It may be Louisiana politics as usual, and maybe I should just start again somewhere else. I just got “laid off” from the same job I keep getting. Everywhere I get a job, I end up being the ass-cover flunky of the big boss’ ex-mistress /football buddy/drinking buddy/moron cousin/nephew/etc. who is not qualified, think s/he is too good to work for a living, rarely shows up to work, has no plan or clue … . I am attractive (though almost 50), intelligent, and compulsively excellent. Here lately it is aging women with inferiority complexes who get slipped in as my supervisors after I am hired by men. They are POed from day one and have let me know that I was not their choice. I don’t know for sure whether they think I am a plant to find an excuse to fire them or what. My last three surprise bosses have all been recently dumped by their married lovers. They are pally with the women who are the bosses of the men who hired me. The new boss asks me to handle things for them, which I do with my usual excellence. People from other departments report positively to me to my boss. This pisses her off and she and her girlfriends (younger girlfriends of other execs with less education and less seniority) who spend their time divided between the hall, the break room, the bathroom, the gym, the salon, and 2 hour lunches in local cafes. They stand around and make snarky comments or “show [me] what trying to show up other people gets [me],” (doing my extra assignments as quickly as possible so I will have time to do my own work) by going to special off-site seminars, lunch meetings, etc. while I stay and work until I am a wreck. If I go to the male bosses who hired me, the female boss above them, who is in the old girlfriend’s club, lays me off. Every time I find out that I am about to get recognized in some way by another department as a result of things my bosses have asked me to do, I have to beg the person about to nominate me not to do so. My resume looks like I am a perpetual entry level clerk even though I have run several related departments at once by myself. I have never been in a job for 5 years, had a raise or a promotion in my life, even though I have sterling letters of recommendation from people who think I hung the moon. I speak five languages, have 3 college degrees and a 150 IQ, take work home, miss most lunches, have no vices, rarely miss work, go to continuing ed classes on my own time/dime, turn in projects early that are not even my job, improve procedures, save money, improve the reputation of the company and the department–what more must I do? I refuse to learn to commit adultery and party at my age (47). It looks like someone would love to have a hardworking person to make them look good and show up while they slept in hung over or with their next avenue of promotion, but they are threatened by it! I just want to keep a job and not be picked on. Right now I am starving, on the verge of homelessness, and going to waste after the biggest f–over ever in which I was told I would have a job through August by the men, took on an extra expense based on that assurance, and then was told by the woman above the men that I could only work through mid-May. I am at an age where my looks have to be carefully husbanded, and they are going bad quickly, making it harder to compete at interviews. For the first time, I am losing hope. Is there a way I can ask in the interiew about the hierarchy of the company so that I can find out whether there are similar layers of bosses without being obvious? In one interview a young thing with a fierce walk in four-inch heels and a mini suit with a silk blouse, nothing under in but sproingy little boobs was seen before me. The male with final hiring authority left right behind her. I was interviewed by a female from another department and a young male clerk who didn’t even work for the local office of the company. The interview was very cordial, and I was assured I would be called the following Monday. That was a month ago.
