Third-Party Intrusions

She entered into it with the right attitude, with the right mindset and the approach of a winner. After all, she felt as though she had won. Of course, that was short-lived. Three weeks later, the role of her dreams became available. And of course, it's not just visitors. Every single member of staff who comes through those revolving doors must feel like revolving right back out again. They're met by a rusting Vauxhall Viva, right there on reception, with moss growing on the inside of her windows. It's serious organizational energy leakage. I'm not having a go at this lady. I'm sure she's a perfectly warm human being who loves her family and does some nice things for her church. She's symptomatic of the system; I would imagine that she cracks a smile at 5pm on a Friday but sticking her on reception is both unfair on her and unfair on the staff. Put a 2%er into that role and you'd achieve a rapid change in culture. It's beyond obvious. A synthetic hormone that was given to seven women during pregnancy has apparently caused a rare vaginal cancer in their daughters up to 22 years later, Harvard medical scientists reported yesterday. The scientists theorize that the drug--stilbestrol--somehow, they don't know how, altered the development of the vagina, allowing the cancerous growth. I thought, oh my God, I took that. But I tried to rationalize the fears saying the cancer was rare, Cody said. She wasn't alone. It was hard to miss the news that day.

Andrea Goldstein was a senior in high school in a suburb outside of Boston. She remembered that morning because there was a hole in the Boston Globe where her mother had ripped out a front-article article. Goldstein, who has since become a passionate DES activist, went to the library to find out what her mother was hiding from her. Rare Cancer Linked to Synthetic Hormone. When her curiosity got the best of her, she Google-stalked her ex's WBR, Eva, who, it turned out, was just as sultry as her name suggested. Soon Eva had become Eleanor's obsession. It's hard to recognize myself in all the outlandish things I did after Harold left. Eleanor went on to confess that her morning routine now included a drive-by of Eva's house to see if Harold's car had been parked there overnight. Suzanne started to worry that her new friend might get herself in trouble. She urged Eleanor to try out a morning exercise class instead of doing drive-bys. I just have to know what's going on over there, Eleanor said. I can't help myself. Her need to know kept building until one day, Eleanor wound up in the WBR's backyard at dawn, disguised in a trench coat, straw hat, and gardening gloves, rooting through Eva's garbage for evidence of Harold's new life. One of the first items she found, amid Thai take-out cartons, was an empty box of condoms. This was the role she she actual y wanted - the one she had been waiting for, the role that was perfectly aligned with her skills and strengths and the one that would catapult her career progression. Yet, it wasn't hers for the taking. She's taken the other role. Jenny had seventeen months and one week until her contract was complete. Now she felt as though she'd lost. Had she any indication of the possibility that the other role would become available there is no way she would have accepted her current position.

She felt cheated. Jenny became resentful of her partner who, after all, was the one whose advice she had taken. He was the one who encouraged her to accept the wrong position. Now she was stuck with it, while someone else - someone less qualified, someone less skilled, or worse, someone who didn't want it as much as she did - was offered the role that should have been hers. And yet it's not been done. Equally importantly, find that lady a job that plays to her strengths (smiling isn't one, but she will have something tucked away somewhere, `champion milk curdler' maybe? To be clear, I'm not advocating a no-holds-barred, gung-ho cadre of unwarranted positivity. There's an art to standing out. You can stand out for being a jerk, or a bully, the office gossip, or the arse licker. I'm not talking about any of that nonsense. Remember, jazz hands and zip-a-dee-doo-dahing your way into the office on a drizzly November morning is `village idiot' category. My 2%ers have been percolated through the filter paper of being nominated as `who in your workplace makes you feel great? And I mean asking with brutal honestly. No kidding yourself. She learned that she, too, was a DES daughter. The Herbst study was reported in every major newspaper. Thousands of women, like Cody, were probably doing the same thing that morning, having their morning caffeine and reading headlines such as FDA WARNING ON SYNTHETIC ESTROGEN GIRLS CANCER LAID TO MOTHER'S DRUG RARE CANCER TYPE LINKED TO A DRUG

And like Cody, they probably hadn't given their prenatal care a moment's thought in the past few decades. Susan Helmrich, an epidemiologist and a DES daughter, believes that DES triggered her carcinoid lung tumor, though proof is lacking. Helmrich has lived through her own DES hell but considers herself one of the lucky ones because I've managed to live my life. She was diagnosed with vaginal cancer at 21. How can the man who claimed to have a low libido go through a value pack? It took Eleanor's trespassing onto another person's property and rifling through her trash to realize the absurdity of her preoccupation with this stranger. What in the world am I doing? Eleanor finally asked herself. Eleanor's Aha: Though she acted out at first (combing through Eva's trash was a low moment), she realized she needed to start therapy so she could take a step back, get perspective, and examine her behavior. While Iris was living with her parents and pinching pennies, taking nursing courses online, and waiting for the marital house to be sold, her soon-to-be ex was maxing out their credit cards living a lavish lifestyle. He's spending all our money on Margot and their new life together, Iris told Jill, who sat with her mouth open the day Iris laid out a very strange plan she had cooked up. He's not going to get away with it! Margot, Flint's new girlfriend, was performing on Broadway in a play that was opening in a few weeks. Iris wanted to stand outside the theater and hand audience members flyers as they walked inside. Jenny blamed her partner entirely. She felt powerless, as though she had lost control of her future. It was his fault. Why did she listen to him? Why did she accept his advice? Her self-doubt and resentment made her despondent at work.

She lost her passion and could no longer find her once so resolute motivation. As expected, she couldn't overlook the fact that it was her partner's advice that put her into this mess. Naturally, this blame meant their relationship ended rather abruptly, followed shortly after by her once-so-promising career at her company. All this from a single choice. If your name would crop up, this article's been a reminder to keep doing whatever it is you're doing. If not, those socks? You need some garters. To round off this family/business section, here's a story that I used to kick off the original Art of Being Brilliant article. No apologies for the repeat. No explanation required. It still gets me. Here it is, word for word . He hadn't been up there for years. Probably decades! They constructed a new vagina with her colon, which worked well, but the intestinal surgery triggered several bouts of bowel obstruction. It was awful, horrible. I've had seven surgeries, lung cancer, and three breast biopsies. I know you have to weigh the risks and benefits with every drug, but with DES, the data were so clear. The Dieckmann study that came out two years before I was born was clear as day. It showed DES was completely ineffective, yet it was marketed for another 18 years.