll be a son of a b….”

I spoke for a few more minutes, and from what I could garner, my union rep had finally talked to one of the chiefs, who upon learning that Devil Woman had been moved, immediately called to have her put back. The move had been unauthorized and never should have occurred.

It was a victory, but I was peeved. My union rep had given me the runaround for days, telling me she couldn’t couldn’t be transferred, there was nothing she could do, I had no case, blah blah blah, and one conversation with the chief finally took care of that stupidity. Really, how about you actually find out for sure first what can’t be done before you start making broad assumptions and making me out to be the bad guy here? Damned stupid woman.

But… a victory is a victory, and I do need to thank God for it. If I hadn’t stood my ground, who knows how long she would have remained there. The powers that be in my section were trying to pull a fast one, but now they’re on notice. Next time they push me, I WILL bring the noise.

Well I didn’t ask for it, but I’m now in the middle of a poop storm, and I’m gonna have to fight my way out of it.

I’ll tell you something though: I hate unions. @#% hate ‘em. They steal my money by calling it dues, then use it to fund political candidates I can’t stand, or organize picnics I’ll never go to. But when it comes down to them actually doing something constructive, like defending my civil rights, they can’t be bothered.

I have been blown off, ridiculed, and talked down to now not by my supervisors, but by my own damned union reps. Hey guys, how about you take those dues you expect me to pay and shove ‘em up your fat a…

But anyway, this concluded day three of being jerked around by my overrated “advocates,” so now I’m gonna play hardball. I’m setting up an appointment with the head honcho of our agency, and hopefully I’ll be able to resolve it then. I’m not asking for much now, just a transfer out so I can be removed from this situation, but these union guys act like I’m asking for a boatload of cash and a tropical island.

And they don’t think I have a case. My ass. If the ACLU thinks I have a case, I have a case, and I have the documents, recordings and the pictures to back it up too. If they force me to go “scorched earth” on them I will, and I will BURN this place. Scumbags.

Y’all messed with the wrong Italian this time.

Oh man, I’m in for it now. Without getting into too much detail here, suffice it to say that things have suddenly come to a head at my job.

One of the supervisors here is, to put it charitably, an evil spawn of Satan from hell. A few months ago she put my family through some tremendous grief because of her outrageous behavior, until the department finally found enough of their stones to transfer her out. Let’s not fire her though, the same woman who would follow men into the bathrooms just so she could continue wailing on them, the same woman who would throw herself on the ground and scream at the top of her lungs because somebody didn’t sign in on time, the same woman with a file so thick it’s got it’s own set of wheels. Nah, let’s transfer her out and then put her on a promotion list. That’ll fix her.

And now she’s back, all because of some spat my dumbass boss had with one of my coworkers, who then whined to the chief of the department, who then in a moment of what he probably thought was sheer brilliance, reshuffled our section so that Devil Woman ends up sitting at the desk RIGHT next to mine. But technically she’s not our boss, it’s just that the desk is the only place she can sit to oversee the “special project” the department head now assigned her, while our esteemed supervisor and bold leader continues to hide out in some corner of the building the way he always does. But she’s not going to bother us, right? After all, she’s still not our boss or anything, so she couldn’t possibly have the gall to start micro-managing us, turn off our radios, or scream in our ears whenever we make the mistake of looking her way, right?

Oh wait, yes she could.

This latest move was so scandalous that I was getting calls from coworkers warning me about what happened before I came in. So I called my union president and demanded that this be dealt with immediately. They’re trying to put off the inevitable by just moving her around as much as they can, but everywhere she goes she leaves a path of destruction, and eventually, there just isn’t going to be any place left to put her.

I drew my line in the sand though, and made it known that this crap was going to end one way or another, right here, right now. I took a personal day today, but as it stands, I won’t be returning back to work until she’s gone, or until they transfer me into a division where I’ll finally be able to get to work with real human beings who aren’t mentally psycho out of their arse fricking minds.

If nothing is done by this week’s end, I stand to lose about a week’s pay, but fortunately I’ll be off next week, so the sting won’t be too bad. But… if nothing is done by Thanksgiving, ho’ boy. I’ll also be speaking with the director of our agency (the head honcho), and from what I hear he seems to be a standup guy, but we’ll see.

What a mess. But really, enough is enough, and I just about @#% had enough of the corruption and depravity of this department.

Ahhh, Friday has arrived at last, giving me a little time to reflect on the failure that is my life.

I couldn’t help but notice how the entire world and God Himself blew me off this week. I got blown off by my boss when I begged him for help in working new hours so I could go to law school. I got blown off by my union rep in trying to resolve some of the ongoing issues at work, from the mouse droppings on my desk to the bigwigs’ initial refusal to accommodate my disability. I got blown off by personnel, who I inquired of for a transfer so I could get the *bleep* out of here. I got blown off by Uptown Girl, who strung me along for weeks before finally ignoring me altogether. I got blown off by friends, by family members, and finally God Himself, who I’ve appealed to repeatedly with many tears and pleas for answers and relief from my troubles.

And now, once again, it’s Friday night and I’m here all alone, with only the wedding photo of a girl I had a crush on here at work to keep me company. Evidently someone thought it’d be nice to leave a copy of our department newsletter on my desk, turned precisely to the page that showed a caption and photo of her recent wedding. Thanks dude! assface…

My latest failures, the problems at work, the loss of yet another career dream, the loss of my latest romantic prospective, all finally took its toll on me last night. As I went through my normal work routine, I suddenly broke down and started sobbing. A wave of depression came over me like a dark fog, draining all my energy and strength. I just wanted to sleep and never wake up again. A day later, the depression is still lingering around (and probably will for a while).

It’s times like this when I start to wonder if my parents can still collect life insurance from me if I commit suicide. But for the time being, I decided instead to enjoy tonight’s lineup of Stargate and House, and go to hell with myself by ordering pizza. With extra toppings. And a chicken roll. And some cheese fires. And baked ziti.

Yep, I’m going full on Italian tonight. To heck with you all.