I
hated my job; that was true. I’d been bored
with the assignment from the beginning and going
through the motions for years. But that didn’t
mean I wanted to leave.
Quick,
quick, think. How could I save my job? I
looked around for my tattered copy of The
Art of War. There had to be a strategy to
cover this. Maybe I could make a last stand. Like
Custer. Shit, it was too late. I knew it. I’d
witnessed this scenario often enough to understand
that my career at Myoki was over. I’d caused
it to happen to my own rivals plenty of times.
Once Human Resources prints the severance package
with your name on it, there’s no turning
back.
Could
this really be happening? Just last year,
Cadmon and I made almost two million dollars between
us. We had a magnificent apartment on Park Avenue,
nannies seven days a week, a rental in the estate
section of Southampton. Then, in March, Cadmon
was fired. I became the breadwinner. We were so
addicted to the good life that we hadn’t
lowered our standards, certain that Cadmon’s
new job would materialize any day. It hadn’t.
I
went to the computer and pulled up our budget
spreadsheet, looking for places to save. Let’s
see . . . mortgage ($120,000), two tuitions ($50,000),
charitable donations ($25,000), tutors ($15,000),
birthday parties ($22,000), summer camp ($14,000),
private lessons ($20,000), Hamptons rental ($60,000),
ski vacation ($15,000), cars and garage ($35,000),
clothes, dry cleaning, tailoring ($50,000), personal
trainers, yoga, nutritionist ($28,000), entertainment,
flowers and catering ($60,000), doggie day care,
massage therapy, grooming and poochie sushi for
Sir Elton ($24,000), my hair ($12,000), my nails
($5,200), my analyst ($24,000), my life-energy
coach ($18,000), car service ($4,000), nannies
and maid ($74,000), Botox, collagen, and laser
resurfacing ($18,000), tips and staff gifts ($4,000),
and a slew of other expenses like food, insurance,
electricity, telephone, cable, doctor bills—all
the boring but necessary stuff that adds up to
a big number. Stricken with an overwhelming sense
of loss, I knew we could no longer afford our
life. Making it worse, Cad and I had always failed
miserably at sacrifice. I couldn’t imagine
what to cut from our budget.
I
sat at my desk and stared, numb. Tears welled
in my eyes and began sploshing down my face while
a golf-ball-sized lump filled my throat. Stop
crying. Stop crying. Be a grown-up.
The
phone rang, breaking the spell. I took a deep
breath and answered.
It
was songwriter-secretary. “Konrad wants
to see you. Can you be here in five?”
“Sure,”
I answered. “Meds?”
“Two
hours ago,” he said.
I
stopped in the restroom on my way upstairs. Gaaah.
Tammy Faye Bakker Messner under-eyes. Can’t
let anyone see me like this. Breathing deeply
and splashing water on my face, I did what I could
to pull myself together.
On
60, Konrad kept me waiting for half an hour. I
pretended to be fascinated by an article on comparative
interest rates in Municipal Bond News. Another
EVP stuck his head in the door and Konrad waved
him in. Forty-five minutes later, Konrad buzzed
for me. I almost expected songwriter-secretary
to chant “Dead man walking” as I did
the slow march to his office.
“So,
I see you’re supporting the merger of your
department with Drayton’s,” Konrad
began. “My compliments to you for stepping
up to the plate, being a team player, making the
sacrifice.” Baseball references were common
among Myoki executives.
“Well,
not exactly, Konrad. Drayton asked me to wait
a week to work on the proposal and I . . .”
“Are
you saying you didn’t tell Drayton
you thought it was a good idea?” Konrad
asked.
“No,
I said I liked the idea, but I wanted to sit down
and discuss it with him, only he couldn’t
because he was going to an off-site . . .”
“What
are you talking about? I met with him last night.
Get your facts straight, Ames. Anyway, the point
is, I need to get some heads off my books to get
to the five-million-dollar save and this is a
smart way to do it, don’t you agree?”
“Well,
of course, it’s smart for you to cut somewhere,
but my staff are heavy hitters. Drayton wants
to draft rookies who barely speak English,”
I said, using analogies I thought might sway him.
“Ivy,
we’re lowering quality all over the bank
to save money. None of us is indispensable. Times
are tough. We need to invent new paradigms, smash
old boundaries, think outside the box, pick low-hanging
fruit, make elegant decisions, walk the talk,
fall on our swords, and so on and so forth.”
“Right,”
I mumbled. I’d forgotten what a deep thinker
Konrad could be.
“If
you need a reference,” Konrad continued,
“call me. And you know what I’d say?
I’d say you were a winner. Not many employees
would put the interests of the bank, the bank
we all love, above their own. You’re a rare
bird, Ivy Ames.”
“Well,
gee, thank you, Konrad.” I hesitated, then
said what was on my mind. What could he do, fire
me? “Can I ask you something?”
“Of
course,” he said, making his concerned-boss
face.
“My
guess is you’ve been planning to lay me
off for some time,” I ventured.
His
silence confirmed my suspicions.
“If
that was the case, how could you let me work day
and night on Bull Chip knowing you were gonna
ax me before Christmas?” I asked.
“Now
I won’t get a bonus. Two-thirds of my compensation
is bonus. My family depends on that money.”
“Ivy,
Ivy, Ivy,” he said, “if I’d
told you six months ago I was thinking about laying
you off, you never would have worked so hard on
Bull Chip, now would you have?” The “duh-uh”
at the end of the sentence was implied.
“And
your conscience didn’t bother you, doing
that to me?” I asked.
“Conscience?”
For a moment, Konrad seemed confused. “Ivy,
this is business. Besides, you may have done the
heavy lifting on the project, but it was my vision
that conceived the idea. That was the real accomplishment.
That’s what should and will be rewarded.
And while you won’t be getting a bonus for
your efforts, if anyone calls for a recommendation,
I’ll tell them what a fine job you did.
Your work saved the bank at least a hundred million
dollars. You should put that on your résumé,”
he suggested helpfully.
Hot tears began spilling down my cheeks again.
I couldn’t stop them. Rejection has always
made me sad, not angry.
Konrad
offered me the monogrammed handkerchief from his
jacket pocket. I blew my nose, making a loud honking
sound. I continued to blow and wipe, giving his
linen hankie a thorough soaking. “Thanks,”
I said, putting it back in his hand. It grossed
him out, but he kept his face straight, not daring
to reveal any sign of weakness.
Konrad
handed me a schedule for the rest of the day.
10:00
a.m.—meet with Sharon and Young Mi and announce
they’ve been downsized. Send them to Human
Resources.
11:00
a.m.—meet with Human Resources to go over
your package.
1:00 p.m.—meet with remainder of your team,
Drayton, Konrad,
to announce transition.
2:00 p.m.—car will take you home. Your things
will be shipped tomorrow.
I
looked up at Konrad, who avoided my eyes.
“This isn’t personal, you know,”
Konrad said. “When you play ball in the
majors, you have to make tough calls. Put yourself
in my place, Ivy. Think how hard this has been
for me. And look, I’m keeping it together.”
Konrad leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Frankly,
I don’t think it’s professional of
you to cry. Men hate that, you know. Now me, I
can handle tears. I’m evolved. But if you’re
ever in this position again, try to avoid the
waterworks.”
I
glared at him. It took every ounce of willpower
I possessed not to say what I was thinking at
that moment.
“Hey,
it’ll probably happen to me soon, too,”
he joked in a clumsy attempt toward camaraderie.
I
hope so, I thought but didn’t say.
“Well,
I’ll see you at one o’ clock.”
Konrad pulled at his collar like Rodney Dangerfield.
It was the first time I’d seen the guy sweat.
The
next few hours were a blur. As their boss, I was
expected to fire my two directors, Sharon and
Young Mi. I was white. Sharon was African American.
Young Mi was Chinese American. If you ignored
the fact that we were all girls, this had been
an equal-opportunity firing. Making me sack them
was cruel and unusual punishment. I wept. They
cried. We hugged.
Human
Resources was equally delightful. My payout would
only be fourteen weeks—“New rules,”
the drone explained. “We reengineered the
severance policy. You have to be a senior vice
president to get a month for every year. You’re
only entitled to a week for each twelve months
served. Didn’t you get the memo? Also, you
need to sign this agreement not to sue us for
wrongful termination before you can receive your
lump-sum settlement.”
For
about five seconds I contemplated suing them.
Surely they’d pay more than fourteen weeks’
salary just to make me go away. But litigation
drags on forever. And lawyers cost a fortune.
Shit. I had so many bills to pay. I signed the
damn thing and pocketed the check.
Smarmy
Drayton was at the one o’clock hand-over
meeting. To suppress my tears, I concentrated
on counting his oily pores from across the table.
His lips kept curling into a smirk that he’d
attempt to hide with his hand and a cough.
Konrad
told my people that there would be a reorganization
and they would report to Drayton now. He explained
his vision for my department, providing them with
more direction than he’d given me for the
last four years. Drayton nodded knowingly as Konrad
spoke, as though he were listening to the Dalai
Lama or Tony Robbins.
Drayton
thanked Konrad in his kiss-ass way, stopping just
short of giving him a blowjob for his courage
to make the hard decision to let me go. Then,
he welcomed my people to his team and yammered
on and on about what good personal friends we
were, how I was the consummate professional for
whom he had the utmost respect, and what a loss
my leaving would be for the company, blah, blah,
blah. He led the group in a polite round of applause
honoring my contribution to the bank. Finally,
he mentioned what great things I’d told
him about each of them and how he looked forward
to working with such talented players. The guy
could not have unloaded more crap if he’d
taken a dump in the middle of the conference-room
table.
When
Konrad asked if I wanted to say anything to my
team, I could only eke out a few words, “I’ve
enjoyed working with you.” At that point,
the swelling in my throat made talking impossible,
so I smiled like I thought the restructuring was
just a super idea.
Konrad remembered that he’d forgotten to
confiscate my office key, security badge, BlackBerry,
and corporate Visa card. He asked for them. With
my former direct reports on hand to witness the
final humiliation, I handed each item over. This
was beginning to feel more and more like a court-martial.
Konrad
dismissed the group and called Drayton in for
a private chat. I hugged each person tightly.
Saying goodbye to Bonnie, my faithful assistant,
was particularly wrenching. She’d made sure
the office ran smoothly when my mother was dying
last year. Because of her, I was at Mom’s
side for her last days. I wasn’t surprised
that the company held on to Bonnie. Loyal assistants
working at Myoki were as common as Paris Hilton
shopping at Fashion Barn, and management knew
it. I hugged her and we promised to stay in touch.
The security guard, who was waiting to escort
me out, kept looking at his watch.
Walking
to the elevator, I ran into Drayton.
“No
hard feelings, I hope,” he said with an
exaggeratedly sympathetic smile, extending his
hand. “Sassy and I so enjoyed our evening
out with you, and we want to do it again.”
Oh, yes, Drayton, I’ll be calling you for
a dinner date real soon.
“Hey,
not at all,” I said, smiling, shaking his
moist but well-manicured hand. Eeeuw! He was wearing
clear nail polish. “I’m looking forward
to some time at home with my kids. You did me
a favor, Drayton.” I pressed the elevator
button.
“Ah
yes . . . splendid . . . splendid. I must say,
Ivy, well done. I raaather admire the way you’ve
handled this. But do call me if you need anything,
anything at all,” he said with fake concern.
What
I ached to do at that moment was hurt the man.
Knee him in the balls. Punch him in the face.
Stick my le grand de Montblanc fountain pen up
his nose, piercing his brainstem, rendering him
paralyzed, condemning him to life as a vegetable.
But the security guard was watching, and resorting
to violence would defy the cardinal rule of getting
fired—don’t burn your bridges. So
I didn’t.
---
A black Lincoln Town Car that smelled of stale
cigarettes and sweat was waiting downstairs. Regrettably,
it was the last time Myoki would send me home
in classic Manhattan midlevel executive style.
We drove up Church and cut over to Greene in SoHo.
The streets were filled with chunky-haired people
dressed in black who obviously spent their workdays
outside the corporate world. What do they do to
support themselves? I wondered. The last fourteen
years of my life had been spent in the hermetically
sealed offices of Myoki Bank. For the first time,
it dawned on me that there was this whole other
world where people could be outside at 2:00 p.m.
on a weekday. Maybe I could become one of these
people, I thought. They seem so free.
“Near
corner or far,” the driver asked when we
approached my building. “Near,” I
replied. He asked for my voucher. I wrote in a
$500 tip and told him to have a nice day.
Walking
through my lobby, I felt the nervous stares of
the doorman and concierge. It must be written
all over my face that I was fired.
Stepping
into the elevator was a relief. Then, remembering
that doormen were watching through hidden cameras,
I held my head high. I longed for the sympathetic
hug I knew Cadmon would offer when I told him
the news.
“Cadmon,”
I called as I walked in. “Cad . . . ?”
I looked around but couldn’t find him. He
wasn’t at his computer. Must be at the gym.
Sir Elton, our pug, came running to greet me.
He chased his tail enthusiastically when he saw
me. I walked right past him. From the kitchen,
I could hear Rosie, our nanny, and Elva, our maid,
jabbering away to each other in Spanish. I couldn’t
face them. What would they think? Me, home in
the middle of the day. Fired. By tomorrow, every
maid and nanny on Park Avenue would know. The
next day, their bosses would hear. Ugh, the shame!
Stripping
off my jacket, I suddenly felt exhausted. Should
I crawl into bed or work out? Bed. Definitely
bed. Too bad it hadn’t been made yet. Pee.
I needed to pee. Then sleeping or crying, whichever
came first.
The
bathroom smelled like orange blossoms when I walked
in. Like a delicious bubble bath was already drawn
and waiting for me. Then I noticed Cadmon in his
robe sitting on the toilet rubbing soap on a naked
woman in my bathtub. The naked woman was Sassy,
Drayton’s wife. Sweet mother of God, those
tits!
I
hated her. Incredibly, my first thought was, how
does she do it—plastic surgery or workouts?
My second thought was to pummel that perfect face
with a can of deodorant.
Like
deer caught in the headlights, Sassy and Cadmon
looked at me.
I stopped in my tracks, stunned.
“You’re
fucking Sassy?” I asked Cad quietly, already
knowing the answer.
“Let
me explain,” Cadmon said, resorting to the
reasonable tone he used when he felt he needed
to quote-unquote handle me. “Nothing happened.
I know this looks bad, but . . .”
“Stop,”
I blurted. “You can’t possibly think
I’m that stupid. Out. I want you both out
of here.” By then, Sassy was hugging herself
to cover her nakedness and trying to disappear
beneath the bubbles.
Instead
of tears, I was angry. That felt right. The two
lying shits deserved my rage.
I
looked at Sassy. “Out,” I demanded,
pointing toward the door. “Get out now.”
“Okay,
could you hand me the towel . . . please,”
came her mortified reply.
“Oh,
you want to dry off? You want to dry off?”
I grabbed the blow-dryer that we always left plugged
in by the sink, turned it on high, and screamed,
“If you don’t get your tight little
ass out of my house this instant, you can dry
off with this.” I held it over the water.
“One . . . two . . .” Sassy bounded
out of the tub and sprinted through the apartment
like Jackie Joyner-Kersey, hurdling furniture
and racing out the door tracking bubbles and water
in her wake. Rosie and Elva must have been spying.
I distinctly heard gasps and the words “Ay,
chihuahua!” followed by urgent Spanish whispering
outside the bedroom door.
What
was I thinking? The cheating scumbags weren’t
worth going to jail for. Is adultery a defense
for manslaughter anymore? I wondered. Nah,
not in New York. Maybe in Arkansas.
At
least the doormen would get a thrill as Sassy
rode downstairs. There’s one security tape
that wouldn’t get erased.
For
the first time in my life, I had an out-of-body
experience. Floating to the ceiling, I surveyed
the scene below. This cannot be happening. I’ve
been fired. My husband is screwing another woman—the
wife of the asshole responsible for getting me
canned, no less. My entire life is falling apart
on the same day. What are the odds? What do I
do? Do I let Cadmon explain and forgive him? Do
I kick him out? If I kick him out, I won’t
have a husband. I’ll be an unemployed single
mother, and that would suck. I’ve gotten
fat. How can I date anyone looking like this?
Dammit, I’ll have to start grooming my crotch
again. Why didn’t I get a tummy tuck when
we could afford it? Why? Why? How’ll Sassy
get home naked? Would a cabdriver pick up a nude
woman? Probably. But how would she pay the fare?
All these thoughts flashed through my mind in
one second, the way people’s lives do when
they’re about to die.
I
came back to earth. “Cad, I’m going
to pick up the kids. Pack some things and leave.
I don’t want you here when I get back.”
He
looked pitiful standing by the toilet in his Ritz
Carlton terrycloth robe with the torn pocket.
There would be no hug to comfort me for getting
fired tonight. I turned and left, hiding the tears
that were streaming down my face. Cadmon had ripped
my heart out, but I’d sooner dance the samba
bare-ass naked down Madison Avenue than let him
know it.