9/20/10

Dateline: It’s June 30, and I’m sitting in the Starbucks on Seneca St. (the only Starbucks in downtown Ithaca, NY). I’ve recently discovered that it is much more conducive to my writing to take my laptop to public places when I have the urge to write—I’d produced my ‘FWF farewell’ letter from an outside bench at Purity Ice Cream, only three days earlier. It’s late at night, near the closing time. I’m having a bit of trouble finding motivation to type. I do manage to put out:

I’ve found—not without some feeling of irony—that fading away, with little flourish into the chronicles of French Woods past has proven more difficult than I’ve envisioned. No amount of reflection and catharsis seems to quell my restless spirit, essentially experiencing the equivalent of eviction from its adopted place of comfort and purpose, i.e., the French Woods mailroom. How is one meant to cope with the loss of the foundation he’s cherished for a significant period of his life? If in his short and turbulent life, he has known the feeling of presiding over one institution that he has shaped in his own design, a system where he has enjoyed control…

At this time, I’m too frustrated to continue, so I take a break and surf the web. One thing that relaxes me is reading from the Katha-Upanishad: The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over;
thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard. —3.14 It was from this verse that W. Somerset Maugham penned the title to his classic, The Razor’s Edge. Since my pilgrimage through Australia, that book and its title verse hold a great deal of meaning to me.

That was then. Two months later and I’m across the pond.

Dateline: It’s August 30, and I’m sitting in a Nando’s in Glasgow. From having been monitoring the Facebook traffic of French Woodites, I can see that the final session of camp has reached its climax for the summer. Exiting campers and staff are uploading the last of their troves of photos, all of which have the same thing in common: Happy young people smiling brightly; the closeness; the satisfaction of another fun-filled year, now behind them. I used to be one of the smiling faces in images like these. Until now, that is. Scheiße. I still am stewing with animosity over my discomfiting departure, which is best summed up in my June 26 Facebook status: “Joe Lehman has done my best to handle the situation with maturity and class. But damn it, I can't get over the feeling of betrayal. I gave the job the best summers of my life. I put in blood, sweat, and tears to ensure everyone's happiness. And what do I have to show for it from the powers that be??!! A quick "fuck you" and goodbye.”

It isn’t the handful of people who I hold directly responsible for my circumstances that I have on my mind, though. I had the least emotional attachment to them, anyway. It’s someone else, someone whose role was relatively minor. But he was the one person whom I had felt closest to and had held in highest esteem and respect at one time. So it is his conduct against me that I truly take personally. While waiting for my dinner of spicy chicken wings to arrive, I decide now seems like the right time to do what I find most cathartic. I take out my pen and notebook—A Kollegieblock I picked up in Stockholm—and I write a letter to this man I once admired. It is a letter I don’t plan on sending, of course, and the names have since been omitted to protect the guilty:

I’ve been watching your rise in the staff hierarchy. I guess it’s what you’ve always wanted, right? Finally being placed in a position of nominal authority after all these years of being the butt of jokes in Sing skits about how The Boss could never find you a consistent job.
I’m sure it feels great to have The Boss ‘s respect (or acceptance—whichever term you prefer), carrying your head high as he gives you a pat on the back, congratulating you on a fine day’s work. Lord knows I’ve always desired to have that, myself. The fact that The Boss is naturally stoic, such a master at keeping his emotional distance, only makes the desire for his acceptance even greater. It’s like seeking the Holy Grail, I suppose—the more difficult to attain, the more desirable. But then, it’s our human nature to want to be popular. It’s a want that follows us to adulthood.
I just wish you might have some understanding of at whose expense it was that has earned you many of those sought pats on the back; at whose expense it was that you have pleased the powers that be enough to rise through the ranks; whom it was that you had to sell short in order to contribute to your success.
I have always admired you, all the way back to the days when I was your camper and you were my camper. That’s about thirteen years gone by since then—have we really gotten that much older? I’ve admired you all the way to the day back in June when I up and quit. Even on that day, I was still telling people that you are a stand-up-guy. So I guess you could say it’s official that I meant it till the end.
But as I look back in retrospect at the circumstances that led up to my departure—or as I prefer to call it, my ouster—the reality of things has become clearer to me. It has been your role in this affair that has hurt me the most.
I had seen the writing on the wall many times, but I chose to shrug my doubts off. I ignored the red flags. Like the day last year in 2009 when you took me aside while I was still sick with pneumonia. You took me aside to criticize me for “not doing enough to delegate authority” so that the CITs would find it easier holding down the fort, getting the mail out on time, in my absence while I am in de facto quarantine in the infirmary. Between the lines, I could see that you were conveying The Princess’s subtle message—that she was disenchanted with me and wanted me replaced.
I have to ask you, though, how you feel, knowing that you had to be the messenger of the campaign to push me out. Does it feel righteous knowing that you’d been serving as the bosses’ proverbial hit man, in order to get ahead? Because I can tell you that from where I stand, it did feel rotten then, and it feels rotten now. It felt rotten sitting there, my energy depleted and my system ravaged physically and emotionally by illness and distress, only to find that the administration would rather offer criticism than support. It was a very time confusing for me, one where I had to ask myself, how the people for who I have worked over a period of many years, with religious dedication and unquestioning loyalty, could turn around a shuttle me aside like this. Well, it’s a kick in the ass. That’s one name to call it. Especially knowing that in the confusion and weakness I felt at the time, I couldn’t really say much in protest.
I have been hearing reports that the mailroom is in a slipshod state this summer. Or at least, proven very difficult to manage, in my absence. My question to you now is, since you made it so clear to me last year that you care so much about efficient management, do you now feel that things are in better or worse shape?
I only ask you this, because I remember that your primary criticism was that I was running the mailroom as a “one-man-show” (I don’t remember if these were your exact words, or mine). Well, would it not seem—especially when compared to this year’s state of operation—that it was a one-man-show that worked pretty effectively for the past seven years? Well I suppose now is a good time to make a turn of that old Reagan-quip “Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?”
I remember last year, it took over five people to cover for me, while I was in the infirmary. Now people are telling me that it’s taken “like, twenty” to run the mailroom. How does this rate in terms of efficacy? Perhaps it’s time for a new analysis.
I’ll tell you now, in spite of all my periodic-to-frequent bouts of fatigue, and all the times when I needed to call in assistance from the Head Counselors, I always maintained the fierce drive to make sure the mail got out on time and that everyone—I mean everyone was served and satisfied. You might even say I was so driven in fact that I’d double check to make sure everyone got what he or she needed.
Yes, there were packages that were sometimes lost on my watch, but can you honestly compare that to the unacceptable number that have disappeared this summer without me there in charge? Do you really feel it has been worth the hassle, having to commit more time to entertaining the complaints of irate parents, who wonder why the packages they sent haven’t yet been received?
I don’t know what good comes from my writing this. Perhaps it’s best to say that I’m just doing it for myself. But these are my honest feelings.
Be well,
Joe

Keeping in mind, that I have edited and revised this hypothetical letter since I first conceived it.

From Woerden, Netherlands
This is Joe the Mailman