Sanae gained some more interesting information at the discussions of the Women’s Association. The company used to have good training programs for career development including “Simply Management” for people who were interested in career advancement. However HR decided to cut down those training programs and there were very few available. Sanae was wondering when training and development opportunities started to shrink. At first, she thought Linda was apparently being supportive in those things, but then thinking about the timing, it must be the opposite. The training programs for employees were abundant at the time of Linda’s predecessor as the HR Head and then were cut down drastically when Linda became the HR Head for “cost” reasons.
Even though those changes were formulated as a general cost-cutting exercise, but the coincidence of Linda assuming the big role and changes adverse to other employees happening hit Sanae vividly. Having a Ninja gene of secret intelligence agency, Sanae was a born analyst who loved to gather facts and make sense of them logically or intuitively. Somehow every time Sanae heard about reorganization, the image of Linda’s office with a soothing river view with the office door shut appeared in her mind, carrying a shadow like a dark and frightening prison room. It felt like a horrible cold place, where victims were executed screaming, which gave Sanae a shiver. It was as if the spirits of her Ninja ancestors were warning her not to go near that place nor the owner of the office.
At the meeting on that day, they were also discussing a mentoring program introduced by the Womens’ Association. Each member said that they already got a mentor assigned to her. Sanae thought,
“Maybe it’s a good idea to ask for a mentor in the company. The company seems to be full of obstacles and challenges for women and it should be a bumpy road to go up or to survive. Having a mentor to consult with won’t do any harm especially being a minority. “
Claudia, a Swiss girl, who was also attending the session asked Sanae, whether she would be also interested in it. Claudia had studied at the same well-known Swiss university as Sanae, and spoke Chinese fluently. She was clearly intelligent, confident and ambitious. She was just sent back from her assignments in Africa to a Swiss office, after the company finished sponsoring expats in those countries as part of the cost-cutting exercise. She was eager to find a better role in the Swiss office after coming back from Africa, but her position was left as the entry level as a specialist, as was often the case with female employees in those days. Having had several years of extensive experience at the company, Claudia had been consulting her situation with Linda for support. However, for some reason there were no good opportunities so far in the company, according to Linda.
Claudia suggested to Sanae, “As a rule, you cannot have a mentor on your reporting line. So for you Sanae, Carl is not possible. How about Dirk, the new head of the Distribution Programs?”
Sanae answered. “Yes, that sounds good. To whom shall I ask for it?”
Claudia said, “That’s all Linda. Linda can also give you advice on who would be good for you, as well as the assignment process.”
Hence Sanae asked for a lunch meeting with Linda. It was the first time Sanae had lunch with Linda alone. Knowing that Linda could be sometimes difficult to Sanae, and sensing Linda’s hidden need for appraisal, Sanae started the conversation by praising Linda as a woman in the leadership position.
“I’ve heard that you are the only woman sitting at the management meeting in Europe as the head of a department. What is it like? How do you feel?”
Linda answered smiling, “Well, as a woman, it’s not so easy to start talking to the point, you see. Women tend to start with explaining the context surrounding the main point. But men would talk directly to the point. That was something which took me a while to get used to it.”
Linda’s answer was not directly answering what Sanae asked, but Sanae favorably interpreted it. Sane thought, “she dodged my question well, but probably she doesn’t want to sound too proud or boasting by admitting the fact that she is in the leadership position.”
Sanae was aware of double bind of women in leadership positions – when a woman was in power, she would be less liked by both men and women, while a man was in power, his likeability would go up for the both genders. Women’s likeability would be affected adversely by her power. A woman in a leadership position needed to be considered as powerful, but the very perception of being powerful would lower her likeability as a person. In an extreme case, she would meet bashing. Sanae, coming from the Japanese culture where women must be subordinate to men in any situation and knowing “strong” women should be fiercely criticized by both men and women, Sanae understood Linda’s hesitation of making a clear statement to this.
The truth was, Linda dodged Sanae’s question as she had the need of covering her nature – covert aggressive personality with no hesitation to hurting others for her own greed. But that was far beyond Sanae’s imagination at that time.
Sanae asked, “Would it be a possibility to have a mentor assigned? I think it would be great to have a mentor with whom I can consult with on my career at this company. I’ve talked with Women’s Association members and they say I should speak to you about it. One concern for me is that the management of this company is dominated by Germans, and there are no other Asians in this office, either”
Linda frowned when Sanae said that the company was dominated by Germans. That was exactly the secret key project that Linda had been working on. It was not good that Sanae pointed it out so clearly. Or, should Linda deny the fact that it was dominated by Germans?
“Mentor program is not only for Women’s Association members.” Linda just denied what Sanae said anyway, while switching the focus. Sanae looked a bit puzzled but continued,
“I am joining the Women’s Association. I went to the first meetings recently, and they told me that I should ask your opinion. Who would you think is good as a mentor?”
Linda’s brain worked at full speed. Who would be the easiest for Linda to control in this context and a German? Ah, there was a typical German male manager whom Linda recently recruited for Joe. Linda used head-hunters to hire this person for this newly opened position by Joe’s strategy, given that the person was a German. Linda didn’t hesitate investing in finding a competent German recruit to form her holy German alliance. This person had full trust in Linda.
“Well, how about Dirk? If you would like to know the distribution networks, it would be good to have him as a mentor.”
Sanae answered,
“That’s great. Actually, somebody else already said Dirk might be good. But do you think he would say OK?”
Linda gave a short answer in a grimed face, thinking hard how she could do any manipulation here.
“Well, I don’t know. I need to ask him,” Linda made it sound like there might be a difficulty in convincing Dirk for this role.
Sanae was however quick in approaching Dirk. After having lunch with Linda, she asked Dirk for lunch to mention the mentor program. Linda came across them having lunch together in the canteen a few days later. Linda smiled gracefully at the sight of them, while thinking,
“Shoot, I wanted to play a small trick here and make Dirk not willing to accept this mentor assignment at least at the beginning. But Sanae was quicker in approaching Dirk than I thought. OK, then I should just pretend that I am approving this mentor assignment for now, and manipulate Dirk later.”
A few days later, Linda smilingly told Sanae, “Great initiative for mentorship. I saw you in the canteen. Dirk agreed to be your mentor, I asked him.”
Sanae simply thanked Linda, trusting Linda supported Sanae here, as was the case with other women in the Women’s Association. It was just the beginning of the spider net Linda was to cast on Sanae to capture her. Linda was thinking how to capture this interesting prey, using her spider web woven delicately from malicious threads which were forming beautiful German networks.
This story is fictitious and is not based on any real persons or organizations. Copyright: Kunoichi4You 2024
Psychopath in the Next Office 