I was quite junior in the organisation, working in the IT department. She was the boss. One day in May, her PA approached me to say that Mary-Chloe's phone was not working properly. She couldn't make outside calls to the UK. 'No problem, leave it with me," I said, in my usual obliging, collegiate way.
I resolved to send an email to the external consultants to whom we'd outsourced phone matters. I cc'd Mary-Chloe on the email to keep her in the loop and let her know I was taking action to fix her problem. In the email I referred to her as my 'colleague'. Big mistake! Minutes after I'd pressed send, I heard the door of her office opening with something of a thud. She was quite a short lady, but what she lacked in stature she made up for in shrillness of voice. I could hear her feet stomping along the corridor and within seconds she appeared in the open-plan office standing in front of my desk. Then that loud voice went into action, in full earshot of every the other worker on the floor: "You're not my colleague!" she bellowed. "Don't ever refer to yourself as such again!" So much for that spirit of collegiality I always tried to espouse! At that moment I felt two inches tall, demeaned and humiliated. I wanted the ground to open and swallow me whole.
As I said, seven years later I still think about the incident, and still don't know why she did it (though I do have some theories in that regard).
©Brian Ahern 2026 
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