BLOG 174: Friends at Work

"Work should be a place where people can get necessary emotional support." Dr. Sharon Toker


People are often impressed that I wrote a novel. It got published and sold quite well – It still sells... only the other day I saw someone reading it on the train. People are often confused as to why it is that I’ve never written another and never intend to. For a while the media liked to reference the book so I suppose I could have used it as a springboard to other things... but I never did.

For me the novel was cathartic. It gave me a voice. Not my voice, but a voice in which I could tell people that bad stuff happens to good people and sometimes there can be smoke with absolutely no fire.

First novels are often full of semi-autobiographical content and the danger of only writing the one novel is that people think it’s your story... when in actuality it’s just a story you made up using the things you know to be real to you to illustrate the points and give the story gravitas.

When pick up the first edition of the ‘book wot I wrote’ all I think is how much my life has changed since I sat in my house with what seemed like a state of the art computer ten years ago and transferred my handwritten notes into the story of Martina Sanchez and her unbalanced work colleagues.

As I flick the pages I can see the ‘about the author’ blurb and see I was living with my partner and ugly cat when the book was published a couple of years after completion. The cat, like that relationship...is long dead! I see the opening quotation is a song from Nickleback (thank you Chad for allowing me to feature your lyrics).... and realise that even the ‘gold ‘stations don’t feature ‘Someday’ on their playlists now. And as for that computer... it was so huge and clunky it had more in common with Gutenberg’s printing press than the laptop I’m using today! Yet at the time of publishing all those things were current and felt like they would never pass.


I still get asked about the book. My publisher forwards mail from readers, some just wanting my underwear (get help fellas get help!), but most from readers for whom the journey Martina Sanchez went on is oh too familiar and that they wish to share with me what happened to them and why they too found themselves in similar predicaments.

I get a lot of letters from women who are returning to work after having raised their families who find themselves bullied and manipulated by women half their age and are too bewildered and embarrassed to do anything about it. I still get the odd request from magazines to write pieces about the double edged sword of looking good and being young in spirit when in fact you are older... much older than you look or indeed act.

I am amazed that ten years since I wrote the book and eight years since it was published... though partner, ugly cat, clunky computers, and Nickleback at the top of the charts, are all things that have passed... the issues that prompted me to sit and write “That River in Egypt” have not gone away.


Ten years ago, I went through a particularly harrowing experience in the workplace. I was bullied within an inch of my life – I say that not in a dramatic way but as a statement of fact. It was after a failed suicide attempt (made as direct consequence of the bullying) that I sat down and wrote how it was that confident woman could end up doubting everything she ever said or did and feeling that 140 headache pills and a bottle of Russian vodka could end the torment.

It’s a horrible place to be.

But the fact remains that young women have it within them to be vicious and vile to anyone that they view as ‘Old enough to be my mother’. And it is that vicious streak, fuelled by the misguided notion that attractiveness and verve is the exclusive property of youth... that caused me...and Martina Sanchez... and all the women who took time to put pen to paper to tell me their experience, to seek to just end the pain.

This morning I got up early, grabbed a coffee and started opening my post. Within the usual array of bills and invites to join Virgin Media (now 40% off for the first 3 months folks!) there was a letter forwarding mail from my publisher.

I’ve just finished reading a letter from a woman whom I shall call Pamela and... well I shall share it with you guys because ... well just read on...

“... I kept on rooting for Martina, thinking maybe on the next page her colleagues will see that she is not the enemy. I’m not saying I didn’t like the end of the book but I was kind of hoping for a fairy tale end.
I suppose I was doing this because I’ve been through similar stuff to Mart (do you mind me calling her Mart? I feel I know her so well she’s a friend).
I went back to work when my daughter was 10, my husband’s hours – he drives HGV- were cut back and we needed the money. With Kayla at school, I’d refreshed my secretarial skills on a home learning course, so getting a job as an administrator at a furniture chain’s head office seemed ideal.
At first the other girls were really friendly. They were all under 30 but really bright and bubbly. They kept inviting me out for meals and drinks and I thought why not? It was nice to have a social life that didn’t revolve around my husband and child, and it was lovely to be just me for a change. I got on great with the girls and work was a nice place to be. I hadn’t put my age on my CV because all the websites tell you not to, but I’m proud of my age and what I have achieved in my life so I didn’t think to keep it secret so of course I told them.
Well, that’s when everything changed. I look good and I like to dress well, the girls used to compliment my outfits, but the moment my age was out there... Suddenly all the issues these girls had ever had with their own mothers during adolescence got transferred to me. (You know how you cannot accept your mum could ever be a sexual person and you hate her looking nice?). Everything I wore to work was pulled apart and analysed and they always compare me to their mums and sniff and say their mother wouldn’t dream of wearing THAT! I started to try and make myself invisible...wearing frumpy mumsy outfits that I hoped the girls would find appropriate. But I couldn’t win.
Suddenly if I was talking to one of the warehouse guys... nothing major just silly banter... I was a slut. At the company party I was dancing... my boss complimented me and they all were horrified. The next day the rumours started that I used to be a lap dancer!
Then it got worse... my work began to be called into question. Suddenly even my bosses started to say that for someone of my age and experience I shouldn’t have to be told how to do stuff, so they stared giving me tasks with no clear instructions. I had to sit and try and figure out how to do stuff, meanwhile my bosses were screaming for work to be completed and saying my performance had fallen and I needed to get better... and fast. When I mentioned the lack of instructions was slowing me down, my bosses said maybe they made a mistake taking me on because of the old adgage old dogs take longer to learn new tricks.
I couldn’t understand how it had all gone so wrong, and so quick. I withdrew inside myself. My colleagues were either ignoring me or bitching about me. My bosses were not supporting me and accusing me of incompetence. I couldn’t tell my husband it was all so awful, I didn’t want to admit the failure so I just sucked it up and struggled on.
A new boss was transferred from another division and didn’t see a problem with me. We used to chat and laugh. It broke up the day. He used to give me a lift to the bus stop if he passed me leaving at the same time. Well that was all my colleagues and the other bosses needed. They told anyone with ears (including suppliers and customers) that I was having an affair with David the new boss. I tried to clear my name (I’m a married woman with a child for heaven sake!) but they didn’t care. I went to David and asked him to do something about it – he just shrugged said it would be a nine day wonder and to leave it alone. Of course his ambivalence made things worse. The rumour mill took that to be confirmation.
Before I knew where I was like Mart, I was getting hate texts from my colleagues. I can’t tell you how afraid I became of my own phone, they could get to me evenings and weekends, it wasn’t just a work thing anymore.
But at work it was the worst. People would whisper behind their hands while looking at me. Worst still, conversations would stop if I entered a room and start again noisily when I left. I was very alone. If anyone spoke to me it would be about tasks at work and they would talk in loud mocking voices pointing out the one thing WRONG with the task I just did rather than the 99 things I did right. The general consensus was that I was an old tart who couldn’t even do her job.
My reputation was in pieces with these people.
I had done nothing other than tell them I was 42 when they thought I was much younger. They thought because I looked younger than some of them, that I dressed well, that I was up for a laugh and a night out, that I could banter with the men, that one of the men would give me a ride in his car – that I was a threat. But I couldn’t see that was the problem... it seemed ridiculous that all I was going through was caused by the fact they couldn’t deal with the fact that at 42 I wasn’t a little old lady. I thought the problem was me.
I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t handle a little admin job up the road... that I just put up with it, and put up with it... until the evening following a day when a girl half my age was screaming at me about how useless I was... I just couldn’t face the thought of waking up to another morning with that ahead of me.
I am eternally shameful of the fact that it was Kayla who found me in the bathroom in a pool of blood after I slashed my wrists with a mirror”

The letter continues and yes... she finally whistle blew, and left. I do hope that the settlement she got from the industrial tribunal will help, but I can’t get over the fact that little girl will have the image of her mother in the bathroom for the rest of her life.

And why because some jumped up twenty something feels threatened?

I cannot believe that ten years after I was dealing with vicious twenty something girls it still goes on.

I cannot believe that companies still allow these disgraceful females the venue to perform acts of such cruelty.

I cannot believe that the predominately male hierarchy of so many companies are so enslaved by the promise that youth offers (especially when packaged in the body of a twenty something woman) that they will support youth every time over age and experience.

I know from my own recollection how management turn to the victim and ask them to make the change. How they use the words “life experience” as a sanction for the behaviour of pack animals... how they say the bullies have none and you have loads so it is down to you to sort it.

I know how desperately alone you can feel when this happens to you and how everything conspires to make you embarrassed about your predicament and paralysed when it comes to looking for help.

I don’t know of one company (at least in the UK) who has a policy on preventing this kind of work place bullying. Twenty something women in these sorts of packs will tear an attractive older woman apart. And companies will stand and watch the show, claiming every time that the victim is older and should have been wiser and side with the bullies. I don’t know if it is mummy issues that make these women so vicious or if it is just that they want exclusive rights ... I don’t know and I’m not interested in why a bully is a bully. I’m only interested in the victim. I’m interested in her, and her trauma and what ever positive solutions there are to end the situation.


But as far as I know... from bitter experience unfortunately...that the only solution is to report it, leave a paper trail of you reporting it... and leave. Then sue the buggers.

The after effects of this kind of bullying are huge. You will never be the same person you were before. Your self esteem will have taken such a brutal hammering that it will move towards the low side and you will for the rest of your life require external validation to feel even remotely good about yourself. I would strongly recommend counselling in order to get something like equilibrium back. You will need to tell your story and be heard. You will need to get your voice back.

Alternatively... sit yourself down and write a book.

It worked for me!





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