Linda was waiting in her car for Sanae to come out of the building. When she saw Sanae coming out of the building, she started the car and drove up next to her. As if it were a total coincidence, Linda opened the window of the car and spoke to Sanae.
“Hi Sanae, are you on your way home now? I’m on my way home too.”
Sanae was surprised at the sudden sight of Linda, but there was no way she could resist Linda’s invitation. Just two hours ago, she had just finished an interview for the position newly created due to Greg’s resignation. Linda, the HR responsible, was sitting across the interview table as the interviewer together with Carl. Sanae was so happy to see her on her way home and accepted her seemingly kind invitation. While getting into the passenger seat of Linda’s gorgeous Mercedes, however, Sanae suddenly had a little question in her mind. ‘If Linda talks to me now, she will inevitably talk to me about the interview that just took place. As the head of HR, can this be risky to be close with the candidate? If I were the interviewer, I’d keep a little more distance from the applicant until the result is finalized.”
Sanae thought that if she were in Linda’s position, she might act a little more cautiously, but when she saw how happy and friendly Linda looked, she reconsidered whether Linda was being kind to her only as a friend. She had never dreamed that this was Linda’s signature maneuver of pretending to be a friend from the bottom of her heart in order to deceive the eyes of her enemies.
Linda cut in in a very friendly manner.
‘Sanae, I really enjoyed your interview earlier. You listened to what the interviewers had to say, but you also made your point well.”
Sanae had not expected to receive such a positive tone of feedback directly from one of the interviewers so she was surprised, but responded pleasantly.
“Thank you, it really means a lot to have your feedback.”
Hearing Sanae’s response, Linda smiled as if a kind person celebrating a friend’s success.
As mentioned, about three weeks before the interview, Sanae had lunch with Linda and asked whether Sanae should talk to Samuel, the Head of Mass Division, when applying for the position. After a short pause, Linda answered Sanae.
“Yes, Samuel should definitely talk to Carl about it. Samuel is coming to attend the European Leaders’ Meeting soon, so you can ask him then.”
Sanae followed Linda’s advice without any doubts. Sanae had a chance to talk with Samuel soon after that for a ten-minute meeting. Samuel did not know about this position. He read an advertisement for this vacancy Sanae printed out from the HR website and said,
“This position suits you well. I will speak with Carl about it but I won’t mention that we talked beforehand. I will say I just happened to hear about this vacancy and I think it is a good fit for Sanae.”
Sanae thanked Samuel for his support and thoughtfulness in handling it.
Indeed, the job description for this position looked like something out of Sanae’s resume. Especially the part “Solid experience in Microsoft Excel and statistical toolset” (e.g., SPSS, STATA) was exactly what Sanae had written in her resume. SPSS is a statistical software mainly used for statistical processing in social sciences and market research. STATA, on the other hand, is a more academic software. It is not a software that is used in the private sector, and only those who majored in economics at university would be exposed to it. Sanae wrote it in her resume anyway but that was the first time she saw STATA mentioned in job ads in the private sector.
The striking similarity of Sanae’s speciality and the job ads continued:
“Leads multivariate business and data analytics and manages an enhanced provision of insights to enable strategic and business planning to be more fact based”
“Strong selling and persuasive skills for use primarily with internal stakeholders.”
These were exactly the areas that Sanae had focused on and had achieved success in during the past year and a half of her employment at the ABCD Corporation. Sanae felt fortunate to have found a position that matched her profile and recent achievements. With Samuel’s recommendation also likely to be obtained, things should work out.
At the same time, Linda was also enjoying this fortunate coincidence that a delicious manipulation project had fallen into her lap. That damn Sanae was plotting to promote herself using a French manager Samuel. What a great opportunity for Linda!
“I will warn Carl about this dodgy attempt, packaging it as a threat to Carl: Samuel is trying to use Sanae to destroy Carl’s position that he managed to keep after the devastating reorganization and thrash to him. He should never trust Sanae nor promote her. Carl would believe me and trust me for this nice piece of advice. Then I should also damage Samuel, spreading a reputation that he should have a thing about Sanae”
Of course, destroying male managers who try to support other women is an important part of Linda’s job. Linda cleverly eliminated Andy, the German head of the Green department, who ‘kindly’ offered her a position as his assistant to Claudia. Claudia’s Chinese language skills and Andy’s background in China operations were a trigger for Andy to be supportive to Claudia. When she was looking for a new position eagerly after she had to return from Africa to Switzerland due to cost-cuts, Andy asked her if she would consider that option. Even though the offered potion was modest enough, Andy’s kindness to help a non-German woman was no way tolerable for Linda.
Using her expert tactic as a HR person sitting in between managers, Linda convinced Andy that Joe was thinking of getting rid of him sooner or later. After making Andy bewildered, Linda sent a headhunter to Andy to find a suitable job within Switzerland – a bit better position in a similar industry although the company scale is lower. That much was Linda’s core expertise. Andy left the company soon, not being able to offer Claudia an option to get out of her current role. Claudia was left frustrated and she found an external opportunity outside of ABCD corporation, after Linda convinced her there were no options available at the company. Linda was convinced that she should be able to block Sanae’s career path just as she had done to Claudia.
After Sanae submitted her application, the interview date was set up surprisingly quickly. According to Marcia, Linda’s assistant, who set the interview date, luckily she found a date that worked for them rather quickly; it would be normally very difficult to find a date when both Linda and Carl were available. Actually it was not only because of luck. Linda was willing to skip some of the more unimportant meetings for the sake of this delicious catch-up. It was just a matter of deleting a few existing calendar entries for Marcia to find a date and time when she and Carl could attend the interview.
The interview was a standard interview, focusing on Sanae’s motivation and how to perform the job. It was so standard that Sanae felt a bit discouraged. It was too superficially nice but is too vague. There were two things that seemed a little unnatural to Sanae.
“How will this team be organized? The young data analysis staff member who recently joined will be part of this team, right?”
Apparently Carl was not prepared for this question and simply avoided answering, giving a sound “ummm”. Linda also tried to deflect the conversation. Even though the job function was clearly described on the paper, it was not possible for them to assign real people to compose the unit.
Then there was another equally strange response when Sanae asked about the ‘job level’ of the position.
“Why does it say Director / Senior Manager Market Intelligence & Analytics in this interview when it clearly says Director Market Intelligence & Analytics in the job description? Which level is it actually?”
At this question, Carl fell silent with a troubled look on his face and looked away awkwardly. Linda quickly spoke up and answered with a cool face and standing water.
“Let me answer this question from HR. You know that we have recently been adjusting the ranks of each position throughout the company. This position should still go through the re-evaluation process whether it will be at the Director or Senior Manager level, so that’s why it is described so here.”
Linda answered so smoothly and naturally, as if the ambiguity of the job rank was a matter of course. However the substance of her answer was rather empty and Sanae didn’t understand what it meant. However, Sanae felt that it was not a good idea to dig further into the question at the interview, so she just nodded her head in silence.
Actually that was also Linda’s witchcraft technique for finding an inconspicuous shadow for manipulation, and when the dodgy dealing was to be found out, she would answer briskly as if it was a matter of course. Linda was prepared to downgrade the position itself in case Sanae had to be chosen to fill in this position. As Sane got a powerful backup of Samuel, an influential business leader in Europe, it may not be guaranteed that Linda’s manipulation and tactics could stop it. As a worst-case cover, Linda came up with the idea of making this position not as a unit leader, and being isolated from the rest. She had informed Carl of this, and he agreed with her brilliant idea. They should prevent Sanae from finding out about their malicious intentions. As Ninja’s descendent, Sanae gave sometimes very good questions for probing the situations, including this one. With Carl silent like a dumb person, being unable to act, Linda needed to make a move to distract the enemy’s eyes with an elegant defense. Linda’s decades of witchcraft practice should be able to distract Ninja’s probes.
Sanae knew from her extensive job-interview experience that feel-good interviews are often unsuccessful, and this time as well she felt something was not quite right. When a decision is already made whether to accept a candidate or not, the interviewer does not ask in-depth questions because there is no need to do so. Therefore, the conversation would become banal and no nasty questions would be asked. However, when the interview takes place to decide really whether to accept or reject a candidate, the interviewer should be also serious and would ask more in-depth questions including mean ones. That time however was the opposite, and Sanae felt that the other side had no questions to really evaluate her as a candidate to proceed for the position. If the interviewers didn’t even try to poke her, Saane was not able to fall, either. Linda’s splendid feedback to Sanae performance in the interview, however, was soothing enough to dilute bitter aftertastes Sanae was having from the interview.
As Linda drove Sanae home, Linda opened her mouth as if she was to confess something secret to her close friend Sanae.
“Taro was actually laid off from his job,” Linda said, looking ahead in the driver’s seat.
“So I decided to get married. You see, when you lose your job, you get unemployment insurance so you can slowly look for a new one, but Taro doesn’t even get unemployment insurance because he only has an L-permit for limited-term workers. But if he marries me and gets a B permit, he can get unemployment insurance and look for a new job. In fact, if it weren’t for these circumstances, we would take more time to get married.”
Sanae asked, shocked.
“I’m sorry to hear that. How is Taro doing?”
Linda answered in a quiet rather pleased voice,
“Taro is actually relieved to be back in the urban Zurich area. You see, if he hadn’t gotten involved in that professor’s project, he wouldn’t have had to go to that remote place, and Taro would have stayed here”
Sanae did not miss the glint of anger in Linda’s voice and her expression when she mentioned the professor who had taken Taro to the French-speaking part of the country. Seeing that, Sanae was convinced that Linda was unhappy with the long-distance relationship with Taro. On the other hand, Sanae remembered Linda’s words when she pretended to support Taro’s project without showing a glimpse of such feelings. Something was strange. It could be interpreted that Linda was always being supportive to Taro even though she was not necessarily happy to be apart from him as a woman, but still she could show her emotions a bit more – she should be an European and should show her thinking more openly. Apparently she didn’t.
Linda added,
“Taro is actually excited about going back to the German-speaking part of Switzerland. He is going to work on his German,” she said. “He has been at a disadvantage in that regard because he was in a French-speaking part.”
Sanae felt uncomfortable with that statement instinctively and replied to Linda,
“Well, but even back in Zurich, he will still hear Swiss German often, so it may be difficult for listening skills. They don’t speak standard German here. That’s how I am; I’ve been in the German speaking part but my ears don’t get used to standard German yet.”
Linda let Sanae’s comment slide. Linda had prepared Taro’s next career program before his previous job ended. Taro was to support Linda as a househusband while working hard on his German lessons. Not Swiss German, but the standard German from Germany should be thoroughly learned. After all, Taro’s master’s language was German, and he needed to master German in order to understand the commands given to him. Even if Taro’s professional research work required only English, it must be the slave’s mission to master German, no matter how many decades it would take.
This shocking marriage secret was something that Linda calculated and shared purposefully at that moment. The aim was to impress Sanae with how warm-hearted Linda was, while diverting her attention from the job interview she had. The image of “a woman who was willing to sacrifice her own life for the happiness of her partner by offering marriage” was what Linda aimed at. WIth that fixed image of Linda, Sanae would assume that she didn’t fail in the interview because of Linda’s evaluation. If Sanae was not selected for the position, she would think something happened beyond the rescue of the saint Linda; meaning the big bad Carl made the decision to decline her. It was actually Linda who first declined Sanae and influenced Carl to do the same, but she should make this maneuver as smooth as possible. No matter what terrible consequences awaited Sanae, Linda would be eliminated as a crime suspect.
Sure enough, despite Linda’s giving Sanae such positive feedback verbally, we never heard back from her about whether the position was accepted or rejected, and the interviews with other candidates went on and on for four or five months. By that time, Greg had finally left the company and gave me the falsified Job Reference Letter.
One weekend day in the summer, Sanae was returning to their town on a train with her daughter when she happened to run into Linda and Taro on the same train. Taro looked sad and pale, leaning his head against the window, while Linda held his hand and leaned in beside him. It looked like Taro was mourning over the loss of his job, and Linda was sympathizing and comforting him. But there was a difference in their expressions. Compared to Taro’s gloomy, depressed expression, Linda showed no sign of sadness or pain. The only gesture she made was to lay her hand intimately on Taro’s, as if she was supporting him in some way.
It was Sanae who first noticed the two of them. Sanae noticed them as they walked down the aisle and approached them to talk, observing them, but Taro seemed to be in no mood to talk and was even darker than usual. Only Linda, speaking as smoothly as ever, said, “We’re just returning from Zurich. Her tone was cheerful, as if she were returning from a trip to the city to get her honeymoon gear. As they got off the train and left the station, Sanae asked if they would stop by a cafe in front of the station and have an apéro to celebrate their approaching marriage. Linda paused for a moment and replied, “No, we have to go home and cook, sorry.” Sanae, used to reading people’s emotions, intuitively thought that Linda wanted to hide something. Taro was clearly depressed and did not seem “relieved to be back in Zurich,” as Linda had told Sanae a few months earlier. Taro seemed to Sanae as if he would want to go back to Japan rather than to marry Linda and stay here. Feeling an inexplicable sense of discomfort, Sanae said, “Well, no worries. Next time.” and they parted and headed home. Taro was accompanied by Linda was if the captured animal was set back to a cage.
This story is fictitious and is not based on any real persons or organizations. Copyright: Kunoichi4You 2024
Psychopath in the Next Office 