My Own Personal Draco Malfoy

I am easy to get along with. I have a good sense of humor and feel at ease with just about everyone. I’m not the type to have an archenemy.

That being said, I absolutely despise one of my coworkers. We’ll call her Brenda--that’s not her real name, but it’s a name I’ve had an unnatural bias against my whole life, so it fits her.

On my very first day of work, I was a scared twenty-one-year-old intern starting a career filled mostly with people twice my age. I remember walking into the auditorium for orientation, not knowing a soul, and faltering, having to master the impulse to run away.

Then Brenda turned in her seat and smiled at me. A friendly face! I immediately moved toward her and took the seat at her side. We commenced conversation, finding out that we were both new grads beginning the internship for the Emergency Department. I relaxed, believing I had found my best friend at work right from the get-go.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Almost immediately, Brenda took a controlling air with me, sort of steering me. It was always “We’re going to lunch here tomorrow and I’m going to drive” instead of “What do you think about this place to eat? Do you want to drive or should I?” At first, that was fine by me. I was the baby of the ER interns and didn’t really care where we went--I just wanted to fit in smoothly.

As we started the classroom part of the internship, it became apparent that Brenda’s critical care knowledge fell quite a bit below everyone else’s. She was struggling in class and attempted to cover this up by causing other diversions--namely, creating situations in which she could get the ER educator fired. She succeeded, by the way, at the end of the internship.

I thrived in the classroom setting as I always have (because I am a big-time school nerd) and was offended by her attempts to overthrow our educator. Then I watched as Brenda prodded a failing marriage into complete demise for no other reason than enjoying the drama. I started to withdraw, befriending the interns from the other hospital that Brenda looked down upon, but not yet moving from my coveted seat beside Brenda.

The final straw came as we reached the halfway mark through our classes. We had a thirty minute lunch break, as we always did, and Brenda decided she wanted to go to the Black-Eyed Pea instead of eating at one of the hospital cafeterias. I feebly pointed out that this was a bad idea. It’d take ten minutes to drive over there, ten minutes to get seated and order, and then we’d have ten minutes to drive back and walk to the classroom.

Stupidly, I went along with her and the other interns from our hospital anyway. When it was discovered that the Black-Eyed Pea would in fact not be able to serve us in under three minutes, Brenda threw a full-out tantrum and demanded to speak to the manager to have our waitress fired. I was horrified. Why would someone in the service industry turn on someone else in the service industry? Didn’t she realize we might be in similar situations as that waitress in just two short months?

I hastily scribbled a note apologizing to the waitress for the scene and stuck it under my plate as we left. However, Brenda had not been appeased by the manager’s apologies and would not be satisfied until all our money had been refunded. She went back to our table to retrieve receipts and found my unfortunate note.

She was livid. She screamed and yelled and didn’t even look like a person. Her rage transformed her into a scary demon-monster. Completely taken aback, I just stared at her, unable to speak.

(Incidentally, the only other time I have ever eaten at the Black-Eyed Pea was a couple weeks ago, right before I went to the TCU-SMU game in which TCU performed so appallingly. Never eating there again.)

We arrived back at class (twenty minutes late) and I sat on the opposite side of the class, among the “enemy”--the interns from the other hospital. Every now and then, that hospital calls my hospital about transfers they are sending to us, and they always ask to speak to me, to ask me if The Bitch has been fired yet. It always puts a smile on my face.

From that day on, Brenda and I have been archenemies. She has made so many shifts miserable for me, and more than once, I have considered leaving. Right before she was fired, the educator from my internship told me to hang in there, that eventually people at my hospital would realize what a horrible conniving bitch Brenda was. Over the course of my first year, I thought she was wrong, because no one else seemed to notice.

Until now. Rumors are currently flying through the ER about the alleged affair between Brenda and another employee. Other nurses have noticed her complete lack of knowledge and inability to deal with complex patients. Hell, she can’t even start her own IVs. A group of nurses has spoken with our manager on more than one occasion about Brenda’s ineptitude--and I had nothing to do with it. I have just been sitting back and biding my time through all of this.

So, joke’s on you, Brenda. Unless I’m much mistaken, you won’t be around for much longer.

Ah, victory is sweet.