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Abigail & Prudence - Two Peas in a Pod

Brendon Luke

By BrendonPublished 4 years ago 20 min read
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God, I hate when suburban Australian try-hards attempt to appropriate aristocratic ideas to re-affirm their deeply held belief that they are born special. There’s nothing worse than 1 generation removed from working class people who believe they are part of a natural ruling class. Brand new money, and we are not talking millionaires, middle class mofos. Money made by hard working people doing honest labour sometimes produces the most revolting entitlement in the children they worked so hard to provide for. Parents who work day in and night, and went without to build a business for their kid to prance about like Lord Lard Arse. Proud of their spawn who believe themselves above doing the work that was good enough for their parents. Why are some people proud of raising children who see their parents as so thoroughly beneath them? It makes me vomit in my mouth a bit when nobodies talk about being from prominent families. God the fishpond needs to be tiny if we are going to call the guy whose dad owns 2 car yards, or the girl whose mum owns a real estate agency ‘from prominent families’. My jaded little self has higher standards than that, and isn’t impressed by your goldfish like claims of importance by birthright. If you ain’t a Rothchild or the kraken you are small fry sweetheart, get over it.

Abigail liked to modestly pretend to hide the fact she came from a prominent Beaches family. Pretend to hide it, in that she made damn sure to bring it up in every conversation just how hard it was having everyone know who her family was. The truth is no-one knows who her family is and even after she explains it no one knows why they are supposed to be important, but frightened of looking bourgeois and ‘not in the know’ they nod sympathetically. If any of my dear readers can explain to me how being the child of a builder who grew-up in a nice but not exclusive suburb, went to a catholic but not exclusive school and works in a middling level job in KRONOS due to nepotism, makes you a force to be reckoned with please let me know. With a few tweaks to my story I too could be a ‘person of some importance’. I’m always keen to do a little self-improvement that involves no effort on my part and make me intrinsically better than others for reasons I made up. I was going to move on to the point of the story but I’m not yet done with my bitching so bear with me.

Abigail has 3 brothers, and in the tradition of all great prominent families, they are all useless fucking dead beats. Her oldest brother Mick also works for Kronos. Maybe that is where the prominent family part comes from. He works for the training department and she is a trainer. Maybe that’s the key, two people working two lowly positions for the same company makes a dynasty. Give me a moment, I need to call my sister. The Hospital is looking for a janitor. If I’m taking blood and my sister is emptying bed pans at the same hospital our family is going to be a prominent family in the medical field. We are also both hawt which you are about to see has no role at all in being important, it’s just a bonus pretty thing my prominent family will have once I convince my sister to empty bed pans.

In a family of generally poor genes when it came to looks, Mick can only be described as ugly. Some people get the short end of the stick, some people fall from the ugly tree, Mick fell from the ugly tree and was beaten within an inch of his life by a hoard of jealous peasants wielding ugly sticks. As a little side note, because what is life if you can’t explore the paths off the main route, Mick is a pervert. He is a Harvey Weinstein wanna be, an unattractive middle-aged man with a modicum of power who uses that power to make inappropriate and uncomfortable sexual advances on young women who are afraid to outright rebuff him because he can make their lives miserable. Compared to her brothers Abigail is quite pretty.

I think my self-esteem has suffered because my sister is not hideous, if I had had a brother as ugly as Mick I too could be as self-assured as Abigail is about my average looks. Abigail and I are the same age but Abigail picked the sugar daddy route while I remain a sassy, glorious, world travelling bachelor. Abigail found an older guy whose parents made some money who ‘works for his parents’ business and locked that bitch down with a baby. There are such universal themes emerging in this tale, I feel almost obliged to re-use this chapter in a history tome about the dynasties of The Beaches. One day they will make a movie about my book and students will write essays on the important themes I examined and I will go down in history as an intellectual giant. Now that I have savaged her parentage, genes, husbandry tactics and looks, I will say Abigail and her poor man’s sugar daddy did produce a nice kid.

Basil is beautiful and an excellent judge of character. Abigail brought Basil to the KRONOS Beaches Christmas party, I organised one year. Basil bloody loved me. Basil bloody loved me and hated Tammy, see, he’s a smart kid. When Basil was passed into Tammy arm’s Basil immediately started bawling and tried to escape from the soulless Tammy. Tammy has 3 kids, but clearly experience means nothing when a kid can see you are a sucky person. Sucky is such a strange insult. I love people who suck, even if they do it badly it’s still better than not being sucked. English is a strange language. I have no experience with kids, but for some reason they are always at ease with me.

Basil probably got his smarts from his mum. Abigail knows how to work a crowd, how to play the game to her advantage and how to fly under the radar so people mostly don’t know she’s playing the game at all. I don’t know her end goal, but she is the queen of gathering the intel and using it to her advantage. There is a ruthlessness about her and her willingness to use others as pawns. She gains the trust of her superiors to get what she wants. She is currently bragging about being the only person ever to be allowed to transfer within the company to another full-time position in another area. Oh, the heady heights of her power.

You can’t see me typing but just know that I will never need a brain scan, my eyes roll so far back at this shit that I have pretty much given myself a complete brain MRI. It is her ‘stature’ in the company and her position as a ‘dedicated trainer’ that made her exempt from the rules of the regular plebs. We all create a narrative in our minds to explain the how’s and whys of things. Abigail’s narrative is that she is a mover and a shaker and the regular rules don’t apply to her. I suspect she is far more of a pawn than she will ever know and it suited the people with genuine power to move her, so they indulged her little fantasy and placed their puppet in a new role. Like all recipients of nepotism, Abigail rose rather quickly through the ranks of KRONOS and truly believed her rapid rise was based on merit not her brothers influence. After coasting along on the special rules for special people for years when Abigail took maternity leave, she found herself in a position she never saw coming. She assumed her role as room co-ordinater and trainer in her room of choice that allowed her to turn up late, take 1 1/2hr lunch breaks, go shopping for hours while on the clock and do ‘paperwork’, while everyone else did actual work would be held for her. It wasn’t. It was given to the male version of her, a man with an outstanding skill for doing nothing but taking all the credit. He was later promoted for his ability to spend an entire day making a letterhead for faxes while everyone else covered the less important work of taking fucking blood in a pathology collection centre #priorities. Abigail was absolutely furious in the way a that only a child who has never been told no can be. She was outraged in a way that only a special person who discovers they are not the only special person can be.

KRONOS had other plans for Abigail. If she wanted to return to her previous status, she would be placed in other collection rooms. KRONOS was having problems with how cliquey some of the rooms had become and Abigail was going to be sent in to spy on the trouble makers and report back to management. Abigail had no problem with spying or throwing her co-workers under a bus, but she wanted to do it exclusively on her terms. She approached the Doctors at the medical centre where her room was located and got them to write letters saying they would no-longer use KRONOS if Abigail was not running the room. It was like watching a gold fish with a hand full of participation awards approaching a shark believing they are equals. Have you ever seen a chihuahua pick a fight with a Pitbull? The lack of self-awareness is breathtaking. Just because a Pitbull has chosen to humour the chihuahua previously doesn’t come close to meaning that the chihuahua was ever equal to taking the Pitbull on in a fight. Chihuahua Abigail had angered Pit-bull KRONOS and instructed the area manager Napoleon of The Beaches to show her unequivocally who was boss.

KRONOS has a nasty habit of indulging the self-importance of doctors too. They will brown nose and pander to doctors but when push comes to shove, they are big enough not to care about whether a hand full of GPs write referral’s for other pathology companies because they were not allowed to dictate KRONOS staffing decisions. Any pathology company will accept any referral and KRONOS so heavily monopolises the market that the majority of Australians having a blood test will be KRONOS patients regardless of the name on the referral. When Abigail returned from maternity leave, she was no longer a trainer or room-coordinator. In time she was allowed to become a trainer again, but she was moved to the trouble rooms and expected to report back to Napoleon. She burned a lot of bridges and before leaving The Beaches was disliked and distrusted by all but a sycophantic few who still believed her delusions of specialness. Some people re-write history. Abigail is one of them. She now talks about how respectful KRONOS was over the whole situation, but you can see the bitterness in her eyes. She is biding her time, but her time will never come. KRONOS allowed her to believe she was special, then let her know in no uncertain terms she was their bitch and never to forget it when she got too big for her boots.

If Abigail knew I was writing this she would probably act blasé about it and pretend she didn’t care, but deep down she has never recovered from it. Instagram has magnified a human habit called image crafting. We all want control over how people see us, but some people dedicate huge swathes of time and energy to manipulating how the world see them. Abigail is one of those people. She needs to project a shiny, got all her shit together, better than you picture to the rest of the world. When you believe the special treatment, you received is deserved and therefore the shit treatment others received is deserved, when you are suddenly treated like everyone else you have to deny it or acknowledge it was deserved according to your own meritocratic reasoning. Suddenly you are torn between the idea that either you are no-longer special or that fairness never played a part. Either one is a pretty tough pill to swallow. The truth of the matter is a junky can find a vein, the systems are all dictated by company policy so even a monkey could ‘manage’ the collection rooms. Who rises and who falls has very little to do with merit or skill and has everything to do with how well you fall into line with the egos higher up the food chain. The law of the jungle is that you have to know where you fall on the food chain, and monkeys don’t get to dictate to lions.

Prudence is the receptionist at Brookvale. Prudence is pure misery and sarcasm, her greatest joy in life is making others feel belittled. Prudence must have a special magic mirror that reflects something that isn’t there because she believes she is funny, smart, sarcastic and successful at everything she does. Prudence deflects insecurities by belittling others and putting them down constantly. Where Prudence says it, Abigail acts it. Prudence will tell you that you are nothing, Abigail will patronise you so you know she thinks you are nothing. Needless to say, Prudence and Abigail are great friends. A 30yr old and a 70yr old woman, both better in their own minds than the plebs they are surrounded by. Abigail can clearly see that Prudence is horrible and does nothing about it, and Prudence goes out of her way to make Abigail look stupid. Each believing they are better than everyone and not realising that the other sees them as one of the losers. They deserve each other.

I did used to like Abigail; Abigail was always one of those acquaintances that is your bestie at work but you never see out of work. Abigail and I got off to a good start in the beginning, she makes you feel included in a special exclusive club, until she doesn’t. The first time I met her she clung to me like I was the most awesome fascinating person alive. When you have been the lonely awkward gay kid, that kind of acceptance can be pretty heady. I guess she wanted a gay friend for her #woke Instagram post. That and she instinctively knew you don’t want to be on the wrong side of gay wrath. It didn’t take long for Abigail to show her lack of fucking backbone.

Prudence was treating a patient unfairly and I stood up and said something about the situation. As you can imagine Prudence was not happy about being called out about belittling others. The following is the Facebook messenger conversation between Abigail and I over the incident:

Dionysus: ‘Sorry if I caused problems today but Prudence really rubs me the wrong way. It’s been rough the last 8 months and I actually am really disgusted how Prudence treats people and the fact that Prudence pushes everyone over, as well as you. Even though ur an independent person it’s unfair on you. I hope I haven’t caused problems And I just want you to know I respect you at work’.

Abigail: ‘Ok you have my attention but I'm going to be absolutely brutally honest as a friend...

Be very careful with what your stirring. I personally know what Prudence can be like and I've worked her out. Remember that you are a reliever and you don't have to work with Prudence permanently so just take her with a grain of salt. As a colleague, rooms coordinator and someone who wants to progress with the company, don't draw any unwanted attention to yourself. As much as you feel like Prudence was in the wrong, consider a few things. Prudence was following company protocol and ultimately the law. We cannot begin a procedure without the correct information. And Prudence was the one over seeing its arrival. Respect that.

I asked you today to process a doctors collect and you defied me and just put it straight in the box. I know it's not the end of the world but you showed me disrespect and that was shit. When we work together next, I want to make sure we are on the same page. I don't want to be seen as some snarky person, I really don't but I actually like my job and I want to go places. I know you're going through some personal stuff and have been for some time so I don't want to be mega harsh on you but let me help you get through the next few weeks, months even and hopefully it won't be so bad. At the end of the day babe. Pick your battles. And prove people wrong. Let them go, you know what Dionysus you have shown us you are serious about improving and we are proud’.

Dionysus: ‘I don’t want to go anywhere in this company and I know that. The way it treats its staff is disgusting. I understand you want to go further and respect that and you have to act a certain way. Prudence, I think we both know is rude to people no matter what your trying to protect and I know this won’t go further. Prudence was following policy to a certain extent. But we could have started that testing. We had the whole referral with all the information we needed. I actually have a copy of the first referral Prudence received which clearly shows all the necessary info. We receive forms all the time that don’t have the bottom part on them. You don’t even need a doctor's signature anymore to continue with a referral which was even stated in retraining, so Prudence is in the wrong. I’m not sure why you want to defend Prudence but that’s ok. You only asked me to write up that collect today to show your authority towards me because I clearly had done something five minutes before in front of Prudence which didn’t assert your authority. I would never disrespect you at work or anyone else that’s in charge. I understand the hierarchy and how it works. We all know well and truly that urine could have gone in that bag unmarked. It was about 20 Minutes before the courier was due. For some reason Prudence likes to create more work. If you want the stats then say so and people would probably respond better in doing the correct procedure. I like your honesty but sometimes I’m sick of the bullshit and I feel you know exactly what I mean. I’m not trying to stir anything and the fact you think so is actually more damaging than anything. I really hope this message stays between you and I because things have gotten out before. If you want me to act a certain way at work let’s discuss this next Wednesday and work it out’.

Abigail: ‘Well that's cool you don't want to progress but just because you don't want to progress doesn't mean you just take the piss, I'm not saying that you are but don't let the fact you have no desire to move up the chain hinder your capability because we all know you are more than competent. Prudence is just Prudence it's hard to explain and I'm not defending as such but just pointing out that regardless of who it was, we do have to follow protocol as best we possibly can. If you want to believe I asked you to do a job to show my authority then that's your prerogative but it wasn't the case and there's no point trying to persuade to believe me otherwise because you have your opinion and that's just it. Prudence likes to keep busy. Prudence is an ageing person who is probably scared if she doesn't keep moving mentally and physically, she will deteriorate. I do know what you mean though yes, the bureaucratic shit, it's true but I've worked for Kronos for almost 10 years. They will NEVER change! it's just the way they operate, it’s messed up but once you accept it, it becomes easier to understand.

Don't worry Dionysus as long as you respect this conversation I will too. This goes no further than here and all I honestly want to do is get you into a better place in your work life which will hopefully make things in your own life sounder. I respect you also but I get disappointed when I feel like I'm being treated and seen as a joke. I don't know how to address the Prudence thing any more that what I've explained but let's just leave it at that and look if you get sent to my room again/more then I will 100% understand you keeping your distance from Prudence. I didn't see anyone crying but I don’t catch everything that goes on always so I'm not discounting it didn't happen. I'm not trying to treat you like a child either. It's probably just me trying to mother and make sure everyone's happy. So sorry about that. Unfortunately, my room has had one constant problem and only till now am I getting anywhere with anyone doing anything about it and that's Pan. Pan has been the main downfall of the rooms and the reason Prudence asks nothing of Pan is because they don't get along so much so that they literally do not speak to one another. And my dealings with Pan, I usually get a grunt, anyway that's another kettle of fish that doesn't need to be discussed right now. At the end of the day I just want to do my job and that involves helping people in the process so if you don't care for that then that's fine, I'll stop and leave you to your own devices. If you so much want for a work relationship only then that's fine. Noted and respected’.

Now ladies and gentlemen it is time to put on our psychologist caps and unpack the what the fuckery we just saw.

First things first. I am well aware I word for word re-printed a series of messages where both parties explicitly stated that it ‘would go no further’ and reassured each other it was private. If you read this chapter you will know that apparently there are different rules for special people and if you don’t think I’m special enough to have special rules then fuck you I don’t need your negativity.

Defied? She used the words ‘you defied me’ to describe another adult not doing what she wanted. This kind on control-freakery attitude towards a mentally competent adult is a great big red flag, trigger warning needed this shit is heading towards emotionally abusive kind of foreshadowing. Words have power. The words people chose to use will often communicate so much. Defiance is a refusal to obey, where there is an obligation to obey. She saw me as obliged to bend to her will and unquestioningly follow her directives. She couches her behaviour as her mothering instinct. She claims to be ‘mothering’ her co-workers. Her opinion of the adults around her is so low she feels they needed to be treated the same way she treats her 2-year-old son. The fuck?

How was I so silly to not pick up on the WE part of that conversation? Abigail was part of the company now.

humanity
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