The Moet Lady

There were two fridges in the office. One for the staff lunches, and one for the alcohol. This fridge, I kid you not, contained wall to wall Moet.

The owner of said Moet was our company CEO. She would regularly swan barefoot around the office in her $1000+ kaftans with a glass of Moet in her hand.

When I first arrived at the company as one of the new receptionists I kept waiting for her to come and say hello. I had been interviewed by the general manager and the executive assistant who would be my direct boss, so I hadn't met the "Big Boss" as yet. It was only until I kept catching sight of this mysterious leopard print-clad, auburn haired curvy woman floating in and out "like she owned the place" and took her seat in the prestige glass office that overlooked Sydney Harbour that I realised I had been looking at the woman whom everybody called the Captain.

The Captain - who would forever be remembered by me as "The Moet Lady" never acknowledged me in my first few weeks until I decided to actually walk up to her, introduce myself and thank her for having me. Maybe she was just very shy, or very reserved, and didn't like chatting to new people. After all, she had enough money to employ the right staff members to look after the newbies for her.

She was obviously used to the reception staff (or Corporate Services as she called us) to being so low down the food chain that we generally didn't speak to her first, rather waited for her to come to us. She looked genuinely startled that I'd even approached her, and she sized me up with critical brown eyes before answering my thanks with a curt: "Well, you're welcome. You enjoying it?"

"I am, thank you. Everyone has been very welcoming."

"Well, good." She nodded briskly, turned on her heel and began chatting to some other team members. No worries I thought, at least she can't say that I never made the effort!

Maybe it was the pull of the harbour that got me. Or the completely different and longer commute that excited me. Or maybe it was the fact that this company called me completely out of the blue offering me an interview, just as my Centrelink job search provider advised me that if I couldn't land a job soon I would need to go on the Work for the Dole program.

My get-up-and-go had got-up-and-gone since I had been made redundant and had lost my mum to bowel cancer, in that order. I was still living with my dad, and now my older sister and niece, who had moved back home after a divorce. I was also going out with the man who would become my husband, whose family were already making noises of disapproval and concern since so far I had not managed to secure a permanent position, a year and a bit after being made redundant from my previous one. I had been a temp, but we definitely all wanted something better for me: job security.

We were about to move in together, and the job offer couldn't have come at a better time. The woman who would be my mother-in-law would be able to rest easy now that her son's new life partner would be able to help pay the rent. And so could my dad!

The role sounded challenging and fast-paced. It felt that it was exactly what I needed, to keep me busy enough during the day that I would not have time to grieve. Coming from Penrith in western Sydney, and never having worked in the CBD before, it also had an exciting buzz about it. Yes, I thought, it was exactly what I needed. Perhaps I could do what one of the other girls in the company did and "graduate" from reception (sorry, that's Corporate Services!) and become a resourcer, eventually become a recruitment consultant. Then I could help people who were once like me find gainful employment.

The problem was, the more I got to know the Moet Lady and receive her abusive all-office emails whenever someone was struggling to hit budget, the more I thought that I was much better off where I was!

Unfortunately, at this company, reception equalled "slave" to the consultants, and to the Moet Lady. The new resourcer (ex-receptionist) kept emailing me to question why she kept getting phone messages when she was not on the phone. "Because the person who called you was about 10 calls ago and I've been stuck on the phone" was usually my answer.

This same young lady got me in trouble one day when, having recently just learned how to format resumes in Word to meet the agency's formatting requirements, no one had bothered to tell me that the candidate (recruiter-speak for "job seeker") had sent through an updated resume with updated jobs. It had been uploaded to his digital file however I hadn't been shown where to find the updated file. Did she question me about it? Asked me if I knew that there was a new resume and did I know where to look? No, she just went running and dobbed me in to the Big Boss.

The Moet Lady did not hold back with her reprimands. In fact, she made them public. So, everybody, including the interstate branches, knew that I had stuffed up due to the all-company email blast she sent me... oh man, I was mortified.

Kristie, please come and see me to tell me why you did not update this CV with the candidate's latest employment details.

Well, I had a direct boss. And it wasn't her. Very conveniently my direct boss was the sister-in-law of the Moet Lady. But she was someone whom I liked and trusted, so I went to chat to her instead. Thanks to this lovely lady, this little incident was cleared in five minutes, and instead of being humiliated, I felt reassured by all of my colleagues as they sent me or called me with messages of support, including a particularly lovely one: "You guys (Corporate Services) make our jobs so much easier, and we appreciate you! Don't worry about her; she needs to cut you some slack."

It was really no thanks to my co-receptionist. She kept dumping all the calls and resume formatting requests on to me with the excuse that "you need to learn, you need the experience." In the meantime, she jumped online and began shopping for expensive clothes and other accessories.

Eventually people kept giving me everything to do because "we trust that you'll do it straightaway." This made my colleague jealous, and when the Moet Lady remarked to me that "we need to get you looking more corporate" and presented me with a $500 bottle of foundation and some bronzer and illuminator make-up that she had bought but didn't match her complexion, saying that it would definitely suit me better. I couldn't work out if it was a genuine gift or a backhanded gift wrapped in criticism, particularly when my colleague said to me cattily: "It wouldn't hurt if you lost weight as well." Being the sensitive soul that I am, I unfortunately didn't take either of these too well, although I adored the make-up and it lasted me for ages.

One of the consultants found me in tears in the ladies' and, upon hearing about what had happened, promptly brought in some expensive cast-offs that she no longer wore. I was pathetically grateful as I was still building up my bank account after being unemployed for so long. And I still really wanted to impress the Moet Lady, so as well as working my butt off, I followed her fashion advice as well, right down to pulling my long hair into a high, tight ponytail (giving myself a migraine in the process), and taking her advice to buy a hair straightener for my fringe. I was basically losing myself in favour of trying to impress someone who would never be impressed unless I was a star consultant who brought money in for her company!

Not long after that, my colleague was sacked after receiving her final warning about her telephone attitude (among other things), and for a while, I ran the front desk on my own. I had three more co-receptionists who were all lovely.

Our understanding direct boss unfortunately left. In her place we reported directly to the Moet Lady who treated us more like her slaves and personal servants than ever. In comparison however, the consultants were her "chickens". She would stride into the office, barely say hello to us, and then walk into the inner office calling
out: "Helloooo, my little chickens! An answering holler and cheer would go up, sometimes so loudly that my callers would say: "What's going on there, is someone having a party?"

Speaking of parties...

Parties were a regular occurance at this company. However, not everybody was invited to the Moet Lady's famous boat parties or random outings. It took our general manager to step in one day and insist that Corporate Services be included too. It was lovely of him to do it for us, however personally, being an introvert, despite wishing on principle that we were invited, I loved the peace and quiet of the office when nobody else was around. On one occasion the Moet Lady asked me what I did for lunch, and I told her that I sat in the park and listened to an audiobook. She wrinkled her nose: "Audiobooks? They're for old people."

In the middle of all this work kerfuffle, my boyfriend proposed. And everybody congratulated me, organised flowers, and all signed a card.

Everybody that is, except for the Moet Lady. Her acknowledgement of my upcoming nuptials would follow soon after, in the most selfish, self-entitled manner possible!

It wasn't long before I realised that my more retiring, introverted personality did not fit with this woman. She began to pile more responsibilities onto me when several co-receptionists came and went, either being fired or promoted. And between the long train commutes, my inability to say no, as well as interstate sniping and bullying, my mental health began to take a toll on me.

"This is not a role for someone with anxiety," I was bluntly told when the Moet Lady finally found time to see me about my situation. "It's best that you find another role elsewhere. I will give you time to do a job search, you can leave next month.

"Oh, and by the way," she added, a determined gleam in her eye, "I expect an invite to your wedding. I'll pay for the alcohol."

Well! Well okay, then!

I was floored. No offer of lightening my load. No offer of mental health support. One of the consultants said she would help me get a new position, but she never put me forward for any of the jobs I applied for. And as for being invited to my wedding? Oh boy, did she have another think coming about THAT!

I knew that the way this woman was handling things was completely illegal, unethical and wrong. What saved her self-entitled, leopard printed little butt from being investigated by Fair Work Australia, was that in my completely fatigued and worn-out state, I agreed with all her terms and conditions in return for a good reference, and to get out of there peacefully. I even agreed to writing a Corporate Services manual and I trained the new receptionist whilst suffering from the flu and laryngitis - bear in mind this was the days before COVID-19!

I walked out of that job feeling completely worn-out, disenchanted with working in my capital city (Harbour Bridge? Oh of course, the huge coathanger in the sky that my train travels west along to get me home), and feeling like I had given it my all and getting absolutely nothing back in return... just experience working for a volatile boss with a drinking problem and being a slave to everyone at the detriment of my own health. There was obviously some type of game that I had to play there, in order to get ahead. Obviously I had to be a loud, stylish, extroverted party girl with a gift for brown-nosing and dobbing others in - and I wasn't.

Picturesque harbour views are not everything either. My little piece of work paradise is on a busy road back in western Sydney, across from a smelly chicken factory. There is no one who are a law unto themselves. Alcohol is strictly forbidden from the premises. Managers and colleagues alike support you.

Of course, it's not perfect. No job or workplace ever is! But they accept me for ME, and because of this, I'm relaxed, productive and happy.

Oh - and I got married.

With no Moet, or Moet Lady in sight!