Large organizations are filled with tiny, little people. But wait a minute. I’m getting way ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.

I drove to Jake’s a popular restaurant in downtown Wendover to meet my coworkers from the Human Resources Development department also known as HRD. This was my first time here, but I knew I was at the right place because I could smell the steaks and seafood from down the street and saw the ginormous Jake’s sign. I found a spot pretty far away from the door because Happy Hour had just started at 5:00. I walked to the entrance, the aroma even stronger now. It definitely made me hungry as this was 5:30, after work. As I entered I could see the restaurant was to my left and the bar to my right. Even though it was somewhat dark, I saw the entire HRD department at a table in the bar.  Denise, Jade, Kayla, James, and Katrina. I slipped into the one empty seat at the table saying hello to all of my new coworkers. I was very excited to spend time with all of them and said yes when asked if I wanted to meet them after work for drinks. I was just hired and have been on the team for a month now.

After our hellos we ordered drinks and a couple of appetizers for the table. Once the waitress delivered our beverages and the food, Jade opened the conversation about her sex toys. Jade was an attractive 44 year old woman wearing an ivory silk v neck blouse which accentuated her cleavage pushed up by a black lace bra. Her bra matched perfectly with her black pleated cotton skirt and black cowboy boots with white stitching. She wore no stockings because it was the second week in July and humid. Her dirty blonde hair was loose and didn’t quite spill down to her shoulders because she had a short bob.

“I have so many sex toys lying around my bedroom that my mother-in-law has hinted we should put them away before she comes to clean our house.” Slouched in my chair and like a lizard frozen from danger, my eyes darted from face to face trying to make sense of what was going on.

Jade took another sip of her drink, a gin and tonic and bit into a garlic parmesan & butter chicken wing. Unfortunately, some of the buttery sauce dripped onto her ivory silk blouse on her left breast. She poured a little bit of her drink on her blouse to clean the stain, but poured too much so the effect was to make it look like her left boob was in a wet t-shirt contest all by itself.

Denise, cackled at Jade’s wet blouse and now exposed boob through the transparent silk. She took another swig of her margarita as the words tumbled from her tongue.  

“I was in a wet t-shirt contest and took off my shirt to shake my tits at everyone!” Denise shouted to everyone in the bar.

It was difficult for me to see Denise in a wet t-shirt contest. She was 55, let her hair go gray long ago because it was too much work to keep coloring it, yet she had a short bob that had to be maintained monthly. She wore khakis and a blue polo shirt with dark brown clogs. Denise had a huge ego and appeared to be angry most of the time. She was the oldest employee on the team in terms of age and longevity at GH. She was the go-to person for all things in the department, the pseudo manager of a director-less department.

“Well, I am the queen of sex toys!” shouted Kayla, 40, finishing her margarita while catching the attention of the waitress to order more drinks.

Another round was ordered for everyone except for me as I was still nursing my coke. Still slouched in my chair, I was wondering if it would appear that I wasn’t a team player if I excused myself and left. I decided it would appear that way so stay slouched in my chair. Kayla had a short bob of curly dirty blonde hair. She was attractive with chiseled face features giving her the appearance of high cheek bones. She too wore khakis but paired it with a white cotton blouse and also wore clogs, but hers were black.

“My sex toys are in my bedside table,” piped in Katrina who was in her early thirties. Katrina was overweight with a very soft, pasty look. She too had a short bob and thinning dirty blonde hair. She wore no makeup. But she also had on khakis with a black polo shirt and black patent leather clogs. Looking at everyone, I wondered if khakis and clogs and short bobs were the HRD uniform and that Jade only got the memo for the short bob.

James, on the other hand, proceeded to order another three shots of tequila. He never said anything about his sex toys and proceeded to get drunk, downing shot after shot leaving enough time in between shots, to dip tortilla chips into the artichoke spinach dip & shoving the entire chip into his mouth. It appeared James did not get the memo for khakis and clogs and sex toys, but he had a short and tidy haircut and wore black dress slacks with a purple and white gingham shirt paired with a purple tie. James was also in his thirties. He wore black loafers and purple socks. James followed his wife to GH because she took a position as a psychologist at the college. We all worked at the Medical Center which is affiliated with the medical school at General Hospital. Medical Centers are teaching hospitals so the residents at General College can get real life medical experience.

Me? Mostly, I was just speechless. You have to understand the department where I accepted a job was in HR Development. The conversation just did not seem appropriate, and I definitely did not get the memo for short bobs, khakis, clogs and sex toys. I never talked about sex toys because I didn’t have any, but I didn’t want to seem critical about anything because I wanted to be accepted by my new coworkers.  I am in my head a lot because I am analytical and have also been accused of being overly literal and autistic, taking most things at face value. So I just sat quietly sipping my coke and wanting to go home.

I asked my husband to describe me. Tom, my husband, says I was petite and very curvy and looked 35 and not 50. I had shoulder length, very thick and dark hair. That night, I wore a t-shirt dress that was slate gray & very simple with cork wedgie shoes that had a transparent band of plastic so that you can see the top of my feet. I had on black quartz dangling earrings and a little bit of pink lipstick. I too showed some cleavage like Jade, but I was the only one who had on lipstick. He also thinks that I am beautiful but more beautiful inside.

“Well, I am hosting sex toy parties if anyone is interested. You know like selling Tupperware except I am selling sex toys.” Kayla shouted sounding a bit inebriated after three rounds of drinks.

Denise asked for the check. “If we divvy this up, it’s $20 each which includes tip.”

Wow! I had a $20 coke. Money was put on the table on top of the check and the HRD team left Jake’s to go home. At least I went home. I didn’t live too far from work or Jake’s, maybe five miles. When I got home, I went into the study searching for my husband.

“Hey dear! How are you?” I asked.

“Great! How was your day and how was drinks with your new coworkers?” Tom asked.

“Well, get this. First, all I had was a coke and ended up with a $20 bar tab. And then, everyone talked about sex toys. WTF?”

I always shared my experiences with Tom because he had an MA in Human Behavior and also provided counseling for troubled youths in Chicago many years ago. It is probably one of the main reasons why I married him. He is a compassionate and gentle soul, and I love him immensely.

 “That’s just a bunch of girls talking, Edna. Don’t worry about it too much. Now come here and give me a hug and kiss.”

After hugging Tom, I brushed my teeth and then hopped into bed and conked out immediately. Starting a new job is exhausting and trying to figure out my coworkers and the sex toy talk was even more exhausting.

The next day, post sex toy happy hour, everyone at the office was ignoring me. I couldn’t understand what I had done or said. Denise walked into her office, a couple of hours later than everyone else. I poked my head in her office and asked “Hey, Denise. Do you have a minute for a question, once you’re settled?”

“Sure, Ed. Come on in.”

“I feel like everyone is ignoring me. Have I said or done anything to offend anyone? And if I did, how can I fix this?” Prior to coming to GH, I did almost two years of therapy where I learned I can ask these clarifying questions. My therapist felt that my MO was not to engage and not to communicate with people once things got tough. Instead, I ran away. This time, I was trying very hard to engage, to communicate and to stay put.

“All is good, Edna,” she answered.

I still felt uneasy because it did not feel like everything was ok. But I had to accept her answer

After lunch everyone was going for a walk and asked if I wanted to come along.

“Of course!” I said still trying to create some kind of a bond with this team. On the walk, the entire team continued to ignore me. I was so confused.

We were now in the last week of July, and Jade, Katrina and Kayla wanted to take a dinner cruise on one of the nearby lakes. All three asked if I was interested. I was not. It was starting to get colder in the evenings, and I knew it would be very cold by a lake or on a lake, so I declined. And this invite just confused me because the entire team continued to ignore me. I wasn’t sure why they would want me to come on this dinner cruise with them. I told you I was very literal and took things at face value.

One morning, I came in, and there was a binder of papers on the bookshelf behind me. It was odd because someone would have had to come behind my desk and place the binder there. It seemed intentional.

“Good morning, everyone. Did anyone leave a binder full of papers on my bookshelf?” I asked the team.

“Let me look at it, Ed. Bring it over here,” Jade said.

Jade looked through the binder and told me that this belonged to Marley Leeds who was down the hall. So I walked down the hall to Marley's office and returned the binder to her. Marley is a 53 year old cute blonde, slightly overweight. Her blonde hair is almost white and she wore black slacks with a white top with black embroidered flowers. She also had a shock of bright pink lipstick making the total effect cute. We exchanged hellos, and then I left as I had work to do.

In the meantime, GH offered opportunities for employee social gatherings at different restaurants in the area. It was an opportunity to see what was in the neighborhood and to meet fellow coworkers. Who should I run into again, but Marley. She was one of the hosts for these GH employee social gatherings. We started chatting where she told me how disgruntled she was with the management in Compensation.

“Edna! Nice to see you. How are you doing?” Marley called out to me from across the bar.

“Hey, Marley! Nice to see you as well. How are you doing? I didn’t know that you hosted these get togethers.”

“Yes, I do now. Ever since Leanne Calwell took a management position in Compensation, she made my life difficult & then fired me! So here I am. I had to talk with David Jets, the COO at the time, who is a friend of Dave’s. He found a position for me in Benefits. So I do the GH Get Togethers as well as plan the dinner and rewards evening for employees every year.”

I spilled immediately about my situation, “Wow. So sorry for you, Marley! But I am kind of going through the same thing. My coworkers took me for a happy hour where all they did was talk about sex toys and now everyone just ignores me. I am sooooo confused!!”

I was so hungry for a connection at work and here I was meeting someone who kind of had a shared experience. Now as I write this memoir, Marley doth protest too much, methinks. It’s just that for a couple of years of our friendship, she went way overboard talking about her firing from Leanne Calwell. I thought she was overly emotional about it. She behaved very much like Denise and Jade and Katrina and Kayla and James in the HRD department, overly loud and outrageous in the things she was saying about her former boss, Leanne. She befriended me and did a really good act of being a friend. I went to her house for Christmas. She and her husband Dan came over my house for dinner. And we went out to dinner quite a few times over the course of 6 years at Jake's. The first time we had dinner at Jake’s, she spoke overly loud there too as well as other times. It’s almost as if someone from GH had a table near us so that they could witness us talking about other GH people. But what is real? She may have lied about her background and interests to get on my good side.

At about this same time; James, Kayla, Ben and I were sent to a Yellowbelt training. Because we were in the same department, the organizer of the meeting had us all sit at the same table so that we could discuss the same projects. Ben sat to my right while James and Kayla sat to my left. The entire time, James and Kayla ignored both Ben and me and kept whispering while giving us furtive looks. Ben was the same age as me. He was a middle aged gay man with a hilarious sense of humor. And at this time he was very kind, so I ended up hanging out with Ben. Ben always wore Dockers and a button up shirt. Very conservative. At the end of the class, Ben and I left together. We stood outside of the conference room at the hotel talking for about two hours.

“What do you think about James’s and Kayla’s behavior, Edna?

“Wow! How juvenile. I am so shocked but not really. But it is so unprofessional.”

“Well, I am having a hard time at GH. I am being bullied by my boss, Kathleen Flick (Director Employee Relations). She doesn’t like my politics and continues to punish me at work. It has gotten so bad, that I reached out to Melanie Mission, the director of benefits to see if I can move to her department.”

Wow!! Another human coworker connection at work with Ben.

“Ben, OMG!!! I am having such an issue with my department! I went for happy hour with the team and all they did was talk about sex toys and then post sex toy happy hour, everyone has been ignoring me just like you saw with James and Kayla during the Yellowbelt training. WTF?!”  

I now had two friends from HR. Ben never went out with me so I only saw him at work. Marley and I did meet for dinner at Jake’s maybe once every three months. Both of our husbands came with us. Often times, Marley was very loud, which was a little bit embarrassing. But I still felt a connection with her because she came from a family that struggled financially. I thought maybe in her childhood she wasn’t heard so she had to speak loudly. She also seemed to feel that she didn’t have enough. And that behavior came from growing up with not a whole lot. I understood where she came from and accepted her for who she was. Oddly, coming from a financially strapped family, I was the opposite of Marley. I tried to ensure my siblings enjoyed Christmas and would tell my dad not to get me anything. I remember one Christmas being comic books from a gas station. Odd that two people can have similar backgrounds yet come out very differently. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how deep the dysfunction and corruption was at this hospital. Both of those relationships were set up so that the management could keep tabs on me with what I was thinking and feeling and being able to set me up to look like I was crazy. Marley and I met Ben for lunch every now and then.

I would like to continue this story of being mentally tortured at General Hospital but need to take a detour as to how I got to General Hospital in the first place.