The CPA - Part IV - Leaving

“In Stockholm syndrome, there is a sudden, terrifying capture. The hostage is stunned, shocked and often certain that he or she will die. The hostage then becomes like an infant. He or she can't talk, eat, move or use a toilet without permission. But then, in every one of these cases, little by little, small acts of kindness by one of the captors evoke feelings deeper than relief. "We knew they were killers, but they gave us blankets, cigarettes," one Dutch ex-hostage told me, going on to explain the warmth and compassion he felt toward the men who chose not to kill him. It would be akin to what an infant feels when he gets attention, relieving his thirst, hunger, wetness or fear of neglect - a primitive gratitude for the gift of life, an emotion that eventually develops and differentiates into varieties of affection and love.”

---Frank Ochberg, MD, writing for the Los Angeles Times

“Relationships can develop in hostage situations whereby victims fall for their captors due to a condition called the Stockholm Syndrome with some continuing their relationship even though the victims' lives are no longer at risk.”

---By Gael Branchereau

By the time 2004 had finally arrived the CPA had been diagnosed with sleep apnea, a condition that causes a person to stop breathing while sleeping. This leads most often to the person waking up, although it has occasionally been fatal. When a person wakes up many times throughout the night they don’t get the deep sleep that is necessary to truly refresh oneself.
The CPA was given a mask that helped him to breathe when he slept. This allowed him to get a full night’s sleep and it had the added affect of making him not as irritable as he usually was. Although he still had a bad temper it did not flare up as often. Of course after a while of having someone screaming at you, there is a tendency to get used to it and not notice it so much.
One example of this was when we were working on correcting the books of a small business that had been the victim of embezzlement. What irritated me most about this wasn’t merely the fact that the bookkeeper had been stealing money from the company and covering it up, but the fact that she had been doing such a poor job at doing her actual job that she got paid to do. I consider that tantamount to stealing, and since she was already stealing money, why not at least do your doggone job right?
Anyway, the CPA said that we should do something a certain way and I said that it was not the right way.

I had certainly learned to be confident. Everyone will be wrong from time to time, the important thing is to at least have a good reason why you are wrong, look confident while you screw up!

Anyway, I knew that if we did this certain entry the way that the CPA wanted to, it would cause problems later for us, so I was determined to stand firm.

As he got angrier at me for disagreeing with me, I told him what was going to occur:

“You will get mad, yell at me for an hour about this, then realize that I was right all along, so we might as well do this the right way and not waste that time.”

This didn’t make him happy of course, so he then proceeded to yell at me for an hour, while I stood my ground, explaining why I was right on this subject. Finally he saw that I was right, I am not kidding either that it was an hour. Of course I had to remind him of the fact that things had gone exactly how I had predicted, he mumbled something about just making me happy and blah blah blah. But we both knew that I was right.

Anyway, after we discovered that I would make more money working less hours for him and getting more from unemployment, he offered to cut my hours, which meant that he would have to do more legwork and data entry stuff.

Of course this meant that I was working 8 hours a week, and unemployment payments were not really all that much. I had to find a new job. I went to interviews and was rejected time after time after time. Fun times those were.

A nice guy felt pity for me and offered me an interview at a non-profit organization in Illinois. I know you all have heard this story before, but what you may not have known is that I told the CPA that I was going to go to Illinois for a job interview. I kept no secrets from him because by this point I knew that he actually wanted me to succeed. I wasn’t just an employee who only existed during the hours that I was there, but I was a person with bills to pay and a family to care for.

When I accepted the position in Illinois I found that I was actually going to miss the grouchy, mean, old man who had taught me more about accounting than I had thought possible. I actually miss him at times. Mostly when I screw up and I realize that I haven’t been “paying attention!!!!!” like I should.

The whole hostage – kidnapper relationship wasn’t really what we had…. at least I don’t think that was our relationship.