I AM A GIRL, NOT THE FLESH- PART 5

The Second Job

As a commerce graduate, I was looking for jobs in any company, small or big, and got the second job in a not-so-big place. I was expecting better treatment as I came to know that my boss would be a lady. However, the expectancy fell flat on the rocky roads to the office. It proved to be a greater shock due to the building up of an expectation.

The officer-in-charge was a big, fat lady, the accountant, and there were three assistants to her, I became the fourth. The three assistants were all boys in their twenties, while the accountant was in her late forties. On my joining the assistants said that they were a bit surprised as the lady had recruited a girl again. She had humiliated all three previous girl employees in the last six months and forced them to leave.

All the boys were very well behaved. But the lady was one of a piece, a display of possessed monstrous titillation.

She had the experience but was not sound in the principles of accounts. Being an old-timer, she had developed an idea that all those who were reading and qualifying accounts were supposed to be her slaves, and that was her behaviour to others, including me as well.

Within two days of joining, she started telling me that I would not be of any use and would fail in my career. According to her, I did not know anything about the accounts. I was recruited in an interview conducted by the Auditor of the company, and she was always blaming the auditor for recruiting me!

At times, she would say that the auditor was sick and fell for recruiting young girls and spoiling the office. Though the auditor did not come to the office except once during my stay in that office. He had nothing to do with me, but the lady, at times, taunted that I must have influenced the auditor with something.

The lady was literally one of those who go on blistering attacks from the word go, shouting on each and every small deviation.

On some bigger mistakes, she would behave as if she were going to hit me physically. I started getting scared of physical hurt, and that started affecting my work, also at times. The day she did not find any mistake in my work, she would start personal attacks on my language, on my clothes, on my food habits, anything she could think of. Yes, everything was different between me and her. I, being in my early twenties, certainly wore clothes different from hers. Besides, I was a non-vegetarian, and she was a vegetarian, and both these factors were used by her in insulting me. 

She was angry that I had just crossed 20, and it was unthinkable for her that a young girl would be around her. Her satanic pleasure was displayed when she started asking me to stay after the close of the office hours without a sufficient reason. 

On Saturdays, the office was supposed to close at 2 pm. When I was working for around four months, she started abusing me on weekends just after coming to the office.  Possibly after her vocabulary deceived her for further words,  she asked me to complete not only my job but also some other jobs, adding that if I left the office before 7 pm, she will break my legs.

Yes, it was a Saturday. I was supposed to leave the office at 2 PM. I usually do not bring lunch on Saturdays. While shouting at me relentlessly, she raised her hand and tried to hit me. A colleague who was standing by my side pulled me and saved me from getting hit. That enraged her too much. She then abused me to her limits and asked me to complete some jobs even if that takes the whole night. 

The boys were supposed to leave after lunch, but two of them stayed back to help me and also, if they had left, I would have been alone in the office. That lady called the office guard around 6 PM enquiring about me. The guard told her that I was in the office and two other boys were also in the office. Then she called the office phone and started abusing the boys, casting aspersion on all of them, using all sorts of unparliamentary words and threatening their removal from their jobs. The boys then cut a sorry figure and were forced to leave. I told them that the work she had given was going to be completed as soon as their help was useful for me. 

I completed my work before it was 7 PM. That day, I decided that I would not carry my keys but handed them over to the guard and informed him that I would not be coming anymore. The guard expressed his sadness, said that the lady would not allow anybody to stay in the office, and nobody knew the reason.

At that time, he told me that the lady had lost her family also due to her behaviour and her children, husband, siblings, everyone had left her. None knew why she was so offensive, but I was the fifth or sixth girl who was forced by her to leave the job. She was especially aghast at young girls, for being girls, as if being a woman, she had never been a girl!!

And I remained unemployed for quite some time after that. What was my fault? Nothing. I was a plain victim of the mindset or the illogical sense of competition from that lady. I was a victim of the exploitative mindset.

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And the story continnues....