Lostop #4: Verz

I would like to point out that this is the last Lostop that I will write about on this blog. (What's a Lostop? Click here!)

I first became aware of Verz when I went over to the Balboa building for NDC to interview for the LDA position. I went up to Camd's Supervisor station and I saw a woman with black hair talking to him. From the back, I thought it was Mitz and that she was also interviewing for the position. When Camd turned his attention away from the woman to look at me, she turned around and I could see it wasn't Mitz. She went and sat in her cubicle next to the Supervisor station. That was close. I considered Mitz strong competition. I didn't know anything about this woman, but it was apparent she wasn't applying for the same job I was.

The day I started working as an LDA, I was formally introduced to Verz. She was 20 years old and had large brown eyes. She was very beautiful and WAY out of my league. I didn't really talk that much with her. After a few days, I got to know a little bit more about her. One of the things that surprised me about working at the Supervisor station was how many of the employees would come up and chat with Camd and myself when they were supposed to be on the phones answering calls. When I was a dispatch agent, I never dreamed of wasting time like that. I was too busy concentrating on making my monthly bonuses. Hanging out at the Supervisor station would have literally cost me hundreds of dollars.

Camd especially seemed to enjoy when the younger female employees would do this. He never did or said anything inappropriate, but it was apparent that he was encouraging this behavior. Sure, I have to admit that I developed my crushes along the way, but his activities was even being noticed by some other members of the staff. I'd overheard the QA people making comments about how they could tell he wanted to start things up with certain agents, including Verz.

After a few months, Verz started talking to me more and more. One of the things I knew about her was that she had a boyfriend, but she couldn't tell her parents about him. The problem was that she was Indonesian and he was Japanese. Her grandfather had been tortured by the Japanese in WWII, so she was forbidden to have anything to do with anyone of Japanese ancestry. In addition, her previous boyfriend had also been Japanese, and she hadn't told her parents about him, either. I kind of wondered what excuse she gave her parents when she was going out on dates with them, but I never asked. He turned out to be a pretty big jerk (in the abusive sense), but she still stuck to him.

Verz then started creating "artwork" for me during her downtime. She made these little paper dolls that resembled her and the woman who had the cubicle next to her. When the other woman was promoted to QA, another woman took her location and Verz made a doll of her to give to me. I got the idea that Camd got a little jealous that I had received these gifts from her. But it made me wonder that if she didn't have that Japanese boyfriend, maybe she might have some kind of interest in me.

The day I got laid off, I got a little brave and asked for her e-mail address. She gladly gave it to me.

A couple of days later, I e-mailed her and was surprised to get a response the next day. She told me that morale was down at the call center and everyone was somewhat angry that the company president didn't express any kind of sympathy for those who had lost their jobs. She didn't think she was going to be there much longer and was going to start looking for another job.

So this was the beginning of a regular correspondence between the two of us. When I started writing this post, I thought that we had e-mailed each other back and forth just a few times. However, I discovered I had saved all her e-mails and we actually wrote each other once or twice a week for the next year. I do remember that I was trying to set up a situation in which we would be "dating." I never called it that, but I was definitely making the attempts when it looked like she was going to be leaving her boyfriend.

Here's what happened: I actually got to see Verz a few times after getting laid off because she and her mother would frequently come to where I worked. Her mother seemed to like me and smiled when she saw me. I tried to get Verz to go out with me "as friends." I was hoping we could do this on some kind of regular basis. I thought maybe she might enjoy the times she was with me and wouldn't enjoy the times that I wasn't around. And perhaps, we could go beyond being friends.

But anytime we made plans, something happened and we weren't able to go out, even if her mother might have approved of me. Later, I found out it was a pipe dream, because she later became involved with an Indonesian man, who actually treated her well. This was another boyfriend she didn't tell her parents about. She said that her parents didn't want her to date an Indonesian man. They wanted her to marry a rich white man. Well, that meant I had no chance, at least as far as her parents were concerned. However, she was going to have to tell them about the new boyfriend because she was pregnant and wasn't going to be able to hide it much longer.

I stopped writing her so much after that. (But mainly because I became involved with someone else.) I did keep in touch a couple more times. She had a little girl, but hadn't married the father. She did later get married to him and they had another girl. She didn't say anything about the drama involving her parents, but they appeared to accept what was going on.

We're currently connected on LinkedIn, but we haven't communicated with each other. She works in the healthcare industry. To this day, I wonder if she's aware that I had romantic designs on her or if she thought I was just trying to be her friend. Either way, it doesn't matter. She's still out of my league.