Wait and see or duck and cover? Tuesday, January 22, 2013

 

 

(from an alternative journal)

 

The owner is up to something, but it’s hard to say what, or why, or if it has anything to do with the stuff from last summer.

I’m on his radar, always a problem when he starts thinking someone is expendable.

I suspect she has kept in contact with him, just as she has with the office gossip and A who took over as writer in Hometown, refusing to relinquish her network just because she resigned.

The owner is just too powerful a tool for her to give up, especially when she is still trying to promote RR’s agenda.

The question is what exactly does she want to do next with the owner? Does she believe she can come back to our office?

And what will happen if the Virgin Mayor goes down and she and RR lose their employment with the city in the expected purge that will follow the new mayor taking over. The Small Man will not want RR or her in city hall.

For me, it is a matter of keeping calm and not giving the owner anything to come after me with, although he already has enough to work with, perceived misdeeds I’ve supposedly done.

The owner’s chief assistant is acting strange, too, oddly distant and uncomfortable around me, suggesting that she knows some of what the owner has planned.

I’m not yet quite in the position, R our former big city writer was in when they started to work against him, but it is clear that they have started down the same path with me, and I’m not sure I can reverse it.

Part of this may have to do with the owner’s misuse of female employees, but I think mostly it has to do with money and perhaps her.

I don’t yet know how to get below the radar again the way I mostly was when I first started working in the auxiliary office.

The owner needs a scapegoat and since he knows I know too much; he is looking to build his case to force me to leave.

Meanwhile, we move towards another series of political confrontations. The owner is very confused when it comes to politics. On one hand, he keeps promoting the former Councilwoman in Hometown, an ally of the Neighboring Mayor, and on the other hand pushed to publish stories that attack the Neighboring Mayor.

Would he make this move against me on her behalf. If so, it is possible he would put D – who replaced her in the town she works for – in my beat, allowing her to return to her original beat unscathed.

All this may have nothing to do with her directly, and he simply wants me out of the picture and is looking for a way to accomplish this.

His Assistant screws things up, but he can’t afford to blame her or let anyone else blame her, so will fire those who do.

As was the case in the Summer, I win by surviving, and the way to survive is to keep my head and not do anything stupid.

God knows, this is difficult task when I know he’ll use any excuse he can to get me out.

So again, is it his agenda, is he being stoked up by her, or is he simply fishing and desperate for some reasons of his own? The manager of the auxiliary office said he was cranky last week, but not particularly at me.

It’s all just wait and see at this point, and duck and cover

 

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