If nothing else, her coming to our office in late 2011 is an
eye opener for me, a window into a world I knew existed, but never suspected I
was a part of.
It is impossible to ignore the swath of corruption that goes
on around me, even if I’m technically not a part of it.
Yet, now in the midst of it, I’m not sure how to get out of
it again – short of quitting my job and looking for something far less likely
to inspire trickling up or down, or the rest of the stuff everybody seems to be
engaged in.
And I’ve only stuck my toes into it.
I can only imagine how desperate she is, having more fully
embraced that way of life, needing to get on with it because there isn’t an
alternative.
Once you’ve gone into that life, there is no easy way to get
out, and her life seems to be a matter of sticking one foot out, followed by
the next, going wherever fate leads her.
This isn’t just a matter of being stuck with a dastardly
crew of co-conspirators, but rather the life she has chosen (as the Paul Newman
character once pointed out), and she carries it around with her regardless of
who she is with and what job she works, a mindset that has become a permanent part
of her life – this is what she does, and how she will also do things.
I’d like to say that I am the victim of a confidence game –
only I’m not.
She may well be a social engineer, who organized the game,
but I’m incidental to the outcome, just one of the pawns in a game whose target
is well beyond me.
The fact that I’m involved in it all is mostly my own fault,
not trusting my own instincts when that little alarm went off in the back of my
head last year telling me this is too good to be true.
Others have lost more in this game, especially those who are
still unaware that it was a game in the first place, such as our former temporary
boss or even the owner.
Even after I exposed her during my conversations with our
former temporary boss (and later exposed the fact that I was talking to him
about her), he kept his eyes closed tight, deliberately choosing not to see
what was becoming more and more obvious.
The owner is a different story. He likes to think he’s a
political player, and savvy, when he’s not. In almost every case, he’s fallen victim
to unscrupulous characters, tending to pick people who use him or are nearly as
inept as he. His involvement with her is more of the same, I suspect, a man
thinking he’s on top of the situation, while she pulls the wool over his eyes.
You can’t even blame her, even though the Congressman’s PR
person calls her a black widow. She has no other choice than to do what she
does. This is how she survives.
I ought to be satisfied that she has been driven out of our
office, though I suspect she still operates here through surrogates like D and
A, even though D claims he’s still clean.
If I was younger, I might take on the corruption. But I’m
not strong enough. I have too few allies I can rely on to give me cover. GA –
the Hometown blogger – knows a lot, but is no more trustworthy than our poet
friend, doing what she needs to survive as well.
So, my life is a matter of duck and cover, to hide in my
hole and hope I can weather whatever storm is brewing.
I try not to think about her too much, try not to feel as I felt
last summer when I knew she was winning the game, and I was helpless to do anything
about it.
Her resignation from our office has damaged her in some
respects, and she may not be able to operate as openly as she did back then,
but I suspect, if need be, she’ll still pull the strings that will get what she
wants from us.
But Hometown is a whole different kettle of fish from where
she’s used to playing, and here enemies can turn to friends overnight, and if
you put too much trust in the wrong people, you might wind up on the wrong side
without even knowing how you got there.
For me, I need to find strength and leverage, which I don’t have
presently, and to watch my back.
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