The Best Revenge is a Life Well Lived

Complicated is fun, rewarding, and great for developing your career. For many years, I had a rewarding but stressful life with a complicated relationship with management. We all yearn for revenge against an unfair and hateful boss. But I learned that the old saying is true that the best revenge is a life well lived.

In January of 1981, I landed my first career-establishing job as an applied anthropologist. That title did not go with the job, but those were the skills required for the task, and that was what I was. I was fresh off a stint as a surgical technician for two years.

What? What did an anthropologist do working in the Operating Room as a technician? Well, years before grad school, I had worked in the OR and trained as a tech. When I left grad school shy of the doctorate, I could find no work – especially as an anthropologist. Eventually, I was offered, through an agency, a position in the OR of a teaching hospital. Without going into details, the interview was interesting…almost a “doctor”, not an MD…and an anthropologist? Well, I was made welcome and stayed for two years. I developed an affection for really complex orthopedics, but especially complicated hand surgery. Let me scrub on a multiple-hour hand surgery, and I was in heaven. Something about the subtlety of the human anatomy and how it functioned truly grabbed me. Being that it was a teaching hospital, the surgeons were used to teaching; most didn’t mind that the technician also asked questions. To some of the surgeons, the more involvement the better. It was a gift that others were also fascinated by the beauty and complexity of the human anatomy.

A Real Opportunity

I almost stayed in the OR. But in November of 1980 one of my thousands of job applications was greeted with interest, and I was called in for an interview. Nowhere in the title was word anthropology mentioned, but by the end of that first interview they liked me, and I liked them. There would be a second, and then a fateful third.

Before the second interview, I visited the neighborhood of the city in which I would be working. I haunted the library, checked out all the national parish churches, and even spoke to another anthropologist who’d worked on a city project nearby a few years previously. At the second interview, it was clear that I had done my fieldwork, knew something about the area, the potential challenges, and the mix of ethnic groups in the area. A predecessor had written a major proposal for a cultural heritage center in a multi ethnic neighborhood of the town. The federal government surprisingly awarded the contract with stipulations on the sorts of research, programs, and collections required. Then the person who wrote the proposal left for another job, and the city now had the money for the project, had the feds looking over their shoulder for performance, but had no one capable of getting it off the ground. I was hired.

But before I got to start, I had a Christmas Eve interview with the head of the city department I would be working for. Let’s just say that he was a Camel-fuming, hairy, oaf. I called him Joltin’ Joe. Perhaps Joe’s favored candidate washed out of the hiring process, I don’t know, but from the very first moment, I knew he resented me. First, there was no greeting, just a finger pointing at a chair. Then there was a ten-minute diatribe about how I wouldn’t work out in “Eastie” and that “they’ll eat you alive.” As I walked out I wondered if I could call the OR up and ask them to take me back.

Seven and a half years of Joltin’ Joe provided more than enough stress. His specialty was the Friday Morning Monthly Meeting. A day or two prior, he’d select his ambushee from among the group elected to provide him entertainment. The favored individual would then be tortured publicly with queries about performance. As a perennial favorite, I simply always prepared for a possible grilling. This made him madder. I was sure that some of the smoke issuing forth was from some of the circuitry burning, not just smoke from the Camel cigarettes.

This was in the very early days of personal computers. I bought an early Apple computer, a dot matrix printer, and a drive for floppy disks. I prepared extensive reports for the grant administrators showing that the federal funds were well spent. You could say that I buried Joltin’ Joe’s complaints in paperwork.

Relief From Stress

I had started therapy in the previous year, and after the stress started to mount at the job, my therapist and I celebrated an interesting milestone. I gave up a pack-a-day smoking habit. Then I started a garden. I also began to date the enchanting young lady who worked for me. She was an amazing young woman who was totally different from the women I had dated previously. A simple afternoon hiking with her was more enjoyable than just about anything I had experienced before.

My work life was complicated, hugely enriching, successful, and stressful. Work included many weekends and evenings. Joe upped his game and became even more overbearing. At home, by contrast, it became more placid. But we lived in dread that Joe would discover our relationship and use it as ammunition against us. After lots of discussion, she left city employment and went to nursing school. After nursing school, we married. Ahhhh, it was such a joy to see Joe almost stroking out as I introduced my new wife at the annual Christmas party. I had pulled a major deception off, and he hated it. We just smiled and enjoyed the party.

By the way, for those who read my posts, you may know of my rather nasty cat Clancy J. Bumps – AKA the Dread Menace. To him, my wife was simply Mom. Lap time with Mom was special. He had never cared for the other women in my life, but she was different.

My wife likes simplicity, and her influence on me has been profound. A quiet afternoon with her is preferable to some raucous event. Before her, I had no interest in a family; now I take pride in our four children.