An End, A Grief, and A Sad Disappointment
"I resigned today," he said a few days before.
"He is the one person who knows how I've struggled so hard with this kind of treatment in my previous workplace. I even remember every single word he said to comfort me back then, and how I cried when I heard him quoting the Bible. And yet, how is it that he is also the one doing this to me when I become his employee? That makes me very sad!"
His sound was filled with anger and disappointment, not an inkling of sadness was heard. Little did I know that the very next morning, he would repeat those same words again, this time with a shaking voice and tears streaming down his face. The sadness was real, just needing some time to be processed and acknowledged.
I stared at the work laid out before my eyes, but my mind was somewhere else.
To my beloved husband who was struggling to end his time working as an employee in our friends' company, and to both the husband and wife who owns that very same company, Mr. B and Mrs. B.
To that day in November 2017, where my (then-just-a-friend) future husband and I became the bestman and musician for the wedding of Mr. B and Mrs. B, and the entrance song I especially made for them. Never again, since then, did I write any other song for any other couple, not even for my current close friends.
To that sunny spring day in Tokyo, back in 2019, when my (still-just-a-friend) future husband and I, with Mr. B and Mrs. B, travelled together as friends for a short trip. It was fun, no denying that.
To that night in 2020, where my (then-future) husband and I announced to Mr. B and Mrs. B that we were starting a relationship. The excitement of telling them of our decision, for they are among the ones who saw our journey graduating from mutual friends to life partners.
To that sunny day in a lunch in 2022, when my husband and I invited them along with our other close, mutual friends for a celebratory lunch for our wedding. It was still in the middle of the pandemic, hence we were inviting them to make up for being unable to invite them to the actual wedding reception. A reception where we could not even invite our extended families out of fear for contagion for our elderly parents. For reasons unknown yet to me, Mrs. B initially refused to come, and then showed up very late, only to spend the time looking uninterested, annoyed, bored, refusing to talk, and quietly sulking.
To that fateful night where my husband was accepted as employee in the company owned by Mr. B and Mrs. B. "We don't accomodate luxurious lifestyle here, okay?", was what Mrs. B said. "Your wife still works, so we will have to ask you to take the salary we offer or leave it. With what we offered, I believe you guys can still manage." My husband's salary was essentially cut in half from his previous work, with promises of sales incentives (which is of course uncertain and is understandably reliant on the customer's time of full payment), but he was in desperate need for work. And mind you, those who knew me, knew that although I have a higher paying salary, my lifestyle was already more frugal than that of my husband's. Requesting a luxurious lifestyle from my husband is actually one of the farthest thing in my mind. Heck, I'm already prepared to teach him to save as if winter is coming even before what Mrs. B said.
To that first day of our actual Bali honeymoon trip, only to have Mr. B asking my husband to go with him to meet their ex-collague in a restaurant. I have doubts on whether I would come or not, as I was invited, but eventually decided to wait in the hotel as I'm not sure I could fit in the surely-work-related conversation between the men. My husband came back around 11 PM. Sometimes, I still think, am I the bad person here for being disappointed due to his late return?
To the rest of the day of our Bali honeymoon trip, where Mr. B and my husband's customers kept contacting my husband and asking things to be done. This picture, that service, bla-bla-bla. There was even a moment there Mr. B pushed my husband to finish a design picture for a project within that night, right before our booked trip to Nusa Penida. My husband was taking unpaid leave for the whole honeymoon trip, and was understandably angry and upset at the fact that nobody is willing to take over his responsibilities just for that mere 1 week period. Did I need to mention that I was also disappointed and even cried during my honeymoon period due to the way Mr. B treated our personal life with such disregard?
To the day I forcefully encouraged and plead my husband to bring Mr. B, Mrs. B, and all his other colleagues some gifts from Bali as a token of appreciation, although he understandably didn't want to do so after all that has happened. Later that night, I was more than surprised and alarmed hearing my husband mentioned a snide-sounding joke from Mrs. B, "Ohoo, did you really buy all that in Bali? Ah, don't tell me you buy it online from Jakarta?" Label me as someone who is too-sensitive-and-doesn't-understand-humour for taking it as an insult rather than a friendly tease. Again, am I in the wrong here? We really bought them in Bali, but even if we bought them online in Jakarta, does it make it less sincere, less worthy, and less polite as gift? What are we supposed to do? Put it in a pretty pedestal before handing it over to them? Even all my superiors did not made that kind of remarks ever, however small the souvenirs they received from any one of their subordinates.
To that Saturday of my dear sister's wedding, which nobody will doubt, was important to my husband and I as part of the bride's siblings. Mr. B and Mrs. B berated my husband for the whole day for being unable to properly handle, monitor, and complete a weekend service request from one of his loyal customers. And when my husband called in the evening right after the wedding reception concluded, Mr. B replied angrily for him not to disturb him since he is now attending a classical music concert with Mrs. B. How my heart felt heavy seeing my husband being ridden with guilt towards my sister, while at the same time was visibily angered and upset due to the repeated disregard by his superiors for their subordinate's important personal events, even acting as if a sibling's once in a lifetime wedding is less important compared to a classical music concert.
To all those events unraveling fast forward in 12 months afterwards.
- That night where I heard Mrs. B teased, "Aw, this newly-weds wanting to go home so early. Just wait until you got married for 6 years and got fed up being around each other, you just want to get away and spend your time in solitary." Yeah, this kind of a joke. Again, not my cup of tea.
- That early morning where I heard my husband apologized profusely on his phone for a mistake after covering for the work of a resigned colleague, while indeed stating that it was originally not in his job description, and Mrs. B replied rather coldly, "You always say sorry, sorry, sorry. Ceh, so cliche. If it's that kind of cliched sorry, I can also say it rather easily. Oh, maybe that's a necessary skill, doing and saying cliched things. I shall learn from you, lol. Ah, you said it's not in your job description? My goodness, thank you so very much for doing that. There, satisfied? I can also do cliched things like you, right? " Am I making things up? Yeah right, I was right beside him when Mrs. B said those things. Might not be the exact words she said, but the whole "your sorry is so cliche" thing is exactly what I heard.
- Cue suddenly changing rules to claim expenses reimbursements, berating my husband and cutting reimbursed expenses when he doesn't actually charge anything other than those really spent for office operations. Then they requested my husband to pay for goods logistic expenses, customer entertainment fees, and other office related expenditures using my husband's cashflow to almost like 10-20% of his monthly salaries - not once, not twice, but every single month - to the point that sometimes he only had less than Rp 500.000 in his banking account, while waiting for his next month salary and last month reimbursements to arrive. Oh, the customer entertainment thing, sometimes he would need to go so early in the morning or until very late at night, assist that loyal customer as if he is a chaffeur. "I'm sorry, please help, this one time, this one last time, for the sake of our future projects from this customer," was what Mr. B would repeatedly said.
- Ignoring my husband's pleas for help, assistance and guidances, multiple times, while actually piling up more work, more responsibilities, more projects, with the same minimum guidances. And when all those works are not finished, guess who again gets berated and judged as "not working"? His last month was spent with Mrs. B kinda micromanaging, nagging and scolding him daily for not finishing what he initially promised to finish plus any other additional tasks requested of him, sometimes without understanding the real bulk and the complexity of work requested to him, while Mr. B said nothing about it, thereby agreeing to it silently.
To that day when my husband resigned, and later that night told me that a few months prior, Mr. B told him, "Do you remember why Mrs. B only came half hearted to your lunch invitation, and also treated you differently during your early days of joining this company? It was because she has a problem with your wife. Just be kind to her, get closer to her, and she will surely open up and tell you why." Now, who was it who just a few days prior, yelled to my husband to not bring personal issues to work, and to behave professionally? Besides, if Mrs. B never told me about her issues with me, how am I supposed to know how I have wronged her so badly, let alone any way of mending the unknown issue?
We indeed tried to trace back possible reasons of Mrs. B's bitterness towards us, and can only arrive at one possible answer. Back before our wedding day, my husband remembered her complaining, "Why don't you invite those closest to you? You should have done so from the very beginning! Surely, surely this is not your idea! I'm very sure of it!" - thus implying I'm the one pushing him to submit to that idea. Yes, I might be the one asking for it, but it is out of concern that my elderly mother was pretty much afraid of COVID. Back then, the world was just out of that dreaded Delta variant outbreak, and was entering its early Omicron variant stage at that time. Therefore all public gatherings are actually still being discouraged by the government, and inviting only our parents and siblings was something agreed also by both families, even my husband's parents. Do I regret being unable to invite our extended families and closest friends for our once-in-a-lifetime wedding day? I regret it, really, really, really regret it. But I never thought that this would be the repercussion and punishment we received for something that is not totally within our control, and that it would bleed out to the professional scope when my husband started working for Mr. B and Mrs. B.
Lord, am I wrong if I chose to forgive, but not forget?
I'm more than willing if I should greet them kindly and politely if I ever met them on the way, but no more than that. After what they have done to my husband and I. At least for now, that's all I'm willing to do.
But if you're willing Lord, please just let my husband and Mr. B reconcile and be friends again one day, though maybe not for now. I don't know about me and Mrs. B, but You are the Lord who knows all things happening in the future. Because You are indeed the God who reconciles, and the only one who can change one's heart.
And as my husband prays, thus I will also pray. Please do not let them be astray, for they too, are Your children whom you have saved. If they are now on the verge of becoming a stumbling block to those around them, and are heading towards Satan's destruction and deceit, please save them before it's too late.
And thus, I close this story of an end, a grief, a sad disappointment, with a prayer from a heart who is learning to truly forgive, just like how Christ forgive me.
- End -
Source of picture: https://www.vecteezy.com/free-photos (Free Stock photos by Vecteezy)
