From the Archives: So Much Easier to Say

Image source: Risk to Business Archive

Workplace bullying made me feel isolated and presented an uncomfortable choice: report what’s happening and risk being disbelieved or that nothing will change, or remain silent and hope it stops. I had another choice: I left.

Years ago I worked as a secretary at Texaco, Inc., to supplement my income while I built a network of freelance writing clients. The marine department was a fun group; I learned to send and read telexes and felt an important part of the team.

One of the managers was a former sea captain and told fascinating stories.

My coworkers and I got along well, and I enjoyed working there. The first year my supervisor gave me a beautiful scarf as holiday gift; I cherish that scarf and enjoy wearing it. What happened afterward was very different.

Texaco relocated its marine department to Port Arthur, TX. A few colleagues accepted the company’s relocation package while others left to find other work. The administrative staff stayed in Harrison, NY; I was transferred to a small, four-person department.

Heading that group was the private pilot for Texaco’s president and CEO. I wanted to be helpful so I corrected the grammatical and spelling errors in his reports. He reproached me, was disrespectful and spoke down to me.

My immediate manager was a woman who smoked; her gravelly voice made her behavior more intimidating. Another employee often walked around to my cubicle and asked if I was doing my work or writing freelance stories.

I wrote at night and on weekends, never during the work day. She didn’t believe me and reported me for doing personal work on company time. A fourth employee planned her wedding during work hours and took two-hour lunches. No one said a word.

After documenting the employee who kept asking me what I was doing I filed a report with human resources and asked to be transferred to another department. The result? I was reprimanded for telling lies and given no work as punishment.

Imagine sitting for hours at a time with nothing to do. I brought books to read and thought I’d be fired, which would have been a blessing.

My outside phone line was restricted so I was not allowed to make calls — a friend in the next department often let me use her phone — and software was removed from my computer. The coworker who reported me watched me closely to see if I took one more minute than allowed for lunch or breaks.

No new software was installed on my computer when the systems were upgraded.

I held on because it was a paycheck and quietly looked for other work, then finally left. A friend working at a local weekly newspaper helped me secure an interview there, and I began writing a weekly column.

Some might point out companies have antidiscrimination policies. Yet what happens when those policies are ignored?

Though I chalked Texaco up to a harsh experience in the corporate world something about it felt very wrong.

Well . . . there is also karma.

A few years later the “Texaco Tapes” — recordings exposing top executives using vile racial slurs and openly mocking Jewish holidays — were leaked to the public. While it was small consolation that the company reached a $176 million court settlement in 1996, I suspected this systemic corporate culture was the despicable reason behind my coworkers’ abusive and toxic behavior.

So much easier to say, “She’s doing personal work on company time.”

Always speak up if or when someone mistreats you. Everyone deserves a personally safe and respectful work environment.

I’d like to know what you think.

Copyright © Janie Rosman and Kaleidoscope Eyes 2026

Tarrytown Man an Integral Part of 9/11 Project

Photo by Donaldroszz / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

My article about one Hudson Valley resident’s personal story of this horrific and tragic aftermath, and his part in our nation’s healing, was initially published in 2013 and was updated to reflect the landmarks’ completion. He was sworn in as Chief of the Tarrytown Fire Department in April 2026.

After living through the nightmare and subsequent aftermath of September 11, 2001, Ray Tuohy learned his boss had a contract for construction on the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, part of the World Trade Center (WTC) complex. Tuohy, who has worked construction in New York City since 1997, requested to be part of that job — and was made foreman.

“It’s what I do,” the Tarrytown resident humbly said, four years into the project. No stranger to the WTC, Tuohy worked there from 1990 to 1993, leaving his job before the building was first attacked on February 26, 1993.

“It sounded like a freight train with the devil riding on it,” he said when the North Tower crashed into the clear September 11 morning. “There was dust everywhere, and it looked like something out of a bad Godzilla movie.”

Television depicted the visual and auditory; one could only imagine the emotional impact of being there. “I saw shoes everywhere, in the street, it was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen,” he said.

The steel towers twisted as they fell into the Manhattan streets. One woman fell, he said, and another person picked her up.

“Everyone came together, no barriers of race, religion, beliefs — we were all one that day, and for a few months,” Tuohy said quietly. “I miss that. I’d like to bring back the feeling when people were friendly to one another.”

Making his way home that day was no easy feat, he said, despite acumen and training as a proud member of Tarrytown Volunteer Fire Department. Once back in Tarrytown, he joined the entire department on standby for the duration of the day.

The next day, Ladder 37 was called to the Bronx for mutual aid to cover FDNY Truck 37’s calls, and Tuohy joined the crew. Two days later, he went to work on the site.

“My brother, Andrew Tuohy, was in town; my father, Matthew Tuohy, though retired from Engine 85, the Bronx, said he ‘needed to be with his boys,’” he said. Despite ending his own 15-hour tour with the TVFD, Tuohy set off with them.

One of the amazing experiences, he recalled, was that people reached out to help one another, like those on the West Side Highway handing water bottles to emergency personnel and first responders. Thousands of people lined the highway, cheering those headed for lower Manhattan to help search for friends, loved ones, colleagues, and bodies.

The community rallied support for its own and for those less fortunate, taking up collections, organizing fundraisers and drives. Diane Tuohy assembled 10 family members to help trucks at the American Red Cross in White Plains. Tuft’s boot drive raised $6,000 for the Andrew A. Fredericks National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, honoring one of the 343 firefighters who died that day rescuing others.

One landmark built at the WTC site is the transportation hub, known as the Oculus. Its retractable skylight opens each year on the morning of September 11, allowing a beam of pure sunlight to fall directly onto the floor inside. Nearby, visitors pass behind the bronze panels of the reflecting pools.

Two of the nearly 3,000 names engraved in the bronze panels edging each pool — victims of the 1993 and 2001 attacks, and symbolically grouped together — are Tuohy’s cousins, Port Authority officer Paul William Jurgens, and Supreme Court officer Thomas Edward Jurgens, 26.

Set in the footprint of the former Twin Towers, and dedicated on September 11, 2011, they symbolize a void and also healing, he said.

The new One World Trade Center, north of the memorial, stands 1,776 feet tall, its 200-foot dimension is the same square footprint as the Twin Towers. Its observation deck is 1,362 feet, the height of Tower Two; the glass parapet, reflecting light in it like a kaleidoscope, is 1,368 feet, the height of Tower One.

“We’re building what the hate tore down,” Tuohy said, his voice quiet.

Copyright © Janie Rosman and Kaleidoscope Eyes 2026

My Ghosts from Teenage Halloweens Past

They’re he-e-e-e-ere: plastic pumpkins with an upright hand in the center of each, gauze draped over signs, witches and spiders and orange and black everywhere. One store had small bags with designs for trick-or-treating.

Holiday creep season is here. A few supermarkets dedicated the center of an entire aisle to candy and decorations.

Thursday afternoon I was doing errands and stopped in the supermarket for a few things. One wall was lined with rows of candy, stickers and decorated trick-or-treating bags for the little ones.

When I was in junior high, friends and I would each take an old pillowcase and head out to collect the night’s candy. It was easier to carry than a bag with handles.

We lived in a complex of apartment buildings, and the lobby of every building had someone stationed there to let in trick-or-treaters. Then we’d go from floor to floor and do our thing.

People who weren’t home would usually leave a bowl of candy by the door. We loved those ‘take all you want’ signs.

Silly String ™ and Crazy Foam ™ or Reddi-Whip ™ were our props. These were necessary to fend off older kids who might surprise us. They sometimes did.

One of those surprises, a telltale piece of egg white, remained affixed to the side of our building for decades. The thrower of said egg remains unknown, yet I can see it if I look sideways from the terrace, a permanent reminder of Halloween past.

Then there was the other side of Halloween: a no-holds-barred candy event because the next day was a new month, the start of a new diet.

For a heavy teenager who wore pants from the local Army-Navy store because they fit, it was a chance to overindulge. I told myself I would never eat sweets again.

That didn’t work out so well.

November brought Thanksgiving and celebrations with family, and then came December and more holidays. So my best friend and I decided New Year’s Day was the day for resolutions. We were seniors in high school.

She succeeded yet despite my best intention, well, you can guess. It took an acceptance letter to college the following month to motivate me once and for all.

By graduation I was minus 30 pounds and feeling better about myself. My motivation to lose the remaining 30 pounds during freshman year while going to parties, including at Halloween, was the boy next door.

He was two years older, and I had a crush on him all through high school. While still shy, I was no longer the heavy teenager from the school bus stop. That’s for another post.

Losing weight was one of my most difficult teenage challenges.

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This past Thursday at the aforementioned store I looked for a chocolate bar. One of my favorites was on sale two for $3.

It was a regular size; the wrapper said 200 calories, though anything up 250 calories is fair game. I only wanted one and always check labels, a habit that will remain with me forever.

High school was a long time ago yet now and then I feel like the shy teenager, albeit thin, from the school bus stop.

I’d like to know what you think.

Copyright © Janie Rosman and Kaleidoscope Eyes 2026