ORDINARY NARRATIVES: O.D.

July 8, 2024

No. 2

After four years working in that government agency, Carla had managed to go from receptionist to the communications and publications department, thus fulfilling her long-awaited goal.

She was surrounded by personalities of great fame and relevance in the cultural world: poets, editors, journalists, storytellers, and poets who were at least 20 years older than her, and were her teachers. Carla learned to use dictionaries, donkey remover, as those who taught her the job of spelling and style correction used to name dictionaries. Later, she learned to correct translations from English to Spanish and then to edit, and that fulfilled her even more.

That organization published a monthly magazine with the latest advances in science and technology. Books were also published that were authentic gems of the past and biographies of men and women who enriched human civilization.

However, the atmosphere in this government agency was dense and difficult, and at that moment in Carla's life, it was scandalous and disgusting. The senior executives had a competition in which they got points for having sex with a woman, two women, a man, etc. Points were worth more if the person was married or still maintained a solid reputation in public opinion.

Carla soon realized that she was educated in an unusual world; A world where honesty, loyalty, and respect for oneself and others were a matter of honor and therefore, the most important thing in her scale of values. For her, her dignity and honor were inalienable.

She found out about this despicable competition at least 3 years after she started working at that agency and since she had never been promoted for sleeping with someone, she didn't know what it was all about until she got divorced.

She was married to a man who was the brother-in-law of an advisor to the current president of the republic and it had never occurred to her that that was what had protected her from that environment.

Her stability and her sense of security did not last long; when she divorced him, the CEO called her to his office and he immediately attacked her. Carla fought as best she could against him and did not leave without telling the man that she would not tolerate that behavior from him. At that time the director was forty years older than Carla.

She left that office convinced that she had done what was best for herself, however, she did not think about the consequences that this would bring to her life.

About ten days later, an adviser of the CEO (remember that in the government there are always many advisors) called her to his office to tell her that the CEO thought that if she wanted to work there, she had to forget about that obsolete sense of dignity that she had.

Once again Carla left furious. The following fortnight, when she went to collect her salary, she was told that by orders of the CEO she had been discharged and she would not collect her salary.