Working for the Dade County Clerk's Office has its advantages, as long as you know how to keep your mouth shut and kneel when ordered. Otherwise, expect to be crushed

Former co-worker Jacques Michel adds, "Tence was really the first person to stand up to them. And then they got rid of her and now no one is willing to stand up to management any more. Everybody is afraid that if management gets mad at them, the same thing could happen to them."

Sitting in her dining room last month, Wolfe stared down at the table and shook her head. She has tried and tried to put in some meaningful perspective the events of the past year, but to little avail. "I was completely in over my head," she sighed. "I must have looked so foolish. I'm a nobody and I tried to do something. I must have been crazy."

Standing off to the side, her husband Jerry told her to stop beating herself up over the hearing. "It was a very proud moment," he said. "You were very courageous. At least you tried to do something. And they can't ever take that away from you.