I had been working on the Embarcadero in Morro Bay for about six years and I had worked my way up from cashier, assistant manager, manager and bookkeeper. To say the least there were many un expected events that made me doubt my ability to be successful and question whether or not my decisions in the work place were true to myself and ethical.
My boss had gone on a month long vacation to Mexico for her husband’s retirement and had left me in charge with full responsibility over the store. Since my boss was leaving for such a long time she had asked her best friend, Annie from college to come and help run the store. I was relived to know that I would have reliable help and gladly accepted her offer.
It was about a week into the month and I began receiving comments from a couple of my coworkers that Annie wanted to be in charge of all the sales on the register during her shift and also that they noticed that she had been seen with large amounts of cash in her wallet. This to me did not sound in the least bit of the way weird or even anything to be concerned about. I shrugged their comments off because after all, I was the manager and the person in charge of everyone in the store and I had everything in control. Or so I thought. One night I was working on the books and noticed that everyday we were either short or over in the last week or so. I took brief note of this and didn’t think anything of it until a week later we were missing over two hundred dollars. This is where my fear came in. My mind was so jumbled that I couldn’t think straight. I was completely responsible for everything that happened in the store and of all the money we made. I clenched my teeth thinking about the reaction my boss would have if I had told her we were short that much money.
SHADOWS-FEAR:
It didn’t even dawn on me that Annie could possibly be stealing money. She was a sixty five year old lady who was so gentle and sweet. All the customers loved her and my boss had obviously trusted her. I felt afraid to question my boss’s judgment. My mind was torn and my ability to decipher what was really going on and what people were telling me seemed hazy. More so, I wasn’t looking forward to telling my boss that her best friend was taking money from our store. What if I was wrong? What if this whole thing was a mistake and I had made a mistake while doing the books? I full heartedly wanted to impress my boss by showing her that I was capable of running the store by myself and now I had failed miserably.
ADJUSTMENT OF SELF:
I made a plan to try to catch Annie in her act, this was the only way I could prove that the money missing wasn’t my fault. After catching her with the exact amount of money in her wallet I decided to make a phone call to my boss and tell her exactly what was going on. I swallowed my pride and did the thing I had been dreading. I realized after this experience that people aren’t whom they always seem to be. When you really look closely you begin to see their true properties, personality and truth. After I had done some serious thinking it dawned on me that by looking deep into the situation I had gone through a learning process. I was a prisoner of my own mind because I had convinced myself that what I was afraid of being true actually wasn’t. I had made the best decision by telling my boss everything that I knew about the situation and with all honesty I also explained how I hadn’t actually seen her literally take the money and put it in her pocket.
RETURN TO THE CAVE:
My boss and Annie never spoke after that day and I felt partially responsible for this outcome. In the end my boss commended me for taking the initiative in doing what I thought was right even though it wasn’t a sure thing. In addition, she told me that that was one of the reason’s she had hired me and kept me part of the team so long because I had a strong mind and I wasn’t afraid to use it. She said that no one else she had hired seemed capable of doing as efficient job as I did. I was the chosen one. I was the one who was qualified and most prepared for whatever task I was given.
This is a good breakdown of how the various stages of the Cave allegory apply to the experience you had with your employer and her ex-friend. I think two parts in particular could be productive for you to develop further should you decide to adapt this topic to the movie you'll be analyzing in your Plato essay.
ReplyDeleteThe first builds on your comment that people aren't always who they seem to be. In the case of your coworker's story, this went to a most extreme degree, in which the person behaved or passed herself off as almost a completely different person. On the one hand, her deception was uncovered because your other coworkers were able to see through it and catch her. On the other, though, from the perspective of your own personal journey out of that cave, your own process of recognition and acceptance is of particular importance. You may find it productive to break down the steps of these process in more detail. Overcoming denial represents the first step in learning the truth and learning how to live life and address its challenges truly and capably (not just challenges like yours at this job, but many others as well). So for you, what did it take to break down that shadow in your own ways of looking at the world, including but also in addition to this situation?
My second piece of feedback relates to this. At the end of your blog you mentioned why your boss had hired you before you got the job, but I'm also interested in what you learned after this experience. How has it affected how you relate to and evaluate people, whether that be in the workplace, at school, among friends or elsewhere? Another way to put it would be what life skill did you learn from the overall experience, and how has that changed how you look at and deal with the world?
An excellent movie depicting a story such as your own is "The Edge". The main character Charles (played by Anthony Hopkins) finds out that someone close to him is deceiving in a way analogous to your coworker. Like you, Charles had many resources that made him able to survive the ordeal and come out on top, and yet he learns a significant lesson not just about that false friend, but about himself. If you pick this movie, pay close attention to the last line: I personally don't think he's lying, and what he says has a major effect on his personal development and perspective. The movie "Last King of Scotland" also portrays deep-seated deception, and how knowledge of this alters the consciousness of those who are deceived. "Shawshank Redemption" and "Truman Show" could also be illuminating if you're interested in this topic. Let me know if you have questions about any of these and thanks for your good writing here.