Early Immigrant Days-10

Fortunately it didn't take me very long to find another job...at an insurance company right in the heart of Toronto. The first
few days walking up and down those grey fluorescent lit corridors was heady stuff. Bedecked in my new grey-blue suit...
matching tie...and white shirt...I felt I had arrived. A steady office job with benefits in Canada...that looked as if it would last
forever...part of the immigrant's dream vome true!. One of the things I really appreciated during those first few days at the
office...was the way everyone was called by his or her first name...usually cut down to its shortest version. This was unheard
of in the country I had come from...where having your surname barked at you was the norm. It gave me a feeling of at last being somewhere where there was real equality. In addition to everything being on a first name basis...there was this great
air of cordialness that prevailed that I didn't believe was possible in the work place...having graduated from under the
unsmiling eyes and tight mouths of the boss-folk of the South. A few weeks after I started at the insurance company...on
the birthday of one of my fellow office workers...I saw and heard the other side of this coin of work place cordiality. From
time to time...people dropped by the birthday girl's desk...with cards and the occasional box of chocolates...and sweet words
like..."Isn't that ever pretty!" as they looked at some ordinary looking card before them. I was heading down the corridor
behind two women who had just delivered their message of sweetness to the birhday lady...when I heard one of them say
...referring to the birthday person...something like..."Silly twit...pushing forty and she's only a section supervisor!". Apparently the speaker had forgotten to wash her mouth out from the saccharine that had been residing there only a few minutes before. This was a real eye-opener for me...and in the months that followed...many other similar back-stabbing remarks I overheard...from members of both genders...gave me my first let down over the "civilized" ways of the North. The noticing what lay below the quick smiles and pleasant words...made me put my guard back into place...and caused me to develop the knack of seeing under the sweet words....................Quester.