I'm feeling another twisted fairy tale coming on.


Once upon a time, the Kingdom of Dysfunction was ruled by a distant and uncaring king and a domineering, punitive queen. King Weasel and The Red Queen reigned, hand in hand to destroy their own subjects and destroy their own land. King Weasel cared only about himself and his golf game along with chasing skirts behind his wife's back to pass the time so as not to have any interaction with the peasants. King Weasel would pressure his subjects into giving him free things such as concert tickets or airline upgrades. He would deny people work trips and take them himself and then never show up to the conferences or workshops held in distant provinces so he could go on tours on the company's dime. King Weasel would also corner women in the workout room, their office, or in the parking lot and try to hit on them, saying that he was the boss and he could make things happen for them. These women included yours truly. Once, when the air conditioning was malfunctioning in the building, King Weasel had the technicians close everyone's vent and route all AC to his office. That was sticking up for the people. King Weasel loved to make people feel welcome too. When a friend of mine transferred in, King Weasel greeted him by shaking his hand while never looking up from the sports page and not even knowing my friend's name. After I had rebuffed King Weasel and The Red Queen on a couple of occasions, they had me transferred to another section without warning or any input. When King Weasel told me this I had just come off of a midnight to 8 shift, but he insisted on seeing me at 10am even though I knew the transfer was coming. I got ten seconds of his time and he never even looked at me to tell me that I was being transferred. I kept looking back over my shoulder where he was focusing, thinking maybe there was a ghost there. King Weasel eventually had to abdicate because the Red Queen stabbed him in the back and he told the truth. So, he was overthrown for telling the truth in a career full of lies.


Sitting at the right hand of King Weasel was The Red Queen. She was the perfect storm of sociopathic, power mad, petty and vindictive. She rose to the throne of the Kingdom of Dysfunction through guile, threat and seduction. Upon her transfer in, she was kind and magnanimous, but that only lasted until inspection was over. Then, it was open season on her subjects. She began accusing everyone not in her favor of being unethical. She would call people into her office for perceived wrongdoing, have them wait hours and then be subjected to interrogation until the person proved their innocence. Then, she would dismiss them haughtily. A friend of mine was under interrogation for hours for his travel voucher, which was all done to reg. I was called on the carpet because I took a work trip, which saved lives, and I mistakenly spent $0.47 on the wrong company credit card. You would have thought I had murdered infants by the way she came after me. I reached into my purse and pulled out some coins and said, "I got two quarters, you can keep the change." That went over really well.


During a flight mishap, I took the initiative to save a damaged aircraft and I was called into her office. I thought maybe, just maybe I would be complimented. I was castigated for not having run my actions all the way up the chain and getting approval, which would have taken too much time and resulted in the loss of an aircraft and lives. I sarcastically said that I was sorry for saving lives and The Red Queen said that I should be.


The Red Queen also liked to make random and sudden moves of personnel and sections. She refused to see any requests for her approval before a week out and always took two weeks to approve anything so nothing got approved unless you were a favorite. She stocked the managerial staff with incompetent but loyal toadies. She secretly recruited office rats to spy on people and report to her. People were getting jacked up for a 16 minute coffee break or a 46 minute lunch break. She created a rambling, 17 page mandate on how everyone should log their time to include over 50 color coded entries like lime green for family sick leave for your son and chartreuse for family sick leave for your daughter. She restricted eating times to between 10 and 2 unless you had written consent to eat outside of these times. If you worked a 4 to mid or a mid 8 you couldn't eat because she wouldn't be available to sign your approval. She had Bad Santa watching everyone's leave and reading everyone's email. Bad Santa would make a list and check it twice and then give the naughty and nice list to The Red Queen for offenders to be disposed of. I told an inspector that the organization was an orgy of favoritism and discrimination. She spent much of the budget on substandard office furniture that fell apart within a year. She once cancelled a two year project because she didn't like the font on the proposal. In 18 months, a thriving organization devolved into complete chaos and ruin.


The Red Queen could not be harmed because she was a favorite of a cabinet secretary. Thus, the Red Queen was elevated to become The Red Empress. Eventually, her cabinet secretary moved on and the new one told her she should find a new career and she retired in disgrace...but only after doing long lasting damage to the kingdom.