18 - Friendship's About Being There, Not Being Right

Recently, a friend of mine (I'll call her Mary) decided to have an abortion and, boy, did that bring out the Righteous Ones, the Ones Who Know and the Ones With Spears of Judgment.

You see, my country has never been attacked and I fondly imagine that, if it was, I'd choose not to fight, for two reasons. Firstly, I've always won my fights by a hundred yards and, second, I know of no war in which there has been a winner. Wars are only for losers. However, I know that I do not know what I'd actually do if that terrible time ever came about - it's a lottery as to whether I'd crouch in cowardly supplication, proudly stand in defiance of fighting or take up arms with the rest of them.

It's all very well to theorise about what we might do, what we should do, but it's quite another thing when the time actually comes. It therefore behoves me not to judge those who either take up arms or those who do not. I don't know what I'd do and I cannot in clear conscience make a ruling on others.

And so with Mary: I know some anti-abortionists who tossed their theories away when they, themselves, became pregnant. Theory is fine, especially when we're talking about what someone else (not us) should do. Theory is all very well when we're talking about some nebulous possibility.

In the spirit of that, then, I just do not understand "friends" who tell Mary that she's a bad person, that she did the wrong thing and that they know better than her what decisions she must make in her life.

Believe it or not, having to make the decision of to abort or not to abort was not the favourite time of Mary's life - it was an absolutely crappy time and the whole thing brought her down in depression, self-doubt and a whole lot of other negative feelings. It was not a time that she had the strength to easily withstand the slings and arrows of those who she thought were friends … that was the last thing she needed.

What she actually needed, my friends, is not judgement and being right but support and being there - practical friendship and not theoretical nonsense. Your thoughts?

And now to Mary Collins who has very few friends ... continued from the previous blog ...

The next day she had shrugged off all those silly notions and questions and had girded herself in the warrior's black suit. She'd even donned a black tie to prove she was done with all that prissy, crying stuff.

She'd stormed into the office, rearranged the organisation chart and then, when everybody had arrived, she held a ten-minute meeting to tell everyone who was promoted, demoted and moved sideways. She knew that some of the rearrangements weren't entirely logical but decided that the whole place needed a damned good shake-up anyway - keep the buggers on their toes. That afternoon she had formed two new policies that she should have obtained approval from Commonwealth Insurance's Washington head office for, but she wasn't in the mood for all the paperwork, justifications and two months of procrastination, so she went ahead anyway. It was fortuitous that her boss was on extended leave and that his deputy, the chinless wonder of an Operations Director, had a terror of ferocious women and had conceded to Mary's bizarre ideas without a whimper of objection.

The first policy was that no claims, from any client for any reason, would be accepted on first application. Certain minor claims would also be rejected on second application. It saved a lot of paperwork and money and if clients had the gumption to make a claim after being rejected twice, they probably deserved the money and so it was investigated.

The second policy was actually a protection racket, marketed as a pretence of caring for clients. It was a simple matter of creating a new type of policy to cover people who had made claims and didn't want to lose their no-claims bonus - they paid the insurance company a new premium so they wouldn't increase their premiums! The new premium was 12% higher than the no-claims bonus would have been so the company made more money and got more clients who, weirdly, thought the insurance company was caring and protective of them. Of course, Mary had to clear the idea with the statisticians but none of them could fault her logic or maths.

When head office found out about it they were up in arms. How dare she break protocol and go over the heads of her superiors? Of course, an example had to be made of her, a young upstart. Can't have people thinking out of line, acting like renegades and encouraging others to do the same - where would things be if chaos reigned? She was summarily dismissed and the insurance club, the British Insurance Institute, was told never to hire her for she was nothing but trouble, uncontrollable, disrespectful and the rest. Of course, everyone at the club heartily agreed with Commonwealth Insurance's representative's sentiments and commiserated on his company's misfortune in hiring her in the first place. Within days, through the mist of her shock and depression, there appeared letters and phone calls from nearly every member of the insurance club, very healthy offers of employment. Mary chuckled at the duplicity - they held no trust of honour to their clients and here, she realised, they held none to one another.

Though strangely comical, it was also a sad moment for Mary as she realised what a greedy, faithless world she'd thrown herself into. Though she had rejected the plodding poverty of her parents, she realised what good and honest people they were and she yearned for that for herself.

Though there was pressure from the job offers to answer quickly, she decided to return to her native Scotland for a holiday. Before she did, however, something made her decide to have one interview before she went. Perhaps it was sort of insurance or a way of providing comfort, knowing that something would be organised for when she got back. Anyway, she called Sam Lord of Allied Insurance Limited, dressed in her favourite "power" clothes and arrived like a virgin, more nervous than she could have guessed at, three hours later.

As he introduced himself, he held her hand a little longer than was usual, while looking deeply into her eyes. She was surprised - intimidated and thrilled, somehow - and felt a little unsure about how to respond. His plump white hands had never performed manual labour, she surmised, and one of them gently grazed her shoulder and she felt comforted to be steered towards a family of lounge chairs in one corner of his massive office. As she eased herself into the ample folds of the black leather chair, she wondered if it was such a good idea to have worn a clinging knee-length skirt. As she wondered how to extricate herself gracefully, she surveyed the oak-panelled office that looked more like a library than an office. Deep green carpet soaked up the sounds and the absence of technology suggested that the modern, outside world stayed outside. This serene and stately island amid the mayhem of the world's financial capital spoke of a guardian with taste and a determination to rule his world his way. She accepted a coffee - Columbian - that appeared almost as soon as she chose it, at the hand of Mr Lord's threateningly young secretary.

He seemed to be in no hurry to talk of business or her career and he was most interested in her family and personal interests. He had a way of coaxing out her intimate details without causing discomfort and, on more than one occasion, she had the strange feeling that he already knew the answers to his questions. When he did, eventually, move on to her experience and career aspirations, she knew for sure that he had done his research thoroughly. She felt comforted by his genuine interest - and flattered, in fact - and a little trapped. She knew, without a doubt, there would be no comfort in this position, no safe place to fall as his subordinate. The soft and nurturing glove of his considerable charm, she just knew, could easily and quickly be exchanged for the sharp steel gauntlet of his anger. A far cry from the insipid niceness with which she had previously been surrounded, her spirit felt the call of the wild - a challenge she knew would test her and one she knew she couldn't walk away from.

"So, Mary, what do you think you're worth to us?" he asked, giving her the unexpected challenge of putting a value on herself.

His brazenness emboldened her. "I don't have the answer right now, Mr Lord ..."

"Sam. Please do call me Sam," he said, interrupting her.

"Oh, ah, Sam," said Mary, trying to recover when she was just getting under way. "You're asking a direct question that I have no answer for." He smiled patiently. "I've been totally engrossed in the insurance industry since I left school and, as you know, my world has been rocked and I have a sense that my whole perspective on anything, especially my work, is severely out of kilter."

"Such honestly and self-awareness from one so young," he mused. "What would help the return of your right perspective?"

"Time out," said Mary, blushing at the compliment and at the embarrassment of wondering if she should really be here, looking for a job. "I've decided I need to get out of the industry, out of the city, and reconnect with my roots for a while. Then I'll be ready for work."

"Not for too long, I hope," said Sam, leaning forward, interested.

"I don't know," said Mary, leaning back, acting more nonchalant than she felt. "It may be a week, it may be a month. I just don't know - the last few weeks have been very trying and I want to return to work fully restored."

"Return to the work of insurance, I hope," said Sam.

"Well, it's all I've ever done and I do seem to be very good at it," said Mary, surprising herself. "But, I do find myself treading on very sensitive toes at times."

"You sure do!" said Sam laughing and clapping his hands as he settled back into his chair. "That, my dear, is just what we need here and why we're having this conversation. Things need shaking up around here, around the insurance industry in general, and I'm looking for a co-shaker. As I said, that's why we're having this conversation, Mary."

"I suppose it is," said Mary musing. "I'm just finding it hard to believe an insurance mogul, like yourself, could be a stirrer - I didn't think they existed in these large corporations. They all seem to be so ..."

"Insipid!" said Sam, finishing her exact thought. "Let me just say, Mary, that when - not if - you come to work here, you'll have a lot of pleasant surprises," he said, looking meaningfully at her.

"Yes, right," said Mary, unsure if the surprises would be business or personal ones. "Let me take my mini-sabbatical and I'll call you as soon as I'm back on balance and ready to commit."