In an office with a soothing view of a river, Linda was sitting alone. She grinned as she watched her computer screen. ANOTHER job done. She had just written a termination letter to a female employee in the office. “Incompetence”, “Improper behavior towards her Manager”, “Job was made redundant”, etc. Linda had a whole variation of templates for writing such an employment termination letter, which she had been refining constantly. It was such an easy process to create an “official” letter to end an employment contract. In contrast to some other European countries, this was easy in Switzerland – once a manager decides a staff or a position is not needed, it is not a problem to terminate that employee’s contracts. She wouldn’t care how much it would affect people’s lives hereafter. This is the rule of the game, and Linda takes advantage of anything which helps her to win. That was Linda’s motto. Sitting back on the chair, Linda counted how many women have been successfully eliminated so far. 95. Good.
Linda had been hired as a HR specialist 13 years ago. She joined the company in their new office in Switzerland, coming from a start-up company in Germany. Nobody knew that German company or why she was hired. These were all left in shadow. Even though the beginning was rather humble, soon Linda’s name was known to people in the company. Linda made outstanding progress in her career with impressive speed since then. Everything seemed to have worked out for her. Even if sometimes things stopped progressing, eventually favorable changes occurred like miracles, for her to be promoted. By the time of this story, she was the Vice President of HR in the European region, directly reporting to the global HR SVP in the headquarter in the US. She was only at the age of 42, very young for such a senior position. More importantly, she was the only woman in the Vice President level in the European region. There were several female directors, but other than them Linda was the one. She was the chosen one, the female superstar with a shining reputation for great personality – in HR.
Linda was trusted by almost everybody in the company – from her boss, to coworkers and her subordinates. This included most of the female employees. With her charming smile and approachable attitude not usual for her high position, people believed that Linda was a very nice person. There was a reputation that Linda was a trustworthy person, working hard on diverse HR topics including diversity and inclusion. Linda spoke softly with her voice sweet and tender while her arguments were convincing, which made her successful in public speaking. Her feminine voice but still some strengths caught audience attention. Linda was not necessarily a beautiful woman with her face being wrinkled, with dark frizzy hair not shiny enough. Also her body was too skinny, going beyond slim, which gave the impression of being sick to people. Still she had some attraction to men with her elegant dress and with her skinny legs exposed. Appearance matters, that is what Linda believed. 90% of value is about appearance.
Well, to be precise, there were some exceptions. Several female employees were not fond of Linda at all and rather frowned when they saw Linda. Even though it was a small group, it included key persons close to management – an executive assistant and a female employee in the Legal division. They even showed some loathing dislike to Linda. Once this executive assistant, Sarah, declined Linda’s request for access to the executive boardroom with the reason that there are documents with high confidence stored and should be kept secure.
Linda didn’t forget to share this story with her HR colleagues with a very sad expression on her face. In the air of bursting out in tears, Linda said that Sarah treated her unfairly, hinting at the assistant’s jealousy to Linda. Her team members believed Linda. For sure, disliking Linda should come from jealousy to a successful woman. Despite great personality and achievements, a woman in high positions would often be met with negative feelings by men and women in an organization. “Those people treat me so poorly because I am an HR person. I am a VP but they don’t think I am worth their attention” she said it sadly to her HR colleagues. This was a very clever way of causing empathy to Linda among her HR colleagues, using their underlying frustration towards those arrogant business people in the company.
It was clear to Linda as well. The only remaining problem is that she was still in HR. HR was considered to be a mere supporting function and non-core function in contrast to Marketing, Sales, Strategy. There was a general reputation that HR is the most “redundant” function among all the departments, in any company in Europe. For years Linda had had very bitter feelings about her being “just a HR” person only, even if she never showed it. She would rather use it as a tool to hide her real intention. She would say “I am a HR person and always support business decisions.” Linda knew that humble looks were the best disguise for her real dark nature and rather evil ambition.
Linda knew that sooner or later, this wouldn’t be a problem. If ever, she would be able to get a position in a real “business” department, she would be able to switch to a business leader from HR. The conditions are getting ready. She would just have to wait for the right moment to come; as was always the case with her previous successes.. She grinned assuredly.
And exactly an important key milestone was to be reached by the termination letter she just wrote. Now the stage was set, she would just have to wait for the time. Of course things had to be carried out with extreme caution so that no interference would occur. No problem, Linda spoke to herself. She was getting well prepared and things would just work out as her plan. Linda thought about the shocked expressions she would see on the victim’s face when they informed her about her termination, and couldn’t stop excitement mounting up. That was the best part of the HR job. The covert nature of the job of HR was the best match of Linda’s hidden personality. HR job function also gave her a practical way to get rid of her competitors in shadow to pave the road for her future success in the company. In order to be the “chosen” one, one should resort to any means. As far as things were covered, it should be all fine.
This story is fictitious and is not based on any real persons or organizations. Copyright: Kunoichi4You 2024
Psychopath in the Next Office 