Black Ice

There are those moments in time when you are driving along, listening to the radio and not thinking of anything in particular when you suddenly hit black ice.  The car slides and jerks on ice you can't see, and for a split second your entire world is in flux.  I think that happens in our personal relationships too.  You think you have a sense of who someone is because you have seen them almost every day for fifteen years, have worked with them, socialized with them- practically lived with them.     Then something comes along that has you grabbing for the metaphorical steering wheel and yelling creative obscenities as you fly crashing towards the median.  

That happened to me this week.  I walked into a meeting and heard a story being circulated about a rogue social worker who had become belligerent and threatening towards a union worker.  I wasn't too surprised by that; there are definitely folks at my work who don't appreciate the union and who have their own anger issues.  The union worker in question filled in the rest of the details, stating that this male social worker had initially pretended to be cordial, inviting him into his home.  Then when the worker, who I will call Sam (not his real name),  identified his union, the social worker abruptly became belligerent, screaming obscenities and shouting at him to get the F out of his house, while getting up in his face in an intimidating manner.  Sam reported that workers are trained for this, but that he had been confused and concerned by the person's sudden change of mood and combative manner. He excused himself and left while the man continued to scream at him.   Another social worker in the meeting spoke up at that point, saying that the social worker who had become so enraged had then bragged about what he had done to several employees she sat next to the following day, stating to them that it had all been planned- that he had known Sam was a union worker when he pulled into the driveway, and wanted to frighten and intimidate him by first appearing friendly and then becoming agitated.  She stated that one of the other workers listening to this story found this hilarious, but that she had found it very concerning and somewhat cruel. 

 Who was this social worker, we asked- and what was his issue?  She gave us the name of someone I work with, someone I have worked closely with for fifteen years.  Someone I have listened to as he deescalated clients on the phone, who I never saw lose his temper at work.  Someone known for his kindness, and willingness to help others out.  Someone I had trusted implicitly.  I felt the ice shift, the sickening unreal feeling of sliding out of control on a snow slicked freeway.  I couldn't put those two people together in my head as being one and the same. The person I knew wasn't capable of being cruel, and even in differences of opinion was always polite and respectful.  I knew he didn't have warm feelings for our union, but all he had to do was say no, I'm not interested; and call it a day. But he hadn't. He had deliberately baited and then intimidated a young man half his age who was significantly smaller than himself,  had deliberately been threatening. He wanted that young man to feel unsafe, and off balance.  He wanted that young man to be afraid. And to what end? So he could feel powerful and then brag about his exploits to a group of admiring but ethically immature coworkers?  So he could feel like more of a man, or more in control? I really don't know the answer.  The person I know was far more secure in himself and would have had no need for fawning admirers. The person I know has been protective of our staff all these years, has ridden with me to residences when I felt it wasn't safe for me to arrive  there alone.  Now suddenly he was playing the role of the aggressor, the stereotypical male bully who enjoys pushing others around to get his own needs met.

It was a wake up call for me.  Everyone has their hidden dark sides, their own agendas and control issues.  Someone I thought I had known pretty well had done an about face with no warning, snapping at a kind young man like an an aging dog who had been stepped on one too many times.  It's hard for me to comprehend, and hard for me to process how I will interact with him now,  how much I will trust him. I keep seeing the look on the social worker's face in that meeting,  the stunned disbelief that someone who worked with us would behave that way towards someone else.  I keep wondering if he would have behaved that way if it had been me coming to his door, and I have to say that I don't know.  A week ago I would have been sure that he could never treat me that way, that he was incapable of it.  Now I know he is capable of treating people that way.  Perhaps even people like me if the circumstances were different, if somehow I fell into a category that offended his sensibilities.  That rocks my world.  It calls everything I believe and know about him into question. For me the ice hasn't stopped spinning my car yet.  It will eventually, and I will drive on shaken but safe. But I will be someone different than the person I was when I first got into the car. Someone older, a little more fragile, a little less trusting.  Someone who knows that no one is really safe all of the time, and raging against that realization.