imshin2

The Witch and Prince Charming

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Lizzie. She worked for a witch. Oh yes, a real one, with long black shiny hair, cold blue eyes and a hooked nose. Well actually I made the nose bit up, she really had a perfect little goyishke-looking nose, but everyone suspected there was a hooked one lurking underneath. The one on display was obviously a ploy designed to throw suitably gullible young girls off the track. For it so happened that only women worked for the witch.

Although diminutive in size, she was quite an impressive witch. Strong, domineering, sharp. Her bosses knew they could count on her completely. The work would be done well. It would be done on time. She would always be there with the answers, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And so would her underlings, Lizzie and her friends.

The witch worked them to the bone. She terrorized them mercilessly. Nothing they did was good enough. However long they worked was too little. Arriving late in the morning was unheard of, even if the tardy underling had worked till the small hours of the night before. Many an underling was reduced to taking tranquilizers before finding the courage to ask for a day off. Lizzie was so unnerved by the witch that she dared not leave her office at all. Not even to go to the bathroom. For her first six months on the job she didn’t even know where the canteen was.

As is the case in dark days when tyrants rule the land, legends were abound, hurriedly whispered in dark corners, when the witch was called away for important meetings. The legends told that there was such a thing as a male boss. It was told that a male boss was of magical quality. Rumor had it that male bosses were so in awe of women employees that they dared not cross them; that they had strange and wonderful beliefs about a woman’s temperament at a certain time of the month, and therefore they were ever watchful and wary; that they were far more respectful of the difficulties of such exotic situations as pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing; that they were far less demanding, believing that women would not be able to handle too much pressure.

The more realistic among the witch’s underlings scorned such notions as fanciful, reminding the dreamers that even if these legends were true, they could never apply to them.

Then one day, long after they had all given up ever being rid of the witch, it happened. The resounding crack was heard all over the building. She had hit the glass ceiling.

And suddenly, out of the blue, there he was, better than anything they had ever dreamt of, a Knight in Shining Armor, a Prince Charming. Young, handsome, chivalrous, just flirtatious enough to make them feel desirable, but not enough for them to feel threatened.

And they turned out to be true, those legends, every one of them. The girls occasionally had to pinch each other just to see if they would wake up. Their working life took on a dreamlike quality. It became akin to sleepily floating down a river on a hot day on an over-inflated inner tube.

Gone was the cutthroat attitude. Gone was the striving for excellence at all costs. True, much of the excitement had gone out of the job. Their team had ceased to be the center of the universe. In fact the whole department seemed to be shining considerably less brightly. But it was worth it.

One day Lizzie was sitting in Prince Charming’s office, working with him on an assignment. When they had finished, she thought it might be a good time to bring up some problems she was having at home, and explain the adverse affect they were having on the quality of her work lately. ”I’m having some problems at home and I find they are affecting my work,” She said quietly and waited for some sort of response so as to know how to proceed. He nodded to show that he understood. His expression was blank and his eyes seemed to say, “Maybe I can create a diversion and make a run for it before she says anything embarrassing.” She got up.

On her way to the door, Lizzie suddenly recalled something she had long forgotten, something that had happened here in this very room, many years before. In those days the room had looked completely different. The now bare walls had been covered with pictures and photographs and there had been plants everywhere, in special stands, on the desk, on the windowsill, on the floor. Sitting in the chair, not a young prince, just a little black haired woman with blue eyes. The phone had rung and the black haired woman had answered it. She had listened for a few seconds and then she had covered her face with her hands and begun to sob. Lizzie had reached over and picked up the abandoned telephone receiver. A female voice on the other side had given her the news of the death of their friend and colleague, one of the girls. Lizzie had somehow found her way round the desk and the two women had held each other and wept.

Lizzie glanced back at the man sitting there, pretending to busy himself on the computer. He was no Prince Charming. He was just an ordinary guy struggling to do his best at a job that required the powers of a great witch. He had no idea that he wasn’t up to it.

Lizzie smiled to herself sadly at the irony. The witch with all her strength and the potency of her magic, which she had used solely for the good of the organization, albeit in an overbearing manner, sacrificing her personal life, had been hated and feared. Despite her unquestionable abilities, her bosses would not risk allowing her a position of real power. The young prince, on the other hand, despite his mediocre performance, and his difficulty in connecting with his female employees, was already busy planning his move to a bigger and better kingdom within the organization, with the full support of the bosses. No glass ceiling for him.

We can only wonder, as Lizzie did, how this story would have unfolded, had the witch been a sorcerer and the prince a princess.

* * * *
Note: You may feel that this fairy tale is full of unfair stereotypes, but the funny thing is that it really happened. Well, more or less. I saw the witch at a wedding last week. I admit I have exaggerated and embellished slightly (The witch’s magical powers are maybe a little less potent in real life and the prince is not all that handsome). But you wouldn’t begrudge me a bit of fun, would you?

By the way, in case you were wondering, the witch got early retirement.

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