The Gates of Hell Opened and Mary Ann Stepped Through the Portal

The Gates of Hell Opened and Mary Ann Stepped Through the Portal

A True Story of life in the Alaskan Bureaucracy

After a two-year stint as Associate Director of the Alaska’s child abuse agency, I was more than ready to step down to a less stressful job as a Clinician at the Division of Behavioral Health. My position reviewed the professional services of Southeast Alaska’s Behavioral Health grantees to ensure they were meeting grant requirements, state regulations and professional standards.

That might seem like a challenging job, and it certainly was for my counterparts who managed grants for other regions of the state, but the grant funded agencies in Southeast Alaska were well run by seasoned directors who were all, yes, all - every single one, - ethical, affable, overachievers. This turned out to be the single greatest stressor in my new job. - Because these grantees were so knowledgeable, agreeable and professional, my job was too easy and occasionally all was humming along so perfectly in Southeast Alaska that I had blocks of idle time. As the job progressed, I took on more and more projects and soon would again be working 45-50 hours per week, so my period of having slack times was short lived.

The office next to mine was occupied by Marry Ann, who was in charge of managing grants for the state’s substance abuse grantees. Mary Ann had worked for the state for decades so she took on the self-appointed role of historian and keeper of traditional values. She and had no qualms about telling anyone, “That’s not the way we do things around here.”

Mary Ann looked exactly like how Janis Joplin would have looked had she survived to her early 60s. Her frizzy hair stood out and her wardrobe consisted of clothing that was a throwback to the ‘70s. Like Janis, she vibrated with intensity and her voice had the same creaky quality aged to perfection.

Coming from the old school of substance abuse treatment specialist, Mary Ann had no tolerance for political correctness, excuses, self-aggrandizing narratives or just plain lies. In staff meetings she called out coworkers and supervisors if they delivered long winded, spin doctored and self-aggrandizing monologues by openly calling their utterances, “Crap” This frankness combined, with her role of upholder of the division’s rituals and values, made her a feared and grudgingly respected member of the management team.

One Friday, afternoon a few weeks into my new position, I was totally bored. I had read all of the quarterly reports submitted by my perfect agencies, written all of my agency reviews, read professional literature, thoroughly cleaned my office and prepared as best I could for my next upcoming agency site review. I had worked in bureaucracies long enough to realize the cardinal rule is, “Thou shall not stir things up when you’re bored.” So, what to do from 3:00 to 4:30?

I realized that my cell phone plan at the time included unlimited data. Driven by boredom, I plugged in my head phones, opened the Netflix app on my phone and began searching for a movie to watch. I found a sequel to the movie ‘Poltergeist ‘. Based on the previews the movie looked awful but I was in the mood to watch a poorly made movie with bad acting, over the top directing and cheesy special effects - I find these types of movies funny and viewing the bad helps me to appreciate the good.

As predicted by the film’s trailer, the film started out rather slow with the overused theme of ‘found footage’ from cameras the family had put up around the house in order to find out why furniture was moving around at night. But forty minutes into the film all hell broke loose:

Demons were howling,

Overly dramatic actors were screaming,

There was the loud, whooshing sound of wind as people were flung across their living room,

Klaxons were blaring,

Sirens were wailing.

And just when demons emerged from the open gates of hell and the mayhem reached a crescendo, I heard a legion of devils call out my name.

“Richard,……“Richard”, the creaky, eerie voice intoned. “Richard, get out - get out the building is on fire!”

This hellish sound was behind me! After shaking my initial impression of being surrounded by evil fiends, I swiveled my chair and saw May Ann standing in the doorway to my office.

“Get out the building is on fire!” Coming back to reality, I saw co-workers running down the hall so I grabbed my iPhone and coat and joined the fleeing evacuees.

After a half hour or so of standing around outside we were allowed back into our offices. Someone had let a bag of popcorn cook too long in the microwave and the bag had caught fire filling the building with smoke and setting off the fire alarm. Damages were limited to the popcorn.

Back in my office, Mary Ann came in and simply made a private comment to me that, perhaps, I shouldn’t turn up the volume of my headphones up so high that I could not respond to the world around me.

As I picked up more projects and assignments, my ‘easy’ job became more complex and I never had gaps of time to fill at work. Throughout my 5 years stay at the Division of Behavioral Health Mary Ann and I often laughed about how I would have potentially remained in the burning building, if not for Mary Ann having saved me. My misstep facilitated our bonding as co-workers. I think she realized I wasn’t the uptight and officious bureaucrat that I seemed to be and I felt gratitude that she did not rat me out by telling everyone the story of my cinematic journey to hell.